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Wake Up: Rediscovering A Passion for God and the Bible is a 31-day devotional experience designed to unlock the Bible for Christ-followers. Every day in Wake Up teaches you a different way of meeting with God in the Bible. Some feed your head. Some feed your heart. Some lead you to reflect. Some lead you to act. But every moment is designed to help you rediscover your joy for God and for meeting Him in His Word.

When you think about the state of youth ministry today, are you an optimist or a pessimist? Do you cheer or fear? Is the glass half full or half empty? Mark Oestreicher offers a fresh take on what’s right in youth ministry—and discovers that perhaps things aren’t as broken as some of us might have thought.

Your First Two Years in Youth Ministry is a must-have tool for new youth workers, volunteers, seminary professors and students—even veteran youth workers. Author Doug Fields offers practical advice, all in the hope that new youth workers can achieve real longevity in an often tumultuous church culture.

Game Master and Youth Minister are two titles that often go hand in hand. Whether you have the experience or not, approaching games for your events and retreats can often become an overwhelming task. Creativity can become stifled as other tasks and to-dos overwhelm your plate. Youth Group Games was designed by J. Roger Davis, who has decades of games experience. These books are designed to help you have easy and effective games ready for the next time you put on a big event.

Game Master and Youth Minister are two titles that often go hand in hand. Whether you have the experience or not, approaching games for your events and retreats can often become an overwhelming task. Creativity can become stifled as other tasks and to-dos overwhelm your plate. Youth Group Games was designed by J. Roger Davis, who has decades of games experience. These books are designed to help you have easy and effective games ready for the next time you put on a big event.

Game Master and Youth Minister are two titles that often go hand in hand. Whether you have the experience or not, approaching games for your events and retreats can often become an overwhelming task. Creativity can become stifled as other tasks and to-dos overwhelm your plate. Youth Group Games was designed by J. Roger Davis, who has decades of games experience. These books are designed to help you have easy and effective games ready for your next mid-week service, retreat, or big event.

Messy Games is one of seven books within the Youth Group Games line. Getting out of the norm and adding a little mess to your recreation time always adds a lot of fun to your service, retreat, or event. Some of these games will stink, and others are sure to make your group go bananas! Utilizing his decades of experience, J. Roger Davis shares his expertise on 25 must-play messy games he has used over the years!

Game Master and Youth Minister are two titles that often go hand in hand. Whether you have the experience or not, approaching games for your events and retreats can often become an overwhelming task. Creativity can become stifled as other tasks and to-dos overwhelm your plate. Youth Group Games was designed by J. Roger Davis, who has decades of games experience. These books are designed to help you have easy and effective games ready for the next time you put on a big event.

Coming up with fun and engaging games for your youth group can be a daunting task. Through years of creating summer camps and working with youth ministries, J. Roger Davis has created SEVEN Youth Group Games books, each packed with 25 field-tested must-play games. The Youth Group Games: Book Bundle includes Water Games, Relay Games, Group Building Games, Large Group Games, Stage Games, Messy Games, and Dodgeball Games. This bundle is the perfect resource to help you hit a home run with your students at your next mid-week service, retreat, or event! 

Game Master and Youth Minister are two titles that often go hand in hand. Whether you have the experience or not, approaching games for your events and retreats can often become an overwhelming task. Creativity can become stifled as other tasks and to-dos overwhelm your plate. Youth Group Games was designed by J. Roger Davis, who has decades of games experience. These books are designed to help you have easy and effective games ready for the next time you put on a big event.

Game Master and Youth Minister are two titles that often go hand in hand. Whether you have the experience or not, approaching games for your events and retreats can often become an overwhelming task. Creativity can become stifled as other tasks and to-dos overwhelm your plate. Youth Group Games was designed by J. Roger Davis, who has decades of games experience. These books are designed to help you have easy and effective games ready for the next time you put on a big event.

In Youth Ministry For The Longer Haul: A Field Guide For Longevity, youth ministry veteran and author Chris Trent passes along over three decades of hard-earned advice, knowledgeable insights, and practical wisdom. Chris knows firsthand the value of ministry mentors. And throughout the pages of this book, he mentors you, the reader, so that you too can experience success in navigating the pathway to longevity in youth ministry.

