Seems like kids are getting cell phones younger and younger these days! This post is one I’m only doing because of requests. Several years ago, as our boys became teens, we decided to get cell phones for them—primarily so we could get a hold of them in relation to school and youth group outings. It [...]
Both TIME magazine and the San Francisco Chronicle recently reported on some dangers surfacing behind the many hours that teens are spending in social networking. Here are a few quotes from the San Francisco Chronicle article that relayed the results of a poll of 1,000 teens and 1,000 parents: “From behind their bedroom doors, more [...]
Recently, I posted about our Q&A times with students at teen camps and retreats. Over the past five years, hundreds of questions consistently revolve around the same themes. If you are a parent or youth worker, this list might help you get into their heads. It is a general consolidations of hundreds of questions. Here are [...]
How an Honest Q&A Time Can Help Your Students This week we’ve been at teen camp with 275 of our teens from LBC. It’s been a great week! One of my favorite aspects of camp is something we instituted a few years ago called “Answers to Tough Questions.” It’s a one hour Q&A time before [...]
(This is the second in a series articles about the first big tests that high school graduates face. We’ve been studying them in our senior Sunday school class and I hope these ideas will be helpful to you or those you influence.) In the first article of this series we visited the challenge of a [...]
(This is the first in a series articles about the first big tests that high school graduates face. We’ve been studying them in our senior Sunday school class and I hope these ideas will be helpful to you or those you influence.) Have you ever seen a train wreck? There’s not a much more vivid [...]
A Special Memory for the Senior Class of 2009 Last Monday we had the privilege of hosting our Senior High teens and many of their parents at Spring Banquet 2009. It was an amazing evening, featuring a delightfully decorated “Grand Ballroom” at the Disneyland Hotel. The students arrived at church at about noon, dressed their [...]
A Tool to Help High School Grads Understand Their Own Hearts and Direction I’ve not been able to write a blog post for a while due to year-end events with our graduating seniors—which leads me to thinking this might be a helpful subject. I want to encourage pastors, youth pastors, principals, and those who work [...]
Guarding Your Heart for a Wonderful Someday! People have asked for years if we would do a book to teenagers and college students about guy/girl relationships. It wasn’t until Pastor Chappell approached me about working on this project with Pastor Mike Ray that I really thought seriously about it. What a privilege to work with [...]
How Parents Let Their Kids Go Too Far, Too Fast, Too Soon This is the final article in a series about the mistakes that parents often make in allowing their children to date too seriously too soon. We’ve seen the first seven, so let’s wrap it up… 8. They push their kids into dating out [...]
Stuff I’m Planning to Do to My Son’s Car—Now that He Has One! Well, I’m officially old! My seventeen-year-old son now has a car and this post is strictly for your comic relief! Lance worked hard and saved, and it was a joy to help get a car for him as a graduation gift. It’s a [...]
How Parents Let Their Kids Go Too Far, Too Fast, Too Soon This is part two in a series of articles that flow from years of dealing with situations that arose out of well-meaning but short-sighted parental decisions. We all have blind spots, so these things are shared with a spirit of sincerity and humility [...]
How Parents Let Their Kids Go Too Far, Too Fast, Too Soon This is the first in a series of three articles. Over the years, the Lord has allowed me the privilege to serve families and students in their journey together. Hundreds of teens have graduated from our student ministry, and the vast majority of [...]
Why Have a Student Ministry Dress Standard In our last two articles we began considering the question, “Does God care what we wear?” Again, so many responded positively to these articles! In a day when sloppier and sleezier is finding its way into the church and the Christian home, may we reconsider clear biblical principles [...]
Helping Your Teen through Some of Life’s Toughest Years In the past few articles we have been considering the radical physical changes that all teenagers experience between the ages of twelve and twenty. In this article, I want to turn your attention to the emotional changes. First let’s discuss the symptoms. Have you seen your teenager [...]
