Tag: youth ministry
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National Youth Workers Convention 2010
I just returned from the National Youth Workers Convention in Nashville (Youth Specialties). I was a speaker at both the Nashville and the San Diego YS conventions this year, an honor for me given that I’m well past my prime as a youth ministry expert. What I am these days is a walking youth ministry…
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Reinventing Youth Ministry [Again]
Last year I wrote a book summarizing pretty much all that I have to say about the past, present and future of youth ministry. The book is titled Reinventing Youth Ministry [Again]: From Bells and Whistles to Flesh and Blood and it was just released this month by InterVarsity Press. I began my youth ministry…
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Talking Crazy about YS
This was a fun little sketch that the YS gang invited me to do a few weeks ago. It was about 110 degrees outside when we filmed this inside a car with the AC off and the windows rolled up. I kept flubbing my lines so after about 5 takes, we were both about to…
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Fun Weekend at Forest Home
I went to Junior High Winter Camp at Forest Home last weekend with the middle-school group from College Avenue Baptist Church. It has been a long time since I’ve bunked down with a group of middle-school boys as a cabin counselor. Other than being seriously sleep-deprived, I had a wonderful time. The camp was packed…
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Would you buy this book?
OK folks, I’ve written a book which will be published later on this year … part memoir, part youth ministry rant … and the publisher has suggested this cover design. There’s still time to change things, so your feedback would be greatly appreciated. Everything is up for grabs … concept, images, title, subtitle, etc. ……
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Shameless Plug for My New Book
I have a new book which just came out titled Engaging Parents as Allies, a book for youth workers on how to work with parents. It’s part of a three-book series called “Youth Ministry in the Trenches” which the publisher packaged with a bit of a military theme (little toy soldiers, etc.) The other two…
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Early YFC Memories
My friend Paul Sailhamer unearthed an old photograph that he took at a YFC gathering at Hume Lake in 1962 and sent me a copy last week. I was 17 years old in this photo, a senior in high school (in the plaid shirt with the cool flat top). To my left (or right in…
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Family Ministries Coach
This month I began a new adventure in ministry as a Family Ministries Coach at College Avenue Baptist Church in San Diego. I’ve never been a FMC before and I don’t really know anyone else who has ever been one either. But essentially I will be serving as a consultant to their youth and children’s…
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The Rice Kryspies: 40 Years Ago
I began my youth ministry career as a club director for Ventura County (California) Youth for Christ in 1963. Folk music was getting real popular about that time (Joan Baez, the Kingston Trio, Bob Dylan, the New Christy Ministrels) so we formed our own folk groups as a way to be “relevant” with teenagers. The…
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Demon Banjos
An interesting post from the Dallas Morning News religion blog: “My grandfather had this conversion experience and went to West Virginia Wesleyan. He was kicked out of a church in 1919 for playing the banjo with the youth group. Obviously everybody knew the banjo was an instrument of Satan! … Beware the demon banjo.” Funny,…