A New Job

Yesterday was my first day at my new job. Okay, that might be a little bit of a stretch. Yesterday my job at Hope Lutheran Church changed from Youth Director to Director of Youth and Ministry Development. Our Associate Pastor of Ministry Development, Wendy Berthelsen, decided that she wanted to devote her time to the development [...]

A Trinitarian Model for YM – Conclusion

In addition to confirmation, opportunities for cross-cultural engagement will provide students an opportunity to consider the “other.” In a culture where selfishness, affluence, and “success” abound, teens would benefit from building relationships with those who are vastly different than them. Hopefully, this would take the form of something more than a typical mission trip, but [...]

Craig Van Gelder on the Church as Hermeneutic

From The Essence of the Church: A Community Created by the Spirit: As the church lives “into” and “out of” the biblical story, its life is transformed by its power. The biblical story is contextualized in the life of the church. The church becomes, in fact, the hermeneutic of the gospel. That is, the world is [...]

A Trinitarian Model for YM – Confirmation Ministry

In providing a theologically based plan for ministry, I would like to focus on our confirmation program because it provides a unique ministry opportunity. Parents and students tend to treat confirmation as having great importance. Confirmation also presents an opportunity to lay the groundwork of lifelong faith because of the age that it occurs in [...]

A Trinitarian Model for YM – The Location of Ministry

If Jesus is the most full revelation of God to humankind, and if the church continues the ministry of Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit, then the location of the church’s ministry must then be defined. Douglas John Hall provides an appropriate launching pad for the task of ministry when he states that [...]

A Trinitarian Model for YM – The Holy Spirit

The action of God is not bound merely to revelation, some sort of divine communication to human beings, but God continues to be present and active in this world through the Holy Spirit. Such an understanding of the Christian faith takes the burden off of the church to be successful and instead calls the church [...]

A Trinitarian Model for YM – The Father and Son

This entry is part 2 of 2 in the series A Trinitarian Model for YMIf a church is to be more than a local community support group for those in need, it must attempt to speak of God. When beginning to consider the means by which we speak about God, it must first be emphasized [...]

A Trinitarian Model for YM – Introduction

This entry is part 1 of 2 in the series A Trinitarian Model for YMThis series was originally written as a paper for a class in seminary. In considering how to best articulate a theology for ministry within my particular context I have chosen to attend very specifically to the teens already present within the fold [...]

Craig Van Gelder on Word and Sacrament

More from The Essence of the Church: A Community Created by the Spirit: The Reformers’ intent was to return the Word to the center of life within local congregations. But singling out preaching and sacraments can produce several problems in how the ministry of the church is understood and practiced. These include (a) the tendency to [...]

Friday Frivolty

I’m not feeling too creative today, so here’s a pretty amazing video that probably took way too much time to make. Come back next week for a series on a trinitarian model of youth ministry.