The Amazing Christmas Race

It is that time of year again and my wheels have been spinning with some new Christmas ideas and I thought I would share what I'm doing this Christmas to see if it can help any of you all out there.   First off, let me share an amazing resource with you.  Many of you may know this, but Minute to Win It hosted by Guy Fieri is a sess-pool of amazing youth group game ideas and there Christmas ideas are just as potent as their other games. ...

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Stereotypes and Why They Stink

   In my inner-city Youth Group, we've been discussing stereotypes, bigotry and racism.  We've been going through a series called Ethnic Mosaic where we've been trying to break down some of these walls.  Below is some insight I found in my reading on the subject of stereotypes;  Enjoy. One of the causes of stereotypes is called automatic processing. “Even further below awareness is something that psychologists call automatic...

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Uncommon Games and Icebreakers- Review

  As a Youth Pastor, one of the most annoying things for me to do is make up games week after week.  I love to be creative, I love to push the boundaries, but some weeks I lack motivation and quite frankly come to hate making up games.   I used to be a "Lone Ranger" and try to develop all my curriculum and make up all my games...I've come to grips that although that is fun and can really challenge me, I don't always have the...

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Fist Fights and Ripped Jackets

  On Tuesday night at Youth Group, we had an issue with some of our teens.   Youth Group was over and outside a couple of teens were messing around slap boxing, when it got serious.  One of the kids hauled off and punched the other kid, which spurred some angry words and more serious fighting.  Three others jumped in on the one (much smaller kid) and began to punch him and drag him across the pavement by his jacket.  This...

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The Christian Life- Uncommon Jr. High

 Recently, I was asked to review some curriculum from Gospel Light and the first one up for review is The Christian Life.  This book is put together in a 12 week series, with 6 of the sessions being on the basics of Christianity: God the Father; God the Son; God the Holy Spirit; Our sinful nature; Our need due to this nature; and Our response to God.     The second half is 6 weeks on the fruits of the Spirit: Self-control;...

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That Ain't Your Daddy!

I work in an inner-city church with inner-city youth.  Over my time here, I've seen some intriguing things happen in the lives of the teens, and not all of them are good.   One such time, there was a young man I'll call 'D' and D for the whole year was getting kicked out youth group left and right.  The teens were sick of him, my leaders were sick of him and I was starting to lose my cool with this young man.  He literally...

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Christianity Cults & Religions

  I was recently asked to review a curriculum on cults and other religions produced by Rose Publishing, so I accepted the opportunity to see what was out there.    Let me start by saying that this is not a YOUTH curriculum but I thought is prudent to share here so that my youth pastor friends can see the wealth of stuff that is out there.   This curriculum has some good stuff and some bad stuff.  Let me start with the...

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Slippery Slopes

  In life, we all run unto slopes that are slippery; those slopes that trip us up and cause us to stumble and sometimes fall.   The life of a Middle Schooler is no different, they too get caught on these slippery slopes of life and for them all too easily they fall and don’t even realize they slipped.    This series looks at 6 common slopes that slip Middle Schoolers up: Trying to be something they are NOT, Giving into...

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Missions In Your Back Yard

 When I talk to my teens about service projects or missions projects they automatically think of somewhere else besides their own neighborhood.  When I mention sharing your faith or going out to proclaim the gospel, generally most picture themselves in a different city or country.    I fear in many ways we have taken missions away from home and made it a thing we emphasize people do 'out there' rather than 'right here'.  ...

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Student Leadership- It's Important!

Youth Ministry has been going through a big identity crisis recently.   I'll say it has less to do with "Youth Ministry" and more to do with "Youth Pastors".  We've all been watching the generations change and seeing that they need different stuff in order to connect with or even hear about the Gospel of Jesus.  In the past 10 years, there have been different approaches and several different ideas as to how to fix the growing angst...

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Implimenting Small Groups

  I may be a young guy but I’m not so young to think I’ve invented the small group idea. Nor do I think that what I’m going to say will shock you so much that you break down like a charismatic and start convulsing on the floor. I do think however it’s worthwhile to share what God has done recently in my world so that my story in turn may be a helpful one for you in your context. In August I moved from a small church to a big church. My old...

