High Fives All Around
As I have grown up, I have learned many things about myself, that I love people, love Jesus and that when it comes to being loved, my primary love language is physical touch. I have been in Youth Ministry for 10 years now and as all of us can agree, if there is one thing students love to do it is flirt and hug each other...

Dealing with Unacceptable Behavior in Middle School Youth
No one ever signs up to be a youth minister for the joy of being a disciplinarian. It is, however, one of those areas that come with the territory. Individual behavior like anger, negative comments, hitting, personal boundary issues and bullying are just a few common issues you may face in your middle school youth group. These issues, if not dealt with, can draw other youth into participating in the same disruptive behavior...

1 Kings 19 for Youth Workers
And the word of the LORD came to him (or her): “What are you doing here, Youth Worker?” Youth Worker replied, “I have been very zealous for the LORD God Almighty. The teenagers (or the people of this church, or the staff of this church) have rejected your covenant, broken down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.”...

Granularity of Prayer
I spend a lot of time thinking about how prayers of petition work. On the one hand, I know that we are supposed to ask God for what we want, and that he does “answer prayers” in the sense of granting our requests. On the other hand, it couldn’t possibly work that way all the time. After all, if God were to give each of us every single thing we ever asked for, he wouldn’t be an omnipotent God; we’d be gods, and he’d be a wish-granting genie...

Your Kid's an All Star? Wow! Someday He'll Be Average Like the Rest of Us
The church in America is puzzled. Young adults are leaving in droves. Magazines, books and blogs are wagging the finger of blame to point out who is responsible. Some say it is a failure of youth ministry, some point to church budgets and some nail the blame on outdated, unhip worship services. We parents are shocked that our kids just really aren’t all that into Jesus...

Youth Ministers - Hot Tubs and Pizzas Aren't the Best Ways to Appeal to Teens
Dear Denys: I am a youth minister with a recently-completed Master’s degree, and I work in a thriving large parish. I can’t figure out why more kids don’t seem to want to come to our programs, so I wanted to try something new for the kick-off this year: a hot tub pizza-party.

Rites of Passage Project
Really interested in this new (and totally free) resource site called Rites of Passage. It was designed by youth workers and caring adults at New Vision Church to help parents celebrate and make memorable the rites of physical and spiritual passage of their children. Love it!

Look Into Your Heart
Today, the Pope celebrated Mass at Westminster Cathedral. At the end of Mass Pope Benedict came down the length of the Cathedral to the steps which lead into the Piazza where 2,500 young people predominantly aged 16 – 20 gathered. The pope spoke briefly to them.

What Do You Make?
This is not only for school teachers at the beginning of the academic year, but because we in the Catholic Youth Ministry game have a something to teach as well. Here is an office-friendly version of this Taylor Mail’s presentation that has already well gone viral on the web.

The Theology of Marriage, Danced

Conserve Water, or the Fish Will Die

Beatitudes for Those Working with The Young Church
Blessed are you who give your lives to serve young people, especially when your efforts don’t seem to bear fruit, for you possess the generous spirit of Christ. Blessed are you when you feel patronized by those insisting that you just “play with kids”, “Only work from 8-3 and get three months of summer vacation” for you do have A REAL JOB and yours is the humility of Christ...

Is Your Youth Ministry at Your Parish Worth Writing Home About?
My wife recently drove two of my teens to a neighboring parish that had a contest where the teen who brought the most friends would win an iPad. When our teens returned home, they said it was fun, but lacked depth and basically told me “it was nothing to write home about”. I thought to myself how sad this was, the parish was creative enough to come up with the iPad idea, but when the large group of teens showed up they were left underwhelmed...

The God of Discomfort
God doesn’t call us to a life of comfort. Recently, when I spend time in God’s Word, the Holy Spirit has illuminated in me this truth in a brand new way. God doesn’t call us to live a comfortable life. He calls us to a radically life of discomfort. I tend to think that since I’m typically comfortable in life, the people God lifted up to me as examples must have lived equally comfortable lives, right? Wrong. Jonah’s calling to Ninevah was uncomfortable. (His running from that calling was equally uncomfortable.)...

Quick Tip: Know Everything with MonkeySee
Youth ministries have a bad reputation for being underfunded and understaffed because they often are. That probably translates into you needing to do everything from fix the hole in the wall that happened during a wild game of pin the pool stick on the Jr Higher last week to installing a new hard drive in the Pentium II youth machine. If you don’t know how to do everything, you will at some point need to use MonkeySee.

What if the Gospels were Blogs?

Words that Don't Exist in the English Language

I'm Not Good at Praying
Prayer is beautiful in the simplicity of its core meaning, especially as we try to share with kids what prayer is and how to pray. Prayer is also beautiful in its rich depth and complexity of variation. Really, we could spend hundreds or thousands of hours discussing, practicing, and learning about different ways of praying (i.e. communicating with God). When it comes to leading prayer, you, your leaders, or your t[w]eens might feel uncomfortable, awkward, afraid, and/or like you're "not good at it"...

Message for World Youth Day 2011
VATICAN CITY, 3 SEP 2010 (VIS) - "Planted and built up in Jesus Christ, firm in the faith" is the title of the Message of Benedict XVI for the twenty-sixth World Youth Day, which is due to be celebrated in the Spanish capital Madrid during the month of August 2011...

Avoiding Burnout: Answers from I Love Lucy
Ministry can often feel like Lucy and Ethel’s conveyer belt of chocolates. Things start off slow and we are confident in our abilities. Soon, things speed up and the only word to come out of our mouth is “yes” and suddenly we are in charge of half the ministries in the Church...

Roman Missal: An Educational Journey
We’re about to embark on a great, broad-based education campaign in the Catholic Church. It involves the introduction of the English-language translation of the third edition of the Roman Missal. The church has 16 months to get priests and people in the United States ready to pray reverently, intelligently and together at Mass...

How to Adjust Privacy Settings for Facebook Places