In my recent, highly controversial and edgy post (which, as suspected, resulted in a spike in traffic), I made this statement:
“Men and women in full-time local church youth ministry ARE the experts. There I said it…and it feels good! No, you don’t have to be in full-time ministry to care about students, to make a kingdom impact, to have opinions and a level of expertise; but let’s be honest for a minute: The people who spend 50 hours a week neck-deep in the local church youth ministry world do have a little bit more to say on the subject. Let me tweak that statement. They may not have more to say, as there is obviously no shortage of stuff being said about youth ministry, but what they do have to say carries more weight….especially the stuff said by people in average-sized churches doing average stuff! Sadly, most of these youth ministry experts don’t have a way to voice their expertise!”
I’d like to help change that in some small, baby-step, ways. Here are four:
1) If you are a full-time youth worker in a local church setting and have a blog that you update regularly, PLEASE leave the URL to your blog in the comments section, and I’ll begin to frequently feature a blog from “The Youth Worker Nation” here in hopes that it will give attention to folks with good stuff to say that aren’t being heard like they should. Being featured on this blog isn’t a big deal (certainly not as big a deal as being featured on the BIG DOG BLOGS like Griffin, Fields or Marko) but…it’s a baby step in the right direction!
2) If you don’t have a blog, but have something to say….write a 600(ish) word article and if it passes our highly intricate approval process we will post it here for you! Send your article to symshow.gmail.com and put “BLOG” in the subject line.
3) You’ve probably seen these but don’t know that you likely qualify to write one! The “everyday youth ministry” line of books from Simply Youth Ministry includes books from the well known experts, BUT is also the place Simply/Group is giving a voice/power to the in-the-trenches youth workers who might normally not have an opportunity to get published! These books are shorter, less polished and often a tad bit grittier than what you would normally expect, and that’s because they’re mostly written by youth workers who are neck-deep in local church ministry. If you have a proposal for a book that would fit this line, shoot Nadim an email at nadim@simplyyouthministry.com and he’ll give you more details! Here is one of my favorites. And another. And another.
4) It’s a secret….can’t tell you right now….give us a few months….it’s awesome.


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