Life In Student Ministry: Recent Episodes
Tim Schmoyer
Scripture indicates that parents are the spiritual leaders of their homes. Rob Rienow shares a few ideas for how to lead family worship at home with kids.
As youth workers, it can be so easy for us to focus on discipling other people's families and children more than our own.
Look at how your church spends money on serving families and ask, "Is this really the best use of this money for helping families grow and follow the Lord?"
D6 Days is happening for the next 4 days! Watch and listen to family ministry training sessions from the D6 Conference, all for free!
Text messaging is one of the best tools for mass communication with your youth group. Txtsignal is the communication tool I've used in youth ministry.
Instead of treating the symptom of spiritually apathetic teens with youth group, treat the root of the problem, which is often spiritually apathetic fathers.
Instead of setting up youth leaders for success, what if we used our resources to setup parents for success?
Here's an idea from a youth pastor who is connecting students with families, especially students who don't have parents as spiritual leaders in the home.
Get a free copy of Terrace Crawford's book, "Going Social: A Practical Guide on Social Media for Church Leaders." Watch our interview and enter to win!
At Red Door Church we have 7 guiding principles for student discipleship. They each revolve around spiritual formation that's led by parents in the home.
It's been almost five months since I last published a post here. What happened? Well, many things, actually.
I'm passionate about ministry because I love the Lord and people, but something else might be rooted in my heart that loves ministry for another reason.
Family discipleship is hard enough, but discipling them for a multi-generational impact? That sounds like a big vision, but here's how to do it.
Children and teenagers ask a lot of tough questions. This free ebook equips parents and youth workers with Biblical answers to those questions.
As a pastor, it's difficult to balance family and ministry, but is balance actually the goal? These 6 questions can help you evaluate what's important.
For this weekend only, the D6 Conference guys are giving away free videos and mp3 downloads from family ministry thought leaders. Check it out!
What we deeply believe about family and the church will influence how we do youth ministry. Here's one example.
Here's a great, practical idea for how a youth ministry can make parents the primary spiritual leader for their home for their teenagers and children.
At Red Door Church we are developing a parent-centered youth ministry that's based on the fact that the parents are God's plan for passing faith to teens.
Welcome our new little girl into the world, Halle Journey! This is what her name means and the identity we hope it projects on to her as she grows up.
As youth workers, we say we're passionate about youth ministry, but what if ministry is actually just how we express a deeper passion for something else?
At Red Door Church we design Sunday morning worship services to revolve around the family, not just adults. Here's how Kid Stuf packs play a role in that.
Starting this Friday, Only144.com will be running a Group-like sale of over $1,500 worth of youth ministry resources for only $97!
Diversifying your salary with other income can be a lifesaver and help provide more freedom in your ministry. Here's how to get started.
Many youth workers are underpaid, but the issue of how much money they make is twofold. The responsibility lies both on the church and the youth worker.
After years of serving in ministry on a personal level and serving the church on a national level, I'm taking a more formalized role at Red Door Church!
Every youth leader needs certain things from the youth pastor in order to succeed and do well in their youth ministry to teenagers.
Download these daily Advent Devotions to use freely with your family or in your church's youth ministry leading up to Christmas Day.
Biblical teaching often has a goal, but we don't always know what that goal is. Is it designed to increase our knowledge or to increase our belief?
How do you handle teenagers who feel disconnected from the church body, like the adults would never notice if they stopped coming? Listen to Josh's story.
We know it's important to lead our families spiritually but how do we lead family worship at home with our wife, husband, and kids? Peder Eide shares ideas.
We're trying to figure out how to do family ministry in the church, but Mark Matlock of Youth Specialties shares how his family ministry begins in his home.
If you're a youth worker in the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky area, we'd love to invite you to join us for a little youth ministry network lunch!
Sr. Pastor Mike Glenn shares how he realized that his church's discipleship model was not working, how they scrapped it, and built a new model from scratch.
Do mature disciples leave the church because it gives them no room to take ownership of the vision? Should leaders release vision to the community?
After 300 consecutive weeks of free youth ministry resources every week, the Freebie Friday series is coming to an end. Here's why.
Download this free youth ministry resource pack from Youth Ministry 360! It includes a guide to writing Bible study lessons, devotions, and more.
Family ministry is a hot topic, but it's influenced by the American Church Story. We discuss that perspective and what it means for church ministry.
