High School Ministry – Defining Success

2012/02/23 By Leave a Comment
Rich Melheim

Lutheran (ELCA) pastor Rich Melheim is the founder and chief creative officer of Faith Inkubators, which he describes as "a Christian education systems design think tank and resource provider dedicated to incubating faith every night in every home."  In the February 22, 2012 edition of the Christian Century, he answered several questions regarding faith formation as a family matter, including one about high school youth ministry. Q: How do you define a successful church program for high Read More …

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Go Slow

2012/02/15 By Leave a Comment
guy_chmieleski

Guy Chmieleski has served in campus ministry at four institutions of higher education associated with three different denominations (Baptist, United Methodist and Church of Christ).  He recently blogged about pace of life, reminding everyone that today's traditional college students have lived their whole lives in an instant culture.  The only real change these young adults have experienced is fast has becoming faster.  To help overcome this he proposes: I think we need to re-introduce our Read More …

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Single Objective of Youth Ministry

2012/01/07 By 2 Comments
Mark Oestreicher

How would you complete the following sentence: The single objective of youth ministry is __________. Youth ministry expert Mark Oestreicher answered the question with Christlikeness.   So What? Youth ministry is typically thought of in terms of what it offers its participants, especially in terms of programs and relationships.  Youth ministry leadership teams would benefit greatly from taking time to explore together why they do what they do.  The simple yet challenging question Read More …

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Attributes of Good Junior High Lessons

2011/12/23 By Leave a Comment
kurt johnston

Kurt Johnston is a junior high ministry expert; he has severed in a variety of junior high youth ministry roles for over twenty years, and currently serves as Junior High Pastor at Saddleback Church.  Earlier this week he shared three attributes of a good junior high lesson: Short (20 minutes or less) Interactive Fun So What? I have spent enough time in youth ministry with junior high/middle school students to understand that teaching this age group is unique.  This is one of Read More …

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Reverse Mentoring

2011/12/01 By Leave a Comment
Leslie Kwoh

Leslie Kwoh's Wall Street Journal article, "Reverse Mentoring Cracks Workplace,"  describes the practice and benefit of reverse mentoring in the workplace.  A reverse mentoring relationship involves young employees mentoring old senior level staff.  The relationship offers executives the opportunity to learn technology and social media skills while providing the younger workers with "a rare glimpse into the world of management and access to top-level brass." So What? The church, at least Read More …

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How Many Devices Does a College Student Need?

2011/11/26 By Leave a Comment
Undergrad Essential Hardware

Educause, a nonprofit association whose mission is to advance higher education by promoting the intelligent use of information technology, recently released their 2011 report on undergraduate students and technology.  The associated infographic provides a visual overview of the findings divided into the following categories: institutions, instructors, software and hardware.  Since yesterday was Black Friday and Cyber Monday is coming soon, I was drawn to the section on Read More …

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Social Media Interaction with Students

2011/11/19 By Leave a Comment
slant33

Earlier this week Slant33, a part of Barefoot Ministries, posted the responses of three youth ministry experts to the question: "Where do you draw the line on social media interaction with students? Why?"  The responses vary widely: D. Scott Miller, director of the Division of Youth and Young Adult Ministry of the Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore, has a personal policy to never friend anyone under the age of eighteen on Facebook.  Additionally, he believes this is the best policy for all Read More …

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Teens & Social Networking

2011/11/18 By 1 Comment
teen social network use over time

The Pew Internet and American Life Project released "Teens, kindness and cruelty on social network sites" last week.  Educators, parents, and those who work with teens in any capacity should consider the report a must read (click here to access the full 86 page report).  It reviews the multi-stage research that began in December 2010 with a meeting of experts to help refine the project, continued with focus groups of middle and high school students in January and February of 2011, and Read More …

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A Misguided Assumption About College Students

2011/11/13 By Leave a Comment
Ron Tanner

The Myth Ron Tanner, writing professor at Loyola University Maryland, recently wrote an article, "The Myth of the Tech-Savvy Student" for the Chronicle of Higher Education's special report on online learning.  In this piece he suggests that the media mistakenly portrays today's young people as tech savvy based on the amount of time they spend using technology rather than their competence using it to do real-world professional tasks. Background Perhaps no single text has influenced the Read More …

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Welcoming Doubts & Questions in Youth Ministry

2011/11/07 By Leave a Comment
doubts

"How to Welcome Doubts and Questions" is perhaps at once the most interesting and most relevant title for a youth ministry blog post that I have encountered in quite some time.  The article, written by Youth Specialties staff, list six ways that youth ministry leaders can create an environment that welcomes doubts and questions.  This "how to" list fails to mention what I have found to be the most helpful piece of advice on the topic: there are many aspects of the Christian faith for which Read More …

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