Guiding Kids In Their Search For Identity
In the quest to discover and adopt an identity, the teenagers you know and love are looking for answers to questions such as: Am I worthwhile? What makes me worthwhile? How am I unique from others? Are those uniqueness’ good…
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On This Day In 1963. . . Kennedy, Huxley, and Lewis. . .
When I woke up this morning I looked at the date and immediately my mind rewound and settled on this day in 1963. November 22 is always a significant day for me. . . . sparking thoughts of the past…
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Training Up Biblical Carnivores. . .
Over the course of the last few years. . . for way too long in fact. . . the scuttlebutt in the world I inhabit has been increasingly filled with questions that start with the simple word “Why?” Youth workers,…
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When You Hear God’s Word Today, What Will You Keep?
As we gather to hear the Word of God preached today, what will be our resolve? Will we consider God’s Word and then decide based on our own feelings and emotions what we will keep, how we will interpret it,…
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Language Matters: Youth Workers, Sexuality, Gender, and Identity
“Why quibble over words? After all, isn’t our ultimate goal to lead people to Jesus?” As we prep here at CPYU from another gathering of youth workers for next week’s Symposium on Traditional Biblical Sexuality in a Changing Youth Culture,…
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No-Woe Youth Ministry. . .
We’ve got a problem where I live. Actually, we have more than one problem, but there’s only one I want to mention here. The curtain is pulled back on the problem, it seems, at least once a month, maybe more.…
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Prisoners To Our Phones?
It’s a common scene in film and TV that we’ve all seen dozens if not hundreds of times. Someone doing time has an attorney, family member, or friend arrive at the prison for a visit. The visitor sits waiting patiently…
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Entrusting Our Children To God
Editor’s Note: This post appears in the Ligonier Ministries Tabletalk Magazine, October 2023. My fourteen-year-old self had gone to bed at my usual 9pm time. Two hours later, I woke up to use the bathroom. While walking undetected past my…
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When It’s All About Me, Me, Me. . .
Boxer Muhammed Ali used to dance around the ring proclaiming to anyone within earshot, “I am the greatest!” It was funny because Ali had become a caricature of himself who was at heart an entertainer. But Ali’s show has morphed…
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Andy Stanley, The Church, Our Kids, and LGBTQ. . .
After almost fifty years of life in our youth ministry world, I’ve become more and more convinced that it’s vitally important to lead our conversations about God’s good design for sex and gender by celebrating and communicating what God is…
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Understanding Sex: Cultural or Covenantal?
If he’s still around he would be in his late 40’s. I wonder if his attitudes about sex and sexuality have changed. I met him when he was in high school and sitting front and center as I was the…
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Youth Ministry: Our Primary Task
There are many ways in which I envy my youth ministry friend Jake. . . healthy rather than sinful envy I hope. He’s young. . . just getting started. He’s doing ministry on a youth culture landscape of deep self-awareness…
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