Verston is not his real name, but he has a real Ph.D. in engineering, and his business skills are better than his technical skills. Verston owns a company and has a son in youth group. More than impressive, Verston is intimidating. Not that Verston sought to strike terror in youth workers, he simply...

One of the first rules about youth ministry I erroneously followed was that parents were to be removed from the ministry at all costs ...

Relationships are essential to life. No one knows this better than teenagers, and youth workers seem to be aware of this. We often provide creative activities to promote teen-peer relationships and word hard to build relationship between ourselves and individual students, but we are still missing a key...

That same tension seems to exist between youth workers and parents. After all, if you put God first in your ministry and try to bring a child closer to God, parents will complain. I feel blessed that it's only happened once to me, though, because of the way my congregation views the church. Rather than...

If someone knows a simple definition of family-based youth ministry, please send it right away. I've read (and enjoyed) most of the books written on the subject. In fact, I can still remember reading Mark DeVries' book Family-Based Youth Ministry the very week it was published. I said then and maintain...

We all know that as youth ministry workers, we aren't to take the place of parents, but to help them raise their children. Unfortunately, there are few hard and fast rules. Crisis situations are complicated and must be navigated with prayer, wisdom and the help of trusted advisers. Though one of the...

During a rather lively discussion on the merits of family-friendly methods of youth ministry, one influential speaker and author emphatically proclaimed, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it...and youth ministry ain't broke!"

"Sometimes, I think my youth pastor would stick me on stage simply to give my parents an excuse to come to church."

As youth workers, we have to see that encouraging the deepening of familial relationships as a central part of the ministry we do. The difficulty of this work has to be embraced, because research repeatedly has affirmed that parents are the most influential people in the lives of our youth. This means...

Orange is what red (representing the warm heart of the family) and yellow (representing the light of the church) can do when they combine efforts. Orange is our strategically combined influence on the spiritual direction of the next generation. If you paint only with red, you will get what only red can...