By Dietrich KirkWhat should our relationship with God look like? God is full of grace, forgiveness, and love. God is often referred to as a Good Father. Jesus desires to have a deep relationship with us and calls us friend. Relationships ...
by Dr. Andrew Zirschky Lament is a powerful form of prayer that allows us to express our deepest sorrows and doubts to God. It is a way of acknowledging the suffering we experience in life and bringing it before God ...
by Rev. Stephanie Dodge Steph is a United Methodist Senior Pastor as well as a former Innovation Lab Cohort Participant. For more information on our Innovation Lab Cohort Program (which is registering new cohorts now) CLICK HERE. In 2016, Glendale ...
by Andrew Mochrie Andrew is the leader of the Theology Together Program at CYMT as well as a former Innovation Lab Cohort Participant. For more information on our Innovation Lab Cohort Program (which is registering new cohorts now) CLICK HERE. ...
by Dr. Andrew Zirschky Starting in the 1990s, a focus on innovation and particularly disruptive innovation began to take hold in business schools and large companies worldwide. In the past decade, that interest has spread to the Church and to ...
By Meghan Hatcher 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 ...
By Stephen Ingram I don’t do CrossFit. I’m more of a racquetball then hit the sauna workout kind of guy. Even though I do not do CrossFit myself, it is not from a lack of effort from many of my ...
By Rhys Ferguson It is that time of the year. The five advent candles have been lit and put out, the presents under the tree have been unwrapped, the trips to far off places (and places just around the corner) ...
By Laura Provence My first holiday season at my new church felt like a Christmas miracle. After struggling to maintain our large numbers from the Summer and early Fall, our Sunday night attendance quadrupled for our Christmas Party. These numbers ...
By Andrew Zirschky, Ph.D. As the calendar year rolls over, many families see opportunities for new beginnings and restarts as they consider returning to church or finding a new one. For youth workers, this inevitably leads to evaluating and retooling ...
“The Kid Who Questions Everything” by Cory Peacock There’s an old Calvin and Hobbes comic strip, written and drawn by the comic genius Bill Watterson, in which the precocious six-year-old Calvin has a nice father-son talk about things scientific. Calvin ...
Understanding the WOW Theological Method By Dietrich “Deech” Kirk I was walking down the row of hungry people when a man said to me, “Hey, I know you.” And that statement transformed my life. We arrived at ...
8 Tips for Keeping Youth Involved and Listening Let’s just be honest with the fact that not every lesson is going to be a success, and sometimes we will lose our youth. It’s important to always be aware of what’s ...
“Not just a beloved program, but a way of being in all of our programs”: Reflections on a Lab cohort one year later By Meghan Hatcher We emphasize process over product and transformation over traditional ministry metrics at the ...
By Anastasia Pumphrey Trinity UMC in Homewood, Alabama, hosted its most successful and golf tournament scholarship fundraiser to date on August 5, and this year it was led by a current CYMT resident! Rhys Ferguson, class of 2024, has ...
Urban Youth Worker as Relationship Builder by William Parker In the Search Institute’s report on Positive Developmental Relationships, Peter L. Benson writes, “After decades of forming hypotheses, conducting surveys, crafting and rewriting definitions, analyzing data, and writing journal articles, Search ...
Successful Retreat Planning 101 If you’re planning a retreat this year, use this free guide to make sure you’ve got your bases covered–whether it’s your first or hour one hundred and first event! Prayer and Purpose: Why? Begin ...
Welcome to Youth Group! Helping Students and Parents Transition Into Youth Ministry By Andrew Davis As youth pastors, we must be intentional about how we welcome our new 6th or 7th graders into the youth ministry. Church involvement can be ...
Snow Plow Parenting By Rev. Regina Girten I remember the first time my daughter fell while learning to walk. Our house was not carpeted and as I watched her tiny body topple over my heart skipped several beats. My instinct ...
Whose needs is your Back-to-School Sunday really meeting? By Meghan Hatcher, Innovation Lab Director When I began a new ministry role as Community Engagement Pastor midway through the summer, my first major project was to plan and lead Back-to-School ...
