For months on end my daughter complained of stress. Yes, there had been a few especially busy weeks but by the time spring of her senior year hit, I didn’t get it. This should have been the downhill…
“I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put…
What. If. It is amazing how two words can seem so bland and powerless when read without the other. Then put them together and they become some of the most debilitating words ever spoken. These two simple words have…
One night at the beginning of the summer, my college-bound daughter was home without plans. Her friends were either out of town or working. She was bored. Now I could think of several things she could use the time for – you know,…
I will never forget the first time a student told me they were self-harming; nor will I forget the second, third, or fourth time. There is something so paralyzing about looking into the face of brokenness and hurt,…
Partnering with parents is a critical piece of youth ministry, but it can often be incredibly challenging. Either we just don’t know how, or we feel like “who are we to speak with any real authority to parents?”…
There comes a point as a student pastor when you realize that no matter how loudly and clearly you preach the gospel, the message your students hear at home is always heard more loudly and more clearly. As…
What lies at the heart of longing to see faith in Christ passed on from one generation to the next? I have two compelling reasons to busy myself with figuring out the answer to this question. First, I…
We all tell stories to each other–stories about what happened when we were kids, stories about last night, and stories where we dream about the future. Some stories are funny, some are amazing, others are sad, but they…
