In the fall of 2015, I sat in a chair at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary for a weekend class on spiritual disciplines. Everything was good and fine until the professor, Dr. Whitney, started preaching (not just teaching) to…
Our effort to develop mature worshippers requires that we seek the Lord in prayer, asking for His insight into how our students presently worship, what a mature worshipper would look like, and what the next progressive step would…
When my sister was 5 years old, she went through a stage where she refused to eat much else besides Chicken McNuggets. When we climbed into the car, she’d ask/cry/demand that we stop by McDonald’s. This presented my…
It’s 5:30 PM. The service starts at 8:00, and rehearsal starts in an hour. I’ve prayed, practiced, and maybe even fasted in preparation for the night. Our ministry is growing, and I’m particularly excited about building on the…
Growing up, my parents made sure I wore my “Sunday best” to church—coat, tie, slacks, and on special occasions, suspenders! After all, we were going to meet with the living God. A whole generation (or two) regularly used…
Right in the middle of my talk on the exclusivity of Christ, a hand went up in the back of the room. “Yes?” I asked. The young man cleared his throat. “How can you say that Jesus is…
In one sense, what we do as youth ministers is unique in the world of church ministry. Our job definitely includes some of the most fun – and perhaps, also, the most heartbreak. But in another sense, our…
In my early twenties upon moving to Birmingham, AL, I attended for three months a mega-church with an impressive growth rate. The pastor regularly boasted about the church’s increasing attendance in between opportunities to talk about the large…
If we segregate youth, not only do we lose all they have to teach us, but we inadvertently teach them that church is really only for adults.
