He Caught . . . and Got Caught!
It was the best of days. . . and it was the worst of days for 13-year-old Steve Saner. On April 15, 1959, Saner did what he had done on many prior days as a school-attending Cincinnati-Reds-loving young teenage baseball…
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Generation Q(uest): Looking For Who I Am
Ever since I can remember I’ve seen and referred to the developmental period of Adolescence as “an earthquake.” I experienced a bit of that first-hand, albeit in a relatively low-level on the Richter Scale. Back in the day, I might…
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The Unexpected Legacy of a Youth Ministry “Failure”
You never know. You just never know. You never know how our faithful God is working through our lives and ministry. Maybe it’s best we don’t know so that we aren’t tempted to take credit where credit isn’t due! But…
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Youth Ministry and AI
Does it make your head spin like it does mine? Mine’s been spinning since first learning about and then fiddling around a little bit with AI. Initially, I took the bait to dabble with the unpaid version of Songer, which…
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Youthworker In Exile Syndrome
“What happened to him (her)?!?” That question was verbalized a few times last week when I was catching up with a fellow youth ministry long-timer. . . a guy who was part of our Philly-area youth ministry crew back in…
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A Youthworker’s Prayer For Strength
Some might think it strange and unusual that a prayer based on Puritan writings could grab so much of what we need to be praying for ourselves as we follow our calling to minister to students in the 21st century.…
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The Suburban Arms Race: How Youth Sports Are Hijacking Our $ And A Whole Lot More
I’m starting to think that the most “scam-susceptible” group of people on the face of the earth are youth sports parents. I’ve been pondering this for quite some time, increasingly as I look at the data and then hear/see the…
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Exposing The Dangerous Darkness In Our Homes: Our Kids and Roblox
“EVERY Parent Needs to Watch This.” Those words caught my attention when I spotted them in an email sent to me by a friend from church. A retired military sharphooter who is no stranger to difficult and dark stuff, this…
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Blurred Lines: Where Does the Culture End and I Begin?
Here’s something I tell parents and youth workers all the time: “There are three basic questions every child and teen is on a quest to answer. . . sometimes consciously, but usually unconsciously. We might call them ‘the developmental questions’…
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Helping Kids Navigate Fear of War: Teaching God’s Providence
For my elementary-aged self it was the alligator under my bed and the guy hiding in my closet. When my mother decided to calm my overnight fears by putting a nightlight in my room, my imagination ramped up my fright-factor…
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The Collapse of Parenting: Reclaiming Authority
A few years ago I watched as a cute little two-year-old girl took on her parents in the middle of a crowded airport concourse. I’m sure you’ve encountered something like this in your own life. . . perhaps in a…
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Halftime Screams. . . But What Is Halftime Screaming?
The Super Bowl used to have an add-on known as “The Halftime Show.” Now, it seems, “The Halftime Show” has an add-on known as The Super Bowl. While the game itself ended at 10:12pm ET on Sunday night, the halftime…
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