My mentor in my early days of youth ministry was a straight-talking, loud-walking, 6 foot, 9 inches, 280-pound man who had done student ministry for over twenty years. He had about eight maxims that he would repeat, reminding…
Josh Cousineau is a church planter at Redemption Hill in Auburn, Maine, coordinator of the Lead Conference, and a former youth minister. This piece is reposted with permission from www.joshcousineau.com. Busyness; It has become almost a badge of…
Several years ago, I participated in an online forum with a network of youth ministers who had pursued seminary studies. During this time, one youth pastor asked for help and direction in dealing with a teen who had…
Radical Grace. Unfettered, life-changing, paradigm-shifting, gift–love. How do we even begin to define and describe this reality to our students? I’ve found that people who have come to know the grace of God in and through Jesus have…
This post comes to us from a new Rooted contributor, Sandra Hagood. Sandra is an attorney, parent, and outstanding youth Sunday school teacher in San Diego, CA. She leads off our series, Tough Stuff, with this excellent piece…
I attended the Youth Specialties conference in Nashville this past weekend – it was my first time to attend the conference, and there was a lot to take in. Some good stuff, some not-so-good stuff. I’ll likely continue…
This year, many youth positions will open up across the nation. Many of those positions will be filled with very similar people. Why does student ministry have such a rate of attrition? If you are in student ministry, you probably…
“In every contest, there must be a loser. La-hoo-sa-her.” –Ace Ventura, Pet Detective Rejection. We’ve all faced it. As a matter of fact, we’re all probably facing it in one way or another right now. Rejection has to…
Just about everyone in student ministry has the same aim: to see lives transformed for the sake of Christ and His Kingdom. We want to see students walking in new life, loving God and their neighbor, and bearing…
