The following post in an excerpt from "Your First 100 Days in Student Ministry and the 40 Years That Follow," a new book from author and pastor Jeff Borton. Jeff has been in student ministry for over 20 years. He has served in both small and large church contexts and desires to see them all thrive. ...
Read More

It’s summertime and baseball state tournaments are wrapping up, so I thought we would keep fast and neat down the center this week with a trio of baseball analogies for parent ministry. Here are three things that parents in and near your student ministry need from you this summer.  1. A ...
Read More

There is a serious deficit in many of our youth ministries. Yes, I’m serious. Yes, it’s significant. It  And oh, it’s theological... but it is not whatever theological issue you just thought of... Our youth ministries are seriously lacking in FUN! Now, wait, I said fun and you immediately ...
Read More

This month on Student Ministry That Matters on YouTube, we are focusing on launching student ministry small groups. A lot of focus and energy in student ministry goes into worship and large group gatherings, but small groups can be the discipleship and care engine of your ministry! It's time to take ...
Read More

Ministry to parents is something that has been rising in importance and attention in student ministry over the last decade. While this is true, the pandemic revealed that there is still work to be done in closing the gap between providing information and partnering with parents in the ...
Read More

How do you get your student ministry to the next level?  John Maxwell famously has 5-levels of influential leadership and aspirational leaders should seek to grow their capacity all the way to level 5. Well, I would like to offer I think there are three levels of student ministry leadership ...
Read More

“You have to learn to fight with tools.” One of my ministry mentors said this cryptically early on and it has taken me years to learn it’s value.  Here’s what I think he meant: In the fight for ministry excellence and longevity, our capacity for faithful discipline, spiritual practices, ...
Read More

Discouragement is a part of life and leadership for you and the people you lead. As leaders, we can become so focused on achieving the task in front of us that we fail to recognize the struggles of people on our teams. A challenge for me is to see that caring for people is as much the role of a ...
Read More

There’s only one problem with dissent: a lot of people don’t want to hear it.  All week long we are focusing our attention on what it means to be a dissenting voice for your team, and a discerning team with a powerful voice. It’s not an easy conversation, but a necessary practice for the ...
Read More

It’s senior season and next month you should be celebrating your graduating seniors. But how? Last year was a mad-dash of just trying to come up with something, anything that we could do in light of being on lockdown. This year let’s take what we innovated last year, couple it with what we have ...
Read More