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.

Student Ministry Hub – Josh Griffin

The guys behind a sweet new website just gave me a heads up – they’ve been developing a killer new free web app for youth workers called Student Ministry Hub. It went live today!

Student Ministry Hub is a crowd-sourced website to help you discover and promote the best student ministry links and resources from around the web.  Once you sign in you can submit and favorite articles you like – the more favorites a story gets the more visible it shows up on the site for everyone to discover. Cool idea – kind like a youth ministry digg.

Looks like a great place for me to discover new stuff to read!

5 Tips for Engaging Students on a Sunday Morning – Adam McLane

Newsflash. It can sometimes be difficult to connect with a teenager at church.

Our culture does a lot to communicate to us that teenagers and adults shouldn’t engage with one another. As adults we think, “What could I have in common with a 14 year old?” And teenagers assume that adults don’t really want to be with them. So when thinking about engaging with a teenager at church or youth group you have to start with the understanding that there is naturally a gap or divide to be crossed. You’re going to have to fight past some stuff to really get there.

And frankly, I need to know that the 2-3 hours per week I volunteer with the youth group make a difference. If that time isn’t going to be valuable than I’d much rather invest that time at home than at church.

Getting past “Hi” and the craptastic world of small talk involves some skill. Here’s 5 tips for getting past small talk and helping you really engage with the teenagers at your church.

1. Take the first step. In my life I’m used to people taking the first step to begin a conversation. But most teenagers, even the most outgoing ones, assume that you don’t really want to talk with them, so you’ll have to take the first step. So push past the awkwardness of initiating a conversation and just go for it. An easy in is always, “Tell me about your week.” Then make sure you listen, not just for an in to talk about your week, but really listen.

Read entire article here.

Your Student’s View of the Bible Starts with You – Andy Blanks

In the course of teaching or writing about discipleship, I’ll often find myself turning to a familiar passage to talk about the outcome or the goal of discipleship. Whenever this comes up, I almost always go to Paul’s words in Ephesians 5:1. I believe the ultimate goal of our lives is to be “imitators of God.” Plain and simple. If we see that as the goal we’re leading students to, it’s serves as a pretty good measuring stick for all our efforts. 

The interesting thing comes when you take this idea of God-imitation as the goal, and ask yourself how you see the role the Bible plays in that process. 

I think this is actually a very important question. Study after study have done nothing but reinforce the idea that young people and adults alike simply don’t value the Bible as an important part of their lives. This is kind of a big deal, as the Bible is God’s main way of making Himself known to us. How can we follow, love, and relate to someone we don’t know? 

So, how we think about the Bible as it relates to helping us imitate God is extremely important. 

In my experience, I’ve usually seen this look one of two ways.

Read entire article here.