The One Advent I Almost Quit Youth Ministry

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When I entered youth ministry as a volunteer, I thought it was amazing. In hindsight, I think I realize why I thought that: I had a set group of teenagers that I ministered to every single week I never was around on Monday morning to hear about what was broken […]

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They’ll Know We AREN’T Christians…

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It was the simplest and first lesson I learned in Sunday school. We even had a song we sang to learn it: “They’ll know we are Christians by our love, By our love. Yes, they’ll know we are Christians by our love.” The concept and cheesy hymn come from this […]

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Arise and Shine (1 Cor. 12:31-13:13)

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If I were a gambler, I would place a bet on the high percentage of times we hear 1 Corinthians 13 proclaimed at weddings. I have been asked to proclaim this reading at no less than four weddings myself. This reading isn’t popular because it sounds “nice,” but because it […]

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Sex Positive Series

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We are so excited for the materials in our newest Life Support shipment to reach your parish, and we are especially excited for our latest series, Sex Positive. Personally, I loved being able to work to create this series because as a teen I had a powerful experience of what […]

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Disciplining Out of Love

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She might as well have been wearing a sign reading, “I don’t want to be here.” She deliberately removed herself from other teens and watched without enthusiasm. Ministry rookie that I was, I immediately made her my project. After a while, she had moved from disinterested to actively disruptive. She […]

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The Context of Love

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There I sat on a warm summer morning struggling to hold an enormous stroller on the rickety old train at the St. Louis Zoo. To my right, I saw a gigantic bird cage that looked old and worn down. I later found out that the birdcage (from the 1904 World’s […]

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Wait! A Teen Lied to Me?

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I will never forget the first moment a teen lied straight to my face. I was so upset I wanted to beat them over the head with the book of Leviticus! As youth ministers, we have a unique role in the lives of the teens we serve. For some, we […]

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Happily Ever After

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I have recently been catching up on Once Upon a Time – and by catching up I mean that I am hardly halfway through Season 3. One of the reasons I have come to enjoy this show is that there are so many amazing lessons and themes that can directly […]

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Love in the Face of Evil

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I got together with an old friend a few months ago. Toney is a friend I met long ago at the Steubenville West conference, and the last number of years of Toney’s life have truly inspired me. While we were talking I was moved to share his story with you; […]

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