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Getting Healthy Feedback

One of the words that gives me the heebie jeebies is the word “feedback”. Most of the time when we here that word it’s probably because someone wants to give us bad feedback. We all have those moments of feedback. They look something like this: you just experienced a great event that went off without a hitch save a small hiccup in the middle of it; a girl in your group got a little hurt. Bad stuff happens, right? Well, as is usually the case, the...

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Dealing with Conflict in Youth Ministry

Sometimes in ministry we have things that pop up and those things cause conflicts.  I for one HATE conflicts and sadly I try to avoid them as best I can...yet they still happen.   How do we handle this tension, especially with parents?  How do we bring up things in the lives of their kids that we know they are completely ignorant of?   This was a question I had early on in ministry, back when Myspace was new and Facebook was...

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Youth Leader 101

Some people have this weird idea that in order to be a youth leader you have to be this hip, cool, young, tattooed, earringed dude.  Some people believe that in order to be a youth leader you need to always be "up on what's happening" or you have to be at least young enough not to have kids their age...because who wants a youth leader that can be my mom, right?   These are all stupid misconceptions,and many people have a misconception...

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Discipline and Teens

Being in youth ministry means that eventually we will run into disicpline issues.  No matter what your particular context is...you've had to (or will have to if you're a 2 week noobie) deal with discipline.   If I were honest, this is one of my top ten most hated things in youth ministry.  I wish it didn't even need to exist, but sadly it does and most of us hate it.   During the talk time is when most of the issues arise. ...

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You've Got Questions week 6

This was done a couple of weeks ago, but it was our Final week on "You've Got Questions" where we had the Middle School students ask any question they wanted!    This ended up being more of an "Apologetics" series but it was fantastic none-the-less.  The teens really enggaged the talk time and were listening intently for 40 minutes.  I would NEVER go that long normally (usually I speak for 15 min. tops) but in order to answer...

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You've Got Questions week 5

  This series has caused some of the most controversy of all series I have ever done.  I've had parents calling me asking me questions on why I've answered some of these questions the way I did.  I even recieved a phone call today saying that some kids who were debating a Jewish girl in their class were taken to the office for being "intolerant" because they were telling the girl that "Jesus is the only way to get saved...you got...

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Moving Up

It's that time of the year again for Student Minstries...that time is: Transition time!    5th Graders are moving into the Middle School Ministry, the 8th Graders are moving into the High School Ministry and the 12th Graders are moving away for college or staying local moving into the Young Adult Ministry.   Things are changing, students are growing older and these transitions can be hard at times.   My personal context is...

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Get Outta My Face!

I recently came across this great resource and felt compelled to share it with all Youth Workers, Parents and basically anyone that will listen to me!   I was asked to check this book out by the head of the Student Ministries department and so I dutifully did so.  To be honest, I wasn't expecting much when I began reading this book.  I thought I'd get a few good points, close the book and move on. I was however, pleasantly surprised...

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You've Got Questions week 4

We're journeying through a series called: "You've Got Questions". We asked the teens to write out questions they have about...whatever. We then compiled the questions, sought to answer them and then we shared our answers/advice/shoulder shrugs with the teens!   This week was week 4 and happened...last week!  I've been a bit behind on putting this stuff up and have tons of blogs I want to write here on this page.  However, this was...

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You've Got Questions week 3

We're journeying through a series called: "You've Got Questions". We asked the teens to write out questions they have about...whatever. We then compiled the questions, sought to answer them and then we shared our answers/advice/shoulder shrugs with the teens! I love this stuff because it's practical and it meets the needs of the teens. I have found them more engaging than ever before and I think it's because its content they asked about...

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You've Got Questions week 2

 We're working through a new series called: "You've Got Questions".  We asked the teens to write out questions they have about their faith, life, love...whatever.  We then compiled the questions, sought to answer them and then we shared our findings with the teens!   I love this stuff because it's practical and it meets the needs of the teens.  I have found them engaging like never before and I think it's because its content...

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You've Got Questions week 1

  The New talk series we're running through is titled: "You've Got Questions" and I am super stoked for it!    What we did was we asked the Middle School teens to ask any question they wanted to about faith, love, God, Jesus...basically anything they had doubts about when it came to religion and church!  What we got was heaps and heaps of questions.   We worked through all the questions and are going to take 5 weeks to...

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