Month: January 2013

I previously set out to describe the experience of a recent visit to a nearby church that had me immediately reflecting on the link between the ultra contemporary church and youth ministry of recent decades.  I tried to simply describe my impressions as they related to how I believe youth ministry has impacted the church. …

It’s been documented already that what we have done in youth ministry has impacted the church.  Pete Ward in his book “Growing Up Evangelical” is all about that reality and he asserts that what we do in church today is what we did in youth groups previously.  So, we set out to visit a church…

The following thoughts are more or less observations from my years and engagement with people who are teaching, training, etc in youth ministry. I was reflecting on this during the conference because so much has changed over the years. When I started out in youth ministry full time, Youth Specialties offered two types of training…

Dr. Gretchen Tanis presented a paper titled “The History and Influence of the Young Life Organization on Youth Ministry in the United States”. Gretchen, like me, is something of a product of Young Life. In fact she served as a volunteer in the same town as I did in college (at a different time). She…

I have been at a conference of The IASYM which is an International organization advancing the study of youth ministry. It’s participants fall into three categories. Some are professors of youth ministry (or related fields) at a college or seminary. Others are doing research in youth ministry related areas and most of those are PhD…

I previously suggested that a leaders approach (and effectiveness) are influenced by those who lead us. Simply put, if we are being led well, we are more able to lead to our full potential and if we are not led well our effectiveness is hindered. There is another side to the matter though, another angle…