Happy New Year from the Rooted team! As you start the year 2025, we’d like to recommend Rooted’s five most-ready youth ministry articles of 2024—all of which are relevant in the new year and beyond. We’ll have new content for you on the blog starting on January 6.
What Teenagers Need in a Youth Pastor Might Surprise You by Steve Eatmon
You don’t have to be cool to be an effective youth pastor. Jesus came to serve and not be served (Matt. 20:28). Cool is overrated. Very often, trying to be cool can cause us to miss out on what teenagers really need: the news that Jesus came into our world and died to save them from sin so they can experience life with him now and forever.
Teaching Teenagers to Teach Themselves from the Bible by Skyler Flowers
As youth ministers, it should be our goal to raise up students to teach themselves, just as we teach our children to walk for themselves. We should always commend students to learn from others and rely on their brothers and sisters in Christ. But beholding wonderful things in God’s Word from their own insight will strengthen their faith, soothe their weariness, loosen their tongue to praise, and quicken their lips to teach others.
A Bad Trade: Helping Teenagers See Sexual Sin Clearly by Jennifer Kvamme
God is not out to spoil our joy or limit our pleasure. The Bible is trying to shout at us, in the kindest and clearest of ways: It’s not a good trade! Don’t fall for it! The writer of Hebrews is trying to help us see clearly what we’re giving up so that we don’t fall for Satan’s tricks. The author doesn’t want us to settle for a far cheaper, inferior kind of happiness and love at the expense of deep, lasting, real joy and intimacy.
When Teenagers Choose Sports or the Arts Over Youth Group by Matt Brown
Youth minister, on those discouraging nights when many of your regular kids are missing, don’t forget to preach the gospel to yourself. Our God is good, gracious, and sovereign. The beauty of the gospel is that we aren’t good enough, but Jesus is. Ultimately, you can leave attendance up to the Lord.
Is the New Testament Historically True? (Tough Questions Teenagers Ask) by Andrew Slay
The New Testament’s trustworthiness has been attacked since its inscription, but its scrutiny has increased over the last hundred years. Yet, as youth ministers, we can teach and encourage our students to trust the New Testament’s teaching based on the manuscript transmission, extra-biblical historical sources, geographical and archaeological evidence, and the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection.