Youth Ministry in a Post-Christian World: A Hopeful Wake-Up Call is the collection of humble, story-driven, pragmatic, and Jesus-focused reflections of a fellow youth worker forced to reconsider everything he knew about youth ministry: everything except the gospel, that is.

Youth Ministry on a Shoestring: How to Do More With Less offers encouragement and inspiration to begin a "new" way of looking for resources. Lack of funding doesn't have to mean a lack of fun. From the people and things in your church and community, you'll uncover a whole new world of possibilities that can help you do ministry—and do it well.

Written by Dr. Danny Kwon. Parenting well is the hardest job on the planet. Partnering with parents in youth ministry may be the second hardest job. You've probably studied teenagers' needs, their culture, and even their ever-changing lingo in preparation to be the most dynamic youth worker your church has ever seen. But when was the last time you studied their parents? What are their fears? What motivates their decisions? And why do some of them seem so hard to please? A Youth Worker's Field Guide to Parents is for youth workers who struggle to communicate with and relate to the moms and dads of the teenagers they want to reach the most. Whether you're a veteran youth worker or just starting out, or a church leader who wants to embrace parents more effectively, this three-part module will provide you with tips for peacemaking, insights for better empathy, and the motivation you need to make these important relationships work.

Written by Dr. Danny Kwon. Parenting well is the hardest job on the planet. Partnering with parents in youth ministry may be the second hardest job. You've probably studied teenagers' needs, their culture, and even their ever-changing lingo in preparation to be the most dynamic youth worker your church has ever seen. But when was the last time you studied their parents? What are their fears? What motivates their decisions? And why do some of them seem so hard to please? A Youth Worker's Field Guide to Parents is for youth workers who struggle to communicate with and relate to the moms and dads of the teenagers they want to reach the most. Whether you're a veteran youth worker or just starting out, or a church leader who wants to embrace parents more effectively, this three-part module will provide you with tips for peacemaking, insights for better empathy, and the motivation you need to make these important relationships work.

Written by Dr. Danny Kwon. Parenting well is the hardest job on the planet. Partnering with parents in youth ministry may be the second hardest job. You've probably studied teenagers' needs, their culture, and even their ever-changing lingo in preparation to be the most dynamic youth worker your church has ever seen. But when was the last time you studied their parents? What are their fears? What motivates their decisions? And why do some of them seem so hard to please? A Youth Worker's Field Guide to Parents is for youth workers who struggle to communicate with and relate to the moms and dads of the teenagers they want to reach the most. Whether you're a veteran youth worker or just starting out, or a church leader who wants to embrace parents more effectively, this three-part module will provide you with tips for peacemaking, insights for better empathy, and the motivation you need to make these important relationships work.

As our students go through life, they encounter people and situations that lead them to pack and carry some enormous emotional baggage that holds them back from living in the grace and freedom that Christ provides. As youth pastors, we are in a unique position to help both students and their parents "lighten the load" along the way. In these training sessions, we will look at eight specific bags kids tend to pack as they grow up, how these bags tend to get packed, and the long-lasting negative impacts they can have. Each session will offer practical strategies we can use and equip parents to employ to leverage their influence and prevent some of these bags from getting packed in the first place.

You know the disappointment of planning a parenting event for your ministry and having few, if any, parents bothering to attend. You watch as the parents in your church sit on the spiritual sidelines of their teenagers. You feel the frustration as parents respond to the cultural tides their teens face with fear, anger, and resentment. The easy path for you is to step in and become the disciple-maker of the teenagers in your church. The most rewarding path, however, is to find a way to inspire parents to do it. But how do you do that? Our session together will give you the tools you need to equip, encourage, and empower the parents (grandparents and guardians) of the teenagers in your church. And learning how to leverage these tools will help you to leave a legacy of impact that will last long after you are gone.

I once heard it said that when you get to the end of your time in ministry, you want the people who know you the best to love and respect you the most. How are you doing with that? If our spouse and our kids are our first and most important ministry, are we honoring the Lord with our time and our attention to them? In this one-session Masterclass, I want to give you ten tips to consider that can help you to do great ministry while being a great spouse and a great parent.

