Nov 26, 2018
Whether it’s a student opening up about a toxic home life, an addiction, mental health, grief and loss, or some other significant issue, the question of dealing with students who are hurting is a question of when not if. And when a student shares about their hurt it can be difficult to know what our response is...
Nov 19, 2018
We know that students spend way more time at home than they do with us, but we wonder if that means we should be doing anything to reach out to their families. Should we spark a conversation with their parents? If we made time for that, what would we even say? The conversations at pick up or drop off can often be...
Nov 12, 2018
It’s too easy to become an afterthought. Prayer gets pushed to the end of the night, quickly asking if anyone has prayer requests, frantically figuring out how to speed up one student’s long description of his cat’s intestinal issues or another’s great aunt’s gout. Is this what prayer is? Should we be modeling...
Nov 5, 2018
One of the challenges in youth ministry is the constant churn of new students. If you are creating a welcoming environment, students will want to bring their friends, which means you are constantly trying to build relationships with new students. But how do you build rapport and connection with someone who might be...