Every summer that I have been a Youth Pastor has included a summer mission trip. These trips have been to a variety of locations and have served a variety of purposes. Below are four goals of student summer mission trips: That the students would know Jesus more as a result of serving on this trip.... Continue Reading →

As a young pastor it is useful to listen to more experience pastors share about their pastoral experience. This is why it was beneficial for me to listen to John MacArthur speak on criticism that pastors face. He has been the pastor of the same church for almost five decades. Yes, because it should be... Continue Reading →

The Bible was not originally written in English. This is a fact that can often be overlooked by many Americans who seek to read and understand the Bible. Although I do not think that every Christian is required to know the original languages that the Bible was written in, I do think that there is... Continue Reading →

Preaching the Gospel is a phrase that people familiar with church should be used to hearing.  However, we usually think of preaching the Gospel to other people. This is good. We should preach the Gospel to others often. Beyond preaching the Gospel to others, we must also preach the Gospel to ourselves. We hear and... Continue Reading →

As students graduate high school we desire to give them a gift that is useful for their spiritual development beyond their time when they are in our student ministry. In this transitional season for these students, I have decided to give our graduates a new Bible. However, I want them to use the Bible and... Continue Reading →

I was an excited Freshman in college when I got into a van to travel from Hershey to Atlanta to be a part of Passion 2010. The Passion Conference is a Christian conference centered around 18-25 year olds and their leaders. They seek to empower a generation of college students to seek the glory of... Continue Reading →

A long time ago someone told me that we should never use the excuse "I don't have time for this." The truth is we have time for anything that we desire. If we are truthful, instead of telling someone we don't have time for a specific task, we should instead say that the task is... Continue Reading →

One of the unsaid goals of our youth ministry, and I'm assuming most youth ministries, is to have our students mix with those who they usually don't talk to or interact with. Usually there is a pretty noticeable gap when we host our game nights once a month between the "athletic" kids and the "non-athletic"... Continue Reading →

I first discovered The 5 Leadership Question Podcast as an ad in an email. I was intrigued that the first episode was an interview with John Piper about leadership. What I discovered was that this podcast serves as interviews that get into the minds of leaders as they answer 5 leadership questions (although on most... Continue Reading →

9Square in the Air is one of the top youth ministry games invented. In Pennsylvania, where I was from, many youth groups and camps knew what this game involved. However, when I moved to Ohio to become a High School Youth Pastor, there were not many people who heard of 9Square. In the Spring of... Continue Reading →