This post received some attention this month, so I thought I’d repost it.
As we near the end of a semester, the stress for students amps up even higher that normal and it’s often accompanied by feelings of depression or bouts of anxiety. At the college level, there isn’t much I can do to assist students who procrastinated and pay the price for that delay. But, I did receive a long-distance Email from a high school teenager who was feeling stressed, down, and wondered what he could do to work out of that. Since I know a lot about being a teen with stress and depression (because I struggled with it too), I offer these 10 action steps. I wrote them quickly, so I’d love to hear what you think about this list.
So, without further delay, here is my 10-step list to deal with stress: read more…
Posted on Wednesday, May 23rd, 2012 at 6:21 AM in YOUTH MINISTRY. No comments
One of the blessings to being a teacher is that we get a few weeks off each summer to recover, renew, and recharge for the coming school year. Some years (like this past one), I need that to be ready for the next school year.
Some summers I have kept working and being involved in a variety of good projects. This summer, I am dialing down quite a bit and taking a mini-sabbatical for two months to develop some projects that need attention and resuscitation. I will also reengage some long-rusty spiritual disciplines to renew my relationship with Jesus Christ and will dig into some books that comprise my towering “need to read” stack.
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Posted on Tuesday, May 22nd, 2012 at 7:02 AM in IN THIS CORNER. No comments
One of the new realities for conference organizers, hotel owners, universities, businesses, and even city managers is the accessibility of the Internet. Indeed many people choose where to eat, stay, and live based on ‘coverage’ and get more than a little cranky when the internet goes down…. or the connection is slow. For those of us who grew up watching the Jetsons, Star Trek, 2001 A Space Odyssey, and thought the game Pong (play it online here) was cool, we have realized a world dependent on connectedness for communication and work, but also for knowledge and identity.
So, while over 73% of the world still does not have access to the Internet, for many of us it’s an expected right now. We’ve become dependent on it and while it’s a great tool (look, I’m using it right now), I think there may be some problems with the dependency. So, this has been a challenge for me and I quickly listed five dependencies. read more…
Posted on Monday, May 21st, 2012 at 8:43 AM in THE WORLD. No comments
This guest blog post is from Nate Hultz, Pastor of Student Ministries at Stonebridge Church in Findlay, Ohio.
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Posted on Wednesday, May 16th, 2012 at 7:24 AM in YOUTH MINISTRY. 5 comments
Guest post by Nathan Engman, Director of Youth and Family Discipleship, Memorial Lutheran Church, Katy, Texas.
I have heard it said that just because you have the church, it doesn’t mean that you are making disciples. However, everywhere you are making disciples, you have the Church. This speaks to a large assumption that churches have adopted over the last several decades.
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Posted on Tuesday, May 15th, 2012 at 7:09 AM in YOUTH MINISTRY. No comments
Guest blog post by: Eric Kelly (@yfcjjm), National Juvenile Justice Director, Youth for Christ USA
I was a 90’s youth group kid, I admit it. I spent many nights wandering in the dark looking for a mob of people who did their best to hide from me. I was only an “eight”, the amount of marshmallows I could cram into my mouth and still mumble “Chubby Bunny”. “Underground Church”, “Manhunt”, and “Mafia”, yup I did them all!
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Posted on Monday, May 14th, 2012 at 7:12 AM in YOUTH MINISTRY. No comments
The microphone waves in front of the athlete’s face, the question posed by the reporter focused on the efforts of his teammates. He wipes sweat of his forehead with a towel and without hesitation he nods and says, “Yeah, everyone came ready to play. They gave it their all. They left it all out there on the field. They gave it 110 percent.”
Perfect. 4-4 on the cliche meter and all smile in approval as they recognized an important goal in athletics goal was met. (Uh, the goal was not saying cliches after a game. It was giving the game one’s all.)
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Posted on Thursday, May 10th, 2012 at 8:33 AM in LEAD WELL. 2 comments
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