Category: Youth Ministry

Years ago we ran a retreat called HappeningTM which was common in Episcopal Diocese’s all over the country back in the day.  The Weekend was intended to be a renewal weekend patterned after Cursillo. What I watched in the final years that we did this was rather unspectacular. There were student testimonies at the end…

Thirty some years ago there seemed to be many made for TV movies about a teen or young adult who ran off and got involved in a cult. In each story, they had to somehow be rescued from that group. The difficulty in doing that is the power of the emotional bonds and irrationality caused…

The question comes up from time to time.  What makes for an anglican approach to youth ministry? I’ve heard people try to articulate it but end up not saying much that differs from other traditions.  In the years I have served the Diocese of South Carolina, I have worked with a lot of Youth Ministers…

I’ve been so slammed with preparing for the next thing that I’ve neglected to keep up on writing and posting things.  So, I thought I would share a message from my friend Cameron Cole who really amazes me.  It’s titled “Preparing for Your Worst Nightmare”.  You can listen to it here.  I previously posted a…

Over the years I’ve swapped some stories with people about how our context varies in different parts of the world.  One I heard was about a British speaker at a youth camp who was rather old school in his vocabulary.  Over there the word for a bundle of sticks is faggot.  He got to the…

My friend Matt Marino has written for “The Living Church” a couple of articles on the importance of solid youth ministry.  His latest is worth looking at. Like Rip Van Winkle, the Church is waking from its long slumber to find the world changed. All branches of the American church have a problem retaining young…

My friend Cameron Cole delivered this message found here in October at the Rooted Conference.  He was keenly aware that he was closing the conference where some excellent and very experienced speakers had been doing keynote addresses.  He really wrapped up the conference well.  Just a few weeks later he lost his little son who…

Since we are in the midst of the twelve days, I thought I’d post one further on Christmas. Many of us grew up singing a song about Santa Claus coming to town. We had it drilled in our heads that the guy was keeping score. He had a list and he was all knowing. Nothing…

When Jane and I started having children, I raised a question in the high school Sunday School class I taught. Did everyone grow up with the Santa Claus myth? There were some students in the class whose parents were very intentional about raising Christian kids and I suspected some of them handled the legend differently…