Category: Youth Ministry
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Teens Want the Real Church
I’ve been saying this for years but not nearly as well as this article on TGC last week. A few excerpts… Young people who visit a church expect to experience, well, whatever church is. The strangeness is the appeal. Now that fewer people have any family background in church, no one hears a worship band…
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Navigating Generational Differences
There are few things more jarring and daunting than being dropped into a foreign culture, having to learn a new language, and navigating your way around. The overwhelming strangeness of absolutely everything leaves one feeling unequipped or unprepared for each new day. This is where the church in America finds itself today. Yet we did…
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Jesus and Israel in Wartime
Over the past few years, we have found a few YouTube channels that educate and entertain us. One of them is Sergio & Rhoda in Israel. They are a delightful young couple who visit biblical sites in Israel (their home country). Their latest video is absolutely one of the most encouraging and uplifting things I…
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Worth Reading
A few things I have read lately that I think are worth checking out… An Assessment of Andy Stanley’s Unconditional Conference This one does a good job of assessing the conference and contrasting it with a Biblical worldview. The author attended the conference. The Scandalous Seven Thaddeus Williams of Talbot/Biola takes a look at the…
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When the Youth Retreat Turns into Lord of the Flies
I suggested a year ago to the youth ministers in ADOSC that I would likely do some writing and posting on my experiences over the years in South Carolina. Sort of memoir or just recollections of things that I learned from. This is finally the first of that. I think over the past year I…
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Engaging Younger Generations
(Another message for GrandCamp 2023 – these are my full notes including some portions that I did not get to include due to time) I thought the year 2020 was going to be a year of revisioning. God had shown me a new ministry emphasis that I thought we would gain traction with. January started…
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Sermon on 1 Corinthians 10
I recently had the opportunity to preach at my church (Good Samaritan Anglican in Summerville) and we are in a series working through 1 Corinthians. This sermon was based on chapter 10 and verses 23–33. If something doesn’t hurt anyone and it’s not illegal, am I free to do it? That’s a morality or ethics…
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Am I a Good Grandfather?
Recently after church a young mom stopped me to share something that caught me off guard. She said, “I’ve been watching your interaction with your grandsons, and I wanted to say that you are a really good grandpa”. I thanked her for her kind words and thought, well… time will tell if that is true.…
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Theology Matters – Whose Kids Are They?
Years ago at a youth ministry training event, I heard a psychologist named Dana give a talk titled “Right Roles & Relationships”. One of the things he really wanted to impress upon young youth ministry leaders was the idea that the teens they were working with were not “theirs”. They belonged rightly to their parents.…
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The Coddling of Students
“When any culture starts calling good evil and evil good, Truth is the only rebellion left”. This podcast is an important one to watch or listen to for any parent, grandparent, or person who works with students.
