Chris Mills said he can think of several people he knows who came to faith in Christ in middle school, in high school and in college. And he said he knows that happened because God moved and because a fellow student was bold enough to live out the gospel and share Christ with them. “We […]
Parents Can Help Teenagers Struggling with ‘Ever Present Need to be Connected’
The last week of July, Scooter Kellum and other youth leaders from Taylor Road Baptist Church, Montgomery, drove a group of teenagers away from the Ocoee River and back into the reach of a cell phone signal. And the whole carload of teens’ phones lit up. “It’s amazing how dependent we get on the internet,” […]
SPEAK conference draws 900-plus, challenges students to be ‘Voice of Influence’
Using the hashtag #speak17, students took their praise of Alabama’s annual SPEAK conference to the place they know best — social media. By the end of the conference, held July 21–22 at Vaughn Forest Church, Montgomery, more than 600 Instagram posts and dozens of tweets and Facebook posts featured the hashtag. “With my faves,” posted […]
How to End Well in Youth Ministry
The first thought you might have when we consider the topic of how to end well in youth ministry might be, “But I’m not going anywhere!” That may be true, but one day you will. The truth is we’re all going to be ending and leaving a ministry of some sort someday. So, I think […]
Youth Evangelism Conference Reworking Focus, Has New Name
In 2016, as 16-year-old Shantrice Coleman walked up to the microphone during the third session of the Youth Evangelism Conference, she got an unprompted standing ovation. The theme of the conference was SPEAK, and Coleman had been delivering spoken-word challenges to the students throughout the weekend. Those words connected with the audience, Scooter Kellum said. […]