As faith communities prepare for the Advent season, nostalgia for the past becomes commonplace. Many faith communities hang the greens, practice the traditional hymns, host traditional events, and read the season’s scripture stories. But the potentially negative impacts of nostalgia ...
The Center for Youth Ministry Training has received a $1,249,965 grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. to help establish the Benediction Project. The program is funded through Lilly Endowment’s Nurturing Children Through Worship and Prayer Initiative, a national initiative designed to ...
Here at the Innovation Lab, our Innovation Culture Index (ICI) assesses a faith community’s culture by revealing its strengths and areas that need to improve so innovation can take root effectively. The ICI measures what we call the Nine Indicators ...
The season of Advent needs a refresh. That’s because, somehow, one of the greatest stories ever told has grown stale in many churches around the country. Many faith communities mark the season with the same traditions they’ve observed for decades, ...
Artificial intelligence, or AI, is all over the news lately. From healthcare to finance to education, industries around the globe are investing billions of dollars to develop apps and programs run by AI that will solve problems, answer questions, and ...
The first step in product thinking, as Nikkel Blaase writes in an article for the Interaction Design Foundation, is to “determine the problem that your users are looking to solve.” When done well, determining a user’s problem begins with researching ...
In the last 15 years, First Church experienced a steady decline in worship attendance, ministry participation, and volunteer recruitment. The congregation is aging and many of the church’s programs aren’t as effective as they once were. Average Sunday attendance hovers ...
Saying, “no,” can be a really hard thing to do. I experienced this firsthand while serving on my church’s missions team for many years. The requests that came to our committee seemed never-ending. Members of the church brought us information ...
I stumbled upon a prayer this week called, “For when you’re tired of broken systems,” and this excerpt remains lodged in my mind: Oh God, how blessed are we who cry out to you: Empower us to see and name ...
I was recently coaching a group of ministry leaders to help them unpack their faith community’s experience with the Innovation Lab’s Community Discovery Package. Guided by the resource, they’d completed community research, conducted in-depth interviews with people in their context, ...
Take 60 seconds to try this thought experiment: Close your eyes and imagine a successful and effective ministry program in your context. What do you imagine? How many people are present? What are they doing? What’s your role as a ...
At the Innovation Lab, when we give a presentation, lead a workshop, or engage in conversation with a ministry leader, we always start by defining what we mean by “innovation.” We start here because the word “innovation” comes with a ...
Kris Konsowitz Kris has over 35+ years of experience in youth ministry. Her ministry experience includes serving as the Youth Minister at Collierville UMC in Tennessee. Kris has experience serving in youth ministry at the local, conference, jurisdictional and national ...
For Jeremiah Law, youth ministry was always in the plan. After receiving his undergraduate degree in youth ministry, he joined CYMT to pursue a master’s and get the support he needed to start his first job as a youth pastor. ...
Ryan (he/they) never planned on being a youth pastor. They had volunteered at summer camps and youth-serving organizations, but also had a full-time job that provided a life they were comfortable with. He and his wife weren’t even really active ...
Dr. Andrew Zirschky Andrew has more than 20 years of congregational youth ministry experience and holds an M.Div. and Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary. He is the author of Beyond the Screen: Youth Ministry for the Connected but Alone Generation ...
Sarah Carlson was a high-achieving, high-anxiety teenager. She constantly pushed herself at school and extracurriculars. Her schedule was packed with activities that would make her look good to colleges, to her parents, and to her peers. She was constantly striving, ...
by Meghan Hatcher Last month, a blog post titled “Departure: Why I Left the Church” went viral throughout a wide swath of the ministry landscape. In the post, former pastor Alexander Lang articulates why he recently chose to leave not ...
Stephen Ingram Stephen is a 25+ year youth ministry veteran. His books include Hollow Faith: How Andy Griffith, Facebook, and the American Dream Neutered the Gospel, ExtraOrdinary Time: 365 Ordinary Moments with an Anything But Ordinary God; and Organic Student ...
Dr. David White Rev. Dr. White has just retired as the C. Ellis and Nancy Gribble Nelson Professor of Christian Education, Professor in Methodist Studies at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Austin, TX. He now serves on the board of ...
