John Gardner is the Associate Pastor of Student Ministry at Grace Evangelical Free Church in Longmont, Colorado. John graduated with a Masters of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in 2009 and a Doctor of Ministry in Expository Preaching from SBTS in 2019. He spends most of his spare time with his wife Jackie reading, writing, playing intense board games and explaining the actual meanings of song lyrics to youth group students.
Milestones should promote God’s call for faithfulness and sanctification, regardless of where students fit on a cultural sliding scale.
Momentum cannot be assessed simply. Ministry rising and falling numerically or (seemingly) spiritually lends itself to trusting the tide rather than the sovereign hand of God.
Youth ministry is uncomfortable. It was jarring to be asked about the problem of evil for the first time as a student minister. Or the time I sat stunned and silent as I tried to cobble together an…
The title of this article may have sent a theological shiver down your spine…games. As a surface-level reaction, that’s completely understandable. The shallow caricature of youth group usually involves about one hour and 15 minutes of dodgeball, 15…
One of the reasons I love youth ministry is the never-ending supply of unusual questions that most teens are seemingly unafraid to ask. You have the old standbys like the problem of evil, the process of canonization, or…
Apologetics in a student ministry context tends to locate itself between two ineffective ends of a spectrum. The first approach emphasizes a relational model, which rarely speaks authoritatively and hardly claims any truth. This tends to produce meandering…
