10 Tips For Christians Who Will Be College Freshmen
So you’re headed off to college! If you’re honest with yourself, you probably have mixed emotions about it. College is an exciting new chapter with new friendships being formed and new opportunities...
View Article3 Tips for Discipling College Students
College students are in a unique phase in life lends itself to significant spiritual formation. How can campus ministers, pastors, or mentors encourage them in this journey? Watch this Seven Minute...
View ArticleTransitions in Youth Ministry: Changing Winds and Drops in Temperature
You know that feeling, when the wind changes and the temperature drops in those early evenings just on the verge of fall weather? The air cools, the breeze blows, the sun lowers to the place where its...
View ArticleLoving Radically: A Free Lesson on Making Room for God
Clean and unclean food are center stage in this lesson that helps students explore loving radically those around them! Activity Today we are reading a very strange story from the Bible. God gave...
View ArticleWhen God Tells You to Break the Rules: A Free Discussion Lesson on Acts
God tells Peter to break rules. That’s right break. the. rules. God also tells him that he isn’t breaking rules. This lesson explores learning about loving beyond what is easy for us. Today we are...
View ArticleDiscipleship Challenges and Opportunities with Emerging (Young) Adults
Many of us of a certain age who came under the influence of groups like The Navigators and Campus Crusade for Christ, had to memorize 2 Timothy 2:2. I still say it most easily from the New American...
View ArticleBelonging vs. Believing: Postmodernism and Its Implications for Discipleship
Postmodernism has many implications for how churches understand and approach discipleship. Using youth culture as a model, Dr. Jim Hampton explores how those who have a suspicion of authority and...
View Article3 Foundational Tips for Senior and Youth Pastors from a Youth Worker
One of the challenges I find in writing an article about any given topic is figuring out how to avoid a tone of “yeah, I got this,” and yet also not hem and haw about it and waste your time (and mine)!...
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Advice to Christian College Students During the Summer Months
We asked several college ministers to answer three questions about their hopes and dreams for the students to whom they ministered this past year. Here’s what they said: What have you experienced...
View ArticleThe Surprising Thing About Kids Ministry: Handling Multiple Generations
They say a new generation is born every 15 years. That means that not only do kids ministries deal with a vast span of diverse ages (usually birth through age 10 or 12), but a diversity of generations....
View ArticlePeter & Jesus: Thoughts from a Soon-To-Be Graduate
I’m beginning the final lap of seminary, and there’s a common question that typically arises that goes something like this: What’s your plan post-graduation? Ah, yes. To be honest, the question...
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Students Are Connected and More Alone Than Ever
Even when we’re alone, we’re not really alone. Our technologies now allow us to be a part of the crowd—even when we’re sitting in the solitude of our quiet dorm room or apartment. Cell phones and smart...
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Encountering the One True God in Solitude
There is nothing more powerful than an encounter with the One True God. The practice of the discipline of solitude is what creates the atmosphere for this kind of encounter. Remember, he wants us to...
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Top 20 Youth Group Games
I learned something recently: in youth ministry, youth group games are important. I mean really important. My church had vacation bible school two weeks ago and I was teaching the middle school class....
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God’s Solution for Our World Full of Noise, Hurry, Crowds, and Confusion
If we want to experience God in new and profound ways, if we want him to do a work within us that is supernatural and beyond what we can personally manufacture, if we want God to use us in ways that...
View ArticleHelping College Students Make Faith Central
Can you remember the first time you encountered one of those Christians who truly lived as if they believed Jesus was real, and meant what He said as revealed in the Bible? And it wasn’t a way of...
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Free Children’s Lesson for the First Sunday of Lent
Here is a free lesson to use for children’s ministry for the first Sunday of Lent. Lent is the 40-day period leading up to Easter. It begins with Ash Wednesday, and leads up to Holy Week. On Ash...
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Free Youth Lesson for the Week of Ash Wednesday
Here is a free lesson to use for youth ministry for the first Sunday of Lent. Technically speaking, Lent is the 40-day period leading up to Easter. It begins with Ash Wednesday, and leads up to Holy...
View ArticleWhat High-Commitment Youth Ministry Looks Like
Many engage in youth ministry as if young people are satisfied with distractions and can only swallow shallow faith. The church often responds as if there were no way around this assumption. In...
View ArticleCOVID-19 Chaos: Your Chance for Change
I’m a sucker for training montages in movies. The clip from Rocky hits me in the heart every time. How are you not inspired by watching it? He runs the streets of Philly, spars with slabs of meat, does...
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