Help students dig into God's Work with a month of free youth devotions from OnTrack Devotions and YM360!
The right answers to our questions about family ministry in the church starts with asking the right questions.
Download this lesson about taming the tongue based on James 3. Discuss with teenagers the words we say and how they affect others.
Download this lesson plan for youth groups that talks about giving up everything we have to follow Jesus.
Download this youth ministry assessment worksheet to help you identify some weaknesses in your youth group and in yourself as a youth leader.
This lesson on evangelism highlights four unlikely evangelists in scripture who were timid about sharing their faith.
I'm going back to Haiti to support a pastor who has 6 children of his own and has adopted 14 orphans since the earthquake. Help me support this family!
Download this free youth leader training manual to use with your youth group volunteers!
Before we can jump to "how to" ideas for integrating family ministry into the church, we first need to answer this fundamental question.
This free youth group lesson for a small group of teenage girls talks about self-image and how we view ourselves compared to how God see us.
Pixar shares 22 storytelling tips that can help us tell God's Story, but first let's understand the storytelling aspects of God's Story.
God's story is the most life-changing narrative that exists, yet the church often struggles to tell it in engaging ways.
Is the Internet changing how we talk about faith or is it is catching up with what we've known all along about how we talk about faith?
Download this youth ministry ebook in the iBookstore or on Amazon Kindle to help you focus your youth ministry on God's vision for your group.
It's important to train your youth leaders, especially before you kick off the new school year. This free training helps you to do just that.
We sometimes feel that pursuing anything other than youth ministry is less noble, but what if the Lord can use you in greater ways elsewhere?
Watch these 3 FREE family ministry training videos and 5 training mp3s from the D6 Conference!
Attend this free training from Dare 2 Share called, "The Missing Link," to improve your ministry's discipleship process!
As great as youth ministry is, it has it's problems. Could there be a better way to serve teenagers, families, and the church?
Rainn Wilson and Ze Frank talk about how the teenager brain and why that makes them drama queens over situations that aren't a big deal.
Download this free video curriculum that is also a YouTube Bible Study for teenagers. Includes small group discussion questions!
Youth groups love playing games! Here are some favorite youth group games submitted to us by other youth workers.
One of the things I love about doing these weekly Youth Questions videos on YouTube is that I hear some of the “behind the scenes” things that are...
Download this fmeeting outline for kicking off your vision casting meeting to determine the ministry's direction.
Download this iPhone app listing youth group games, ideas, instructions, and filtering options to get the perfect game on-the-go.
Download this free youth group lesson series! It's a 4-week series that teaches how the story of our lives integrate with God's story.
Our third child is on the way and, because of our recent miscarriage, we'd really appreciate everyone covering this baby in prayer.
If you're a part of an unhealthy church, how can you best contribute to helping it become a healthy church? Two youth pastors discuss what this looks like for them.
Our goal is to have a relationship with Jesus and get to know him well. What happens when we know him too well?
Download 3,000+ free youth ministry resources that were developed, written, and submitted by other youth leaders and youth pastors.
Many times when something goes wrong, we think about where the blame needs to go. Maybe that needs to start with us.
Download this lesson from LeaderTreks about freedom in Christ. Great for the 4th of July youth group event or Bible study!
I really love this video we made at Epipheo. It addresses an issue that needs to be talked about more than it is because, even if you don’t have kids in...
Why do teens have such an easy time committing to other things in their life, but not youth group?
Download this free youth group game packet for Glow Games, 15 games your group will love with glow sticks in the dark!
How can I grow in my faith? I go to church, read my Bible, and more, but I don't feel like I'm getting any closer to God.
Remove all the distractions from around you and find a place to spend 10 minutes in prayer.
These two youth group lessons and videos help your teens stand for justice by standing up to bullying!
Most youth pastors set a standard for modesty in their youth groups, but how do you enforce it and teach modesty to teenagers?
A little boy can pray for Stevie Wonder's eyes to be healed because he believes God can do it. Do we believe God answers our prayers?
When seniors graduate high school and leave the youth ministry, interview them about their experience in youth group as an exist interview.
Teenagers sometimes post things on Facebook and Twitter that are inappropriate. How can we best respond to those posts?
Most churches ask first-time visitors for their contact info, but how they ask and why can make a positive or negative first impression.
This summer several youth ministries are teaming up to offer a free video youth group lesson series that's centered around the gospel.