Reinventing Youth Ministry Again Table of Content

I'm on campus at least twice a week. When youth workers hear this, I always get the same question:...

This is a short clip about one lawyer trying to justify his illegal activity to another lawyer. His hope...

By Thom McKee

Usually, it is very hard to relate to most of the things characters in The Walking Dead are going through. And let's face it, the world of the Walking Dead is so different than our world, that this is half of the fun – we get to imagine how we would react to these very foreign experiences that we see on the show. How would we survive this type of apocalypse? Who would we group with? And probably, most importantly for those of us who are Christians, what would our faith look like in this type of world? This is exactly what my brother Jonathan writes about in his book The Zombie Apocalypse Guide for Teenagers. (If you haven't read the book, I highly recommend it, especially for those who are fans of TWD. In his book, he examines how Christians might react in a world where the dead walk the earth.)

By Thom McKee

If you are reading this at the time I am writing this, in March of 2020, you are undoubtedly thinking about how the world has changed in the last month. Most of us are under "shelter in place" orders and, unless we have a job that is considered necessary, we are sitting at home thinking about how the future is never going to be exactly the same. One of the first things that we noticed several weeks ago, was that celebrities were affected by this disease as well as the common people. Tom Hanks, Idris Ilba, senator Rand Paul and even the prime minister of England have it right now. While I am sure that this is

By Thom McKee

Have you ever wondered what life would look like if you made different choices in the past? What if you hadn't chosen the job or school that you are in? What if you hadn't chosen to become friends with the people who are closest to you? What if you hadn't made the bad choices you made in the past? Or worse, what if you hadn't made the good choices from your past? What would your life be like now? Tonight on The Walking Dead, Michonne gets to ponder these things. What if she hadn't saved Andrea (and later went back to her corpse to steal her knife)? What if she

By Thom McKee

There is an old saying that says you have to be very careful when you come across someone who has nothing to lose. And let's face it, the saying is actually very true. People who have nothing to lose are far more likely to cross people when offended and they are equally hard to keep in line if it is your job to do so. Why? Because people who have nothing to lose are numb to the world and it's authorities. And consequently, they are more likely to defend themselves or attack when they are provoked. This is probably because consequences are generally irrelevant to this type of person. So far, we have met a lot of people on The Walking Dead with nothing to lose. But I don't think that we have ever met anyone who personifies this old saying like Negan does.

By Thom McKee

It seems like every day on the Walking Dead should be treated like it is the last day in the world. But even in their universe, some days are just worse than others. And the day that they were all facing on tonight's episode was just one of those where clearly, not everyone in Hilltop was going to see the next sunrise. So during this episode, which ended with the beginnings of "all-out-war" with the whisperers, our characters spent a lot of time getting their affairs in order. Eugene set a date with the girl who, may or not be who she said she was on the radio. Rosita and Eugene also seemed to clear up any misunderstandings about their relationship. Carol made up (as much as she could) with Daryl and had a meaningful conversation with Lydia. But probably the most telling clue that things weren't well, was what happened between

By Thom McKee

I remember during season one of The Walking Dead thinking to myself, when are the people going to become the bad guys? At that time, the walkers were pretty much the only antagonists and it wasn't really until the governor appeared in season three where a group of people became a major adversary for Rick and his group. But since the third season we have watched the walkers' actions take a back seat to the horrible things that people did to each other. Consequently, in almost every season since, many characters have had to choose sides in major conflicts between people groups. Also, we have seen the different groups evolve and join together in partnerships and factions. But over the years, the main narrative for the show has been to

By Thom McKee

A little over a year ago I went to Israel for the first time. If you haven't been, I can't urge you enough to go to the land where Abraham, Moses, Elijah, Jesus and the Apostle Paul lived. Just being in the place where the apostles, prophets and our Lord lived, served and preached will change your life. There is just something awesome about visiting a place that connects you to its history. One of my favorite memories of that trip was the half mile journey through Hezekiah's tunnel. Sometimes called the Siloam tunnel because it dumps fresh water into the pool of Siloam, it is a tiny tunnel built in the eastern side of Jerusalem in the late 8th century BCE. It was built in order to

Last weekend, I took 7 teenagers with me to give out food to the homeless, and the experience proved...

Tony, a high school boy in our ministry, begged me to let him speak at youth group. He...

When COVID shut down our in-person youth ministry, I challenged my youth to record a one-minute devotional video, and...

If we are too focused on program (I've gotta set up these games, let's practice this worship set one...

If you are feeling "zoomed out," I promise you – many of your teens are also. Here are some...

How can you help an already stressed out generation, now hurting more than ever before, when screens aren't fulfilling?...

Want help with ideas for 'how to up your game' and feel like you know what you are doing...

It's pandemic evangelism. Foxhole evangelism. I've heard it called many things. But I've seen it personally over the last...

JonathanHello! I have all your books and love them!I recently moved churches, from a church in MN to a...

How can I better engage a student that internalizes EVERYTHING? I know she is having issues at home but...

Every year we have a new batch of 7th graders enter our ministry. One of them is a special...

Our youth group is small with 8 to 10 girls, ages 8th thru 10th grade. Several girls are constantly...

IÕm looking for fund raising ideas that have a "purpose," not simply candy sales, t-shirt sales, etcetera. Any...

Most of our female students have crushes (say they are in love with) our Youth Pastor & male youth...

I am starting a youth group from scratch at a new church. At present we have 1 teenager who...

About a year ago we started doing dances for middle school students which I disc jockey at our local...

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