I’ve just returned from a “Jesus camp.” I spent the weekend with several dozen students from a Presbyterian church in southern Colorado talking about how the entertainment media represents Chr...

Every youth ministry camp and retreat center has its own rules and traditions for the dining hall. Some have songs. Some have chants. And some have stacking games and song games with cups. But did you know that...

During my first full year in youth ministry, success—not failure—was what almost did me in. What I eventually learned not only made me a better pastor but also a better husband. I had taken ...

This summer I attended a prayer vigil following the death of a 19-year-old Hmong man named Fong Lee who was killed by a police officer after supposedly fleeing from a drug deal. It had been a hot and deadly sum...

My strategy for surviving the elliptical machine is to program my MP3 player to play in the random mode. An eclectic mix of old and new CDs genres tempers the pain and makes things more interesting. For instanc...

Nelson Books, 2006, 287 pp., $19.99,www.thomasnelson.comErwin McManus’s Soul Cravings puts words to the “longings” that we often feel but cannot define. Having names for them — like int...

InterVarsity Press, 2006, 164 pp., $13.00,www.ivpress.comIs Belief in God Good, Bad or Irrelevant? provides a unique format that immerses readers in an unlikely e-mail correspondence between Preston Jones, a hi...

Jude is a one-chapter book we typically fly over on the way to Revelation — one that doesn’t get much attention. Yet Jude may be the primo how-to youth ministry book in the Bible. (And we all like ...

InterVarsity Press, 2006, 144 pp., $13.00,www.ivpress.comBlessed Are The Uncool is filled with lots of research and insight into the sociological reasons we all strive to be cool. This may be why teens or even ...

Collins, 2006, 297 pp,, $21.95,www.harpercollins.comUnless you are independently wealthy, you have probably asked the question, “How am I going to pay for college?” Here’s an essential resourc...