If you are like me you try to read as many articles, blogs and books as possible but just cannot catch all of them.  “In Case You Missed It” is my way of pointing out a few “reads” that I think are too good to miss.

How to Partner with Parents as a Young Student Pastor – Austin McCann

When it comes to student ministry, I have a three-part philosophy: Biblical teaching, training leaders, and equipping parents. Biblical teaching is what I do with the students. Training leaders is what I do with my volunteers. Equipping parents is what I do in regards to, well, my students’ parents.

Recently, I was asked about the third part of my philosophy. The question went something like this:

“How will you partner with parents when you are a young adult, just married, and without kids of your own?”

It was an honest question that many churches, and most parents, will ask a young student pastor. How will you partner with me as a parent and help me when you’re still young and know nothing about parenting yourself? As I thought through that question, I came up with a few ways even young student pastors can partner with parents.

Here are a few thoughts on how we can come alongside parents and help them fulfill their God-given job at pointing their children to Christ.

Read entire article here.

Getting Kids to Commit to Youth Group Events – Tim Schmoyer

Here’s a question I was recently asked by a youth worker:

“Will I have a better attendance if I have kids commit to an event months ahead of time or is it better to have them just show up the day of the event?”

Somehow I think the issue of getting kids to commit to youth events is the surface issue, a symptom of something else because most kids really don’t have a problem committing to something. You know exactly what those things are because often it’s what they’re doing instead of the youth group event.

Getting kids to commit to youth group events isn’t based on the timing of when you get them to commit, bribes, or price break incentives (although that may motivate the parents). It’s based on something else: what they believe about you and the ministry.

What you believe determines how you act. It is a basic principle of life that applies to every single one of us. For example:

• If you believe flying is unsafe, you will not fly.
• If you believe eating poop is bad for you, you will hopefully not eat poop!
• If you believe God’s command to Adam to “go forth an multiply” is for all mankind, you will try to have children.

Read entire article here.

Blessed are the Bullied

Bullying memories remain so vividly in our minds, don’t they? Like Dementors from Harry Potter, they sneak up on us and suck the life out of our day by reminding us that there really are some cruel and the vicious people in the world.

My most memorable bullying moment goes back to my freshman year in high school, when a rather large and extremely popular athlete decided I was an excellent choice to hoist up and hang upside down over a very public section of lockers and sing the school song.

Of course, sharing a song that you don’t know yet while looking upside down at a crowd of jeering classmates is not a great start to one’s 9^th grade year – wouldn’t you agree?

Later on, I found out that my bully had quite the difficult home life, and had himself been bullied when he was in elementary school.

Did that take away the pain of the moment?  Nope.  But it did help me come to a place of forgiveness, and it revealed an important truth about bullies:

Hurt people, hurt people.

Read entire article here.