Editors Note: This is John Rinaldo’s fourth blog in his series on Multi-Parish Youth Ministry: 1. Multi-Parish Youth Ministry: A Gift and a Challenge 2. Multi-Parish Identity: Healing the Change 3. 8 Princples of Multi-Parish YM, Principle 1 In my last blog entry, we began to explore the necessary principles for a multi-parish youth ministry [...]
Do you know where your leaders are? For years I overlooked one of the most powerful tools in youth ministry and now I can’t help but think how many teens we could have reached if I had paid more attention developing teen leadership. I know this probably sounds like just one more thing on the [...]
“Hindsight is always 20/20” they say (whoever “they” are) and even in the world of youth ministry that is abundantly true. Looking back over my 9+ years of youth ministry, there are three things that I really wish I had known and lived from the start: 1. Give “Your” Ministry Back to God. Daily. Saying [...]
I returned home from a long day of ministry. Not that life-giving day of ministry that sends us to the sheets physically destroyed but spiritually renewed. No, it was one of those other days of ministry – it was one of those days the devil was lickin’ his ugly chops, throwing every annoyance my way, [...]
Grumpy? I was sitting in front of my computer trying to get through the millionth email while ignoring the ever-growing pile of “stuff that should have been done yesterday” when the phone rang. Annoyed, I picked up the receiver and put on my best happy voice to say “hello!” On the line was one of [...]
The mission statement of Life Teen is to “Lead Teens Closer to Christ.” As a youth minister, I really enjoy Advent and Christmas because more than any other time of the year this mission seems clear and maybe even easier to accomplish. For this youth minister at least, how we search for Christ and thus [...]
Picture this: A teen approaches you about something going on in their life that is so vast, so incomprehensible to digest, that you just go numb. You go into emotional cruise control, offering canned, clichéd responses to all you come across. For the past few years, my ministry took this form. As ministers we have [...]
Like many of you reading this, it’s been a busy summer for me. I figured out that I’ve traveled over 30,000 miles in the past eight weeks, by plane, rental car, bus, boat and golf cart (great gas mileage). Since Memorial Day my life has felt like one “event” after another. The Life Teen Convention [...]
Objective: The middle school youth will come to know St. Maria Goretti and develop a deeper understanding of our call to have purity of mind, body, and spirit. Overview: PURITY : Middle school youth continue to be exposed to violence, sex, and death on television, in movies, video games, music, and on the internet. [...]