For the good of families and the whole Christian community, congregations can provide opportunities to equip homes as centers of faith formation at every stage of life. Congregations and youth ministries can make family faith formation a focus of everything they do as a church community, using an array of approaches and strategies to nurture faith at…
By Derek Tronsgard Luke Skywalker had Yoda. Harry Potter had Dumbledore. Batman had Alfred and Morgan Freeman. Mentors are important. And I’m sure all of us can name teachers, coaches, pastors, music directors, and other adults who made a significant impact in our own lives. Study after study has shown the importance of positive adult…
By Dr. Terri Martinson Elton, Director of the Center for First Third Ministry at Luther Seminary This past weekend was homecoming at the high school. Daughter #2 was excited about going to the dance, but a few weeks ago discovered her tennis team had an all-day tournament on the same day and, to complicate matters,…
By Andy Sahl Sunday mornings can sometimes be a scramble in our youth ministry. Our (Episcopal) Parish has a large youth center that gets used for a number of events every weekend. This means we do a lot of setup on Sunday mornings. Sometimes that setup can lead to us being distracted from being fully…
Review by Tagg Wolverton, Greater Europe Mission, Netherlands Excerpt: In recent years some tough criticisms have been leveled at modern youth ministry. While evaluation and critique are to be expected with youth ministry coming of age as a profession, many of the rest of the concerns can be traced back to the lack of readily…
By Dr. Nancy Going, Director of the CYF Distributed Learning Program at Luther Seminary Here at First Third we’re taking time once again to celebrate the Exemplary Youth Ministry study. Because we now have our Spirit and Culture of Youth Ministry book available as an e-book. But also because we feel compelled to keep…
By Dr. Terri Martinson Elton, Director of the Center for First Third Ministry at Luther Seminary According to Missiologist Stephen Bevans, Christians’ understanding of God emerges from a dialogue between Scripture, tradition and human experience. At times one of those voices may be more prominent than another, but day in and day out people of…
By Dr. Nancy Going, Director of the CYF Distributed Learning Program at Luther Seminary Every now and then, one comes across an idea or a piece of work that reorients one’s way of thinking. For us, at Luther’s Center for First Third ministry, the EYM study has done just that. Ten years later, the…
By Julie Hagen I’m so excited about the kind of space FirstThird.org can be. In my first blog here, I thought I’d play everyone’s favorite ice breaker called Two Truths and a Lie. Here we go! 1. My favorite color is green. 2. I’ve yet to join Pinterest. 3….
By Dr. Terri Martinson Elton, Director of the Center for First Third Ministry at Luther Seminary Dear Church, It’s here. The first day of school, a day that marks the beginning of a new season in my house – the school year. For the next 9 months our life will consist of navigating schedules, deadlines,…
By Dr. Nancy Going, Director of the CYF Distributed Learning Program at Luther Seminary “Grace is Experienced, Not Explained”—- Bp.Todd Hunter People who are leading children’s or youth ministry in the church often talk about the program time–Sunday School, Confirmation, Youth Group–we have with students as a GREAT OPPORTUNITY. This time of year especially,…
By Dr. Terri Martinson Elton, Director of the Center for First Third Ministry at Luther Seminary Is this the right time? Are these the right people? Can we agree on the right move? When leading change, it’s easy to get lost in searching for “the right thing” and “the right time” while missing transformational moments….
By Dr. Nancy Going, Director of the CYF Distributed Learning Program at Luther Seminary If you’ve tracked Fuller’s Sticky Faith Initiative at all, you would quickly see that the study results call the church to real changes in youth ministry practice. In fact, those changes are remarkably similar to the ones that Luther Seminary’s EYM study…
By Dr. Terri Martinson Elton, Director of the Center for First Third Ministry at Luther Seminary Yesterday I spent the day talking about adaptive change with leadership teams from seven congregations. Adaptive change is dealing with situations for which there is no known answer. Technical change, the other type of change, deal with situations which…
Cheryl Goodman-Morris reminds us that the Spirit blows as she wills, and we must needs keep that in mind as live into Christian community: What if the process of creating a fresh church could come to us in a radical, completely unorthodox new way? What if we remembered to let the Spirit find us instead…