As youth ministry leaders, we all have things that we’d love to do (know that we need to do) but often don’t have the time or clear vision for. Sunday and Wednesday are always coming, and the teenagers in our care need our attention. But what about their parents? What about the people who actually have the biggest influence on them? What are we doing to engage, equip, and empower those who God has called lead their children? In this MYM training, Family Ministry Pastor Chris Sasser will share a few ideas and tips on how we can engage, equip, and empower parents in our church as they seek to love and lead their teens.

We all know that "partnering with parents" is important, but nobody ever goes on to tell you what successful "partnering with parents" looks like exactly or how I am supposed to do that impactfully from my youth pastor role. What if there was a better way to meet the spiritual and felt needs of the families within your church? What if making that church-wide change could start inside your youth ministry and with you as a youth ministry leader? Join Chris Sasser as he shares some practical steps to building a whole family ministry and how your youth ministry can act as the catalyst for change.

There is nothing like the honor and blessing it is when, as youth pastors, we get a front-row seat to watch God moving and working in the life of a teenager. One of the best moments is talking with a student about their decision to follow Jesus and follow through with being baptized. It's amazing and humbling at the same time. But the logistics of it all can also be a little intimidating. How does that process work in your ministry? Are you intentional in this pre-baptism meeting to walk a student through what baptism is, what baptism isn't, how it works, why we do it, and even what needs to come after? Are you making an effort to involve the parents in this entire process? Allow me the opportunity to share with you how we do one-on-one baptism meetings with students at our church. There's even a downloadable baptism meeting guide and checklist for you to adjust to fit your ministry context.

All of us in youth ministry have upset a parent and had to deal with the ramifications of it. If you haven’t had the experience yet, trust me; it’s coming, and it’s not fun. So, what do you do when you have upset a parent? How do you approach making it right or even winning back any lost trust? There’s no need to make a mistake when dealing with angry parents when you can learn from mine! Let me share with you three things that I’ve learned over the years to do when you need to deal with an angry parent.

Youth ministry (much like life) has its share of hard seasons, times when you find yourself crying out to the Lord to hear your prayer and longing to take refuge under the shelter of His wings (Psalm 61). Maybe you’ve been there. Perhaps you’re there right now. Maybe when you look around you, all that you see right now is the towering walls of the valley that surrounds you. These are hard places to navigate. These are rugged valleys to walk. But my brothers and sisters in Christ, my fellow youth workers, you are not the first to walk this valley, and you don’t have to navigate this dark place alone. In this video, I want to share a look into my heart and offer you a lot of encouragement and a little advice from someone who’s walked this valley.

One of the things that I learned very early in my years in youth ministry was that the ministry I was doing WITH my students was about a lot more than just the ministry I was doing FOR my students. No middle schooler and less than half of the high schoolers who participate in your ministry actually get to your ministry events or activities on their own. And pretty close to 0% of your students pay for your ministry's camps, retreats, lock-ins, or other events. Parents are essential. And your ability as a youth pastor to earn the trust, respect, and buy-in of parents can quickly make or break your ministry's reach and impact. That's why I want to share three "must-do's" if you want to build trust and relationships with parents.

Partnering with parents doesn't have to be rocket science. Sure, your steps towards a partnership need to be thoughtful, but they can also be as simple as they are purposeful. For example, here's a little secret that isn't that much of a secret at all: Parents love people who love their kids. Let me share with you some ways that I take some first steps towards a partnership with parents in my ministry by intentionally encouraging parents along the way.

As youth workers, we know full well that "...all have all sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God...." (Romans 3:23 ESV). But one of the more difficult parts of youth ministry, in a practical sense, is how we walk alongside a teenager and their parents when that teenager has been caught in sin. Allow me to share with you four practical ways we partner with parents through a student's sin in our ministry.

Do you want to be respected as a youth ministry leader? Do you desire to not only partner with parents but be trusted by them as well? There is one essential element that will act as a master key to opening all three of these doors. That key element is excellent communication. From content to consistency to conciseness, let me walk you through the things I have found in my ministry that are essential for every parent email.