When you look for employees and volunteers for your ministry, for what skills are you looking? If listening skills aren’t currently on your list, they need to be. In fact, your ministry would greatly benefit from spending time training everyone connected to it to be better listeners. Why? Studies are finding time and time again that today’s children and teens don’t feel as if they have anyone in their lives that will truly listen to them. It’s easy to assume that the children and teens served by your ministry are from “great” homes and have plenty of people in their lives who listen. Some may ..read more

You are probably familiar with the idea of life skills – skills that children and teens need to learn to make it easier for them to live independently as adults. Usually this list of skills includes things like the ability to do laundry or cook a simple meal. Although we don’t really talk about it, young people also need Christian life skills – skills that make living the Christian life a little bit easier. If we were to make a list of God’s expectations and commands for us, we would find that many of them would be easier if we had certain life skills. For example, the command to be generous ..read more

Before you start posting critical comments on social media, the Bible is technically the only book you need to truly minister to young people well. You are probably reading all sorts of books on ministry – when you have two spare moments. The problem is there are too many people out there who either claim to be Christians or who were Christians who have taken it on as their mission in life to do everything in their power to destroy Christianity. It’s not enough to reject God and the Bible as the standard for their lives. They want to take as many people with them as possible. It’s a movement t ..read more

Remember the Creation story in Genesis? After God created Adam, he realized Adam was lonely and created Eve for companionship. Later, the Israelites were organized by family based clans that operated as a unit. And of course, one of the stated functions for the Church (discussed throughout the New Testament in various ways) is this idea of Christians supporting one another spiritually, emotionally and physically. We were not meant to live in solitude for very long. Yet, your Bible students in late childhood and adolescence have had solitude first thrust upon them by COVID and then exacerbated ..read more

Recently, my husband and I had dinner with a Christian couple from another state. We feel like we have known them forever and technically we have known them for almost a decade now. The truth is that although we feel really close to them, we have only spent a few hours together a few times a year. So why do we feel so close? Yes, we have many things in common – in large part due to our shared faith. I believe there is another reason that can help the various constituencies in your ministry. Our times together are spent sitting around a table sharing a meal. We have shared our hearts as we ate ..read more

One of the struggles many ministries to children and teens face is trying to encourage students to become close emotionally to each other when they often attend different schools, live in different areas of town and have different interests and personalities. It is crucial to teach them how to discover points of connection with each other so they can begin building those deeper relationships we want them to have. Being able to quickly find things in common with people we have just met is also a crucial skill set for Christians as we serve others and share our faith with them. It is a skill se ..read more

We would like to think our churches and ministry environments are bully free, but sadly that isn’t always the case. Children, teens, ministry volunteers and even parents need to understand (and have regularly reinforced) that bullying is not a behavior that is acceptable to God. In fact, God calls His people to be kind and loving to everyone – even our enemies. This means that even “teasing” that hurts others is probably best left unsaid. Unfortunately, we live in a culture that for all of its purported anti-bullying stance, not only allows, but even encourages bullying. In recent discussions ..read more

One of the little tricks professional educators use is to engage students the minute they walk in the classroom door. There are two reasons for this. First, it allows them to take advantage of every possible minute for learning. The second is that it is much easier to start class when the students are already engaged in an activity than when they have been allowed to run free for several minutes. The room is already more or less quiet and the students are ready to learn – because they have already started. Not sure how to engage students in an activity while you are busy greeting the students ..read more

I am reposting this annual family favorite to give you time to gather the ingredients together before Easter weekend. Feel free to copy and share with the families served by your ministry or church! Resurrection Cookies are a great way to review the story of Jesus’ death with your children. I got the recipe from one of my neighbors years ago and suspect it is one of those that has been passed around all over the country. I would love to credit the creator, but have no idea who that would be. We did this every year the Saturday night before Easter as one of our family traditions when our daugh ..read more

Self reflection is an important tool for spiritual growth. We need to understand where we are in comparison to where God wants us to be. Childhood and the teen years are so crammed with activities and entertainment designed to distract one from thinking, that reflection has become a lost art. No wonder young people often struggle to grow spiritually! There are some questions you can ask your Bible class students or mentees to encourage them to reflect on where they are spiritually and where God wants them to be. Hopefully, this realization will encourage them to do the things necessary to gro ..read more