Rick Lawrence
June 14, 2011
The flamboyant, opinionated, and self-confident guy who cut my hair for eight years is unabashedly gay. So is a friend from college, two distant relatives, and a startling number of my wife’s ex-boyfriends. Paul, the hair-cutter, had a dream, and it was to...
Scott Firestone
June 14, 2011
| Culture
By Jeffrey Wallace
In early March I had one of the most intense ministry experiences of my life. The leaders of the Simply Youth Ministry Conference (SYMC), the same people who put this magazine together, asked me to help mediate a panel discussion at the...
Doug Fields
June 14, 2011
| Culture
Editor’s Note:In the decade since Craig Gross launched a ministry to people impacted by pornography—those who are addicted, those who produce it, and those who are “performers”—he has fueled a national conversation about the devastating impact of a “...
Scott Firestone
June 14, 2011
| Culture
TITLE
Anatomy of a Scandal
By David Pasternak* (not his real name)
Technically, I resigned—I didn’t get fired. And that’s how we like it in the church, as neat and presentable as possible. But the truth is that I got fired. And that fact alone was...
Rick Lawrence
May 26, 2011
| Leadership
Almost everybody in youth ministry uses youth talks as their primary teaching strategy, but do they actually work? Even though the “sermon” is the quintessential cross-denominational ministry practice, and has been since Josh McDowell was in cloth diapers, I'...
Rick Lawrence
February 11, 2011
| Leadership
A couple of weeks ago my friend and partner-in-crime Doug Fields asked me to answer a few questions about leadership for a regular weekly feature he’s doing on his new blog (at dougfields.com). So I took a hard swing at each question….
1. What is your...
Doug Fields
February 11, 2011
| Leadership
Editor’s Note:Doug Franklin is a sneaky-smart catalyst for leadership development in teenagers. Every time I spend time with him, I come away wanting to tell others what he’s just told me. He’s collected his wisdom the hard way—the true way—in the challenging...
Youth Ministry “Don'ts”
Youth Ministry “Don'ts”
Youth Ministry “Don'ts”