Jesus the Great Guidance Counselor?

  Moralistic Therapeutic Deism, we need to be aware of teachings which may create the perception that God is simply or only there for our therapy. For me, thinking about the traits of a guidance counselor helps me…

A Brief History of Youth Ministry

Rooted is thrilled to announce that we will be partnering with The Gospel Coalition blog for a series on the state of youth ministry during the month of April.  Big thanks to Dave Wright for this first article,…

Short Term Missions and MTD

This is the second article in our series on what the gospel has to say to the cultural trend among today’s teens of viewing Christianity as “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism”.  Check out the first article here.   I have the…

Adoption: God as the Available Parent

We are excited about the theme for the 2012 Rooted Conference – “Adoption: The Beauty of Grace” – which will explore how the theological concept of adoption speaks to the present youth generation. By God’s grace I have a clean…

Adoption: God as the Empathetic Parent

We are excited about the theme for the 2012 Rooted Conference – “Adoption: The Beauty of Grace” – which will explore how the theological concept of adoption speaks to the present youth generation. A while back, my wife…

Moralistic Therapeutic Deism: What Does the Gospel Say?

The language, and therefore experience, of Trinity, holiness, sin, grace, justification, sanctification, church, Eucharist, and heaven and hell appear, amongst most Christian teenagers in the United States at the very least, to be supplanted by the language of…

The Busy Youth Minister: Time Management

  It seems like when you ask someone ‘how things are going’ everyone gives the same answer, ‘busy’. There is a quote that has been wreaking havoc on my mind and in my heart for the last month. The essence…

The Return of Reasons

  Check out this piece from Christianity Today about the shifting trend in youth ministry toward an increased desire for apologetics.