Arnav is a student at a state university. He was involved in youth group in high school, and he attended church regularly—at least twice a month. As he entered college, however, he found himself unsure and out of his element. Friendships he had known since middle school were now spread out across the country, and, according to what he saw on Instagram, all of them seemed to be happily settling in. Arnav, though, was not happily settling in. Since starting college, he has felt sad and upset. If he were honest, he would he would have to admit that he is lonely. He feels an awful lot like he did at the beginning of middle school, except he can’t go home and the stakes seem so much higher now.  

This post is the third in a three-part series about ministering to those who are walking with Jesus in their post-high school and pre-family-of-their-own years.

October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month. The entire month is dedicated to those who have experienced the loss of a baby, and it is a time set aside to grieve and remember families and their babies. One in four pregnancies result in miscarriage; one in eight women experience recurrent miscarriages; and stillbirth affects one in one hundred pregnancies. When someone is walking through a season of grief such as this, they are in a delicate state. Oftentimes, people try to offer comfort with the best intentions, but it can be interpreted as insensitive. Words carry an even heavier weight when one is grieving with an already heavy heart. Grieving can cause someone to hang on to every word and twist it in their mind. It may begin to feel, to that person, like no one understands.

Many churches are seeking ways to continue their relational influence in the lives of students who attend colleges away from home. Ministry to college students can cover many areas. In this post, we will be looking specifically at a few ways churches can help students continue to walk in faith with their church community as they experience God in a new city.

This post is the second in a three-part piece about ministry to those who are walking with Jesus in their post-high school and pre-family-of-their-own years.

I serve my church as the head of a team that partners with parents to develop and encourage faith in eighteen-year-olds. I love it! Faith development has been my passion for twenty-four years. Over the last decade, I and others who serve in our church have expressed the desire to reach beyond the eighteen-year-old boundary and intentionally walk with students into their after-high-school years.

This post is the first in a three-part series about ministry to those who are walking with Jesus in their post-high-school and pre-family-of-their-own years.

Did you know that October is Pastor Appreciation Month? Pastors do so much more for us besides leading services on Sunday mornings or Wednesday evenings. They are a major part of a believer’s life and the life of the Church. Pastors spend years studying to help preach God’s Word accurately and passionately. For all the work that pastors do—long hours spent visiting the sick and dying, counseling the troubled and distressed, teaching classes of all kinds to all ages—it seems appropriate to offer them our thanks and appreciation.

This post is adapted from Kim Marxhausen’s newest book, Weary Joy.

Planning a mission trip is a lot of work. I am not super experienced in this realm; I don’t have years and years of experience. But I have planned and led two mission trips for the church I went to in college (shout-out to the University Lutheran Chapel in Ann Arbor, MI—much love). The first trip I was a part of planning was to Houston, TX, in 2018 after Hurricane Harvey. We were part of the wonderful disaster response efforts with Heart for Texas, an LCMS-affiliated organization.

Entering the back-to-school season, teachers have a great opportunity to reach out to the families in our schools and connect them to church. While some of these families may already be a part of a church body, many school families don’t have a church home of their own. During this season, churches are re-launching Sunday School and hosting back-to-school events and backpack blessings, but how can we continue to connect school families to church as the year progresses and schedules fill up?

Imagine asking 22,000 youth to take roughly twenty to thirty minutes, or even more, out of their busy National Youth Gathering schedule—a trip they’ve planned for and anticipated for years—to pack boxes with forty pounds of books each. And not one box but many. And more. And more and more. And then to stack those boxes on pallets so they can be sent to complete strangers throughout the United States. Easy, right? They’d jump at the opportunity, wouldn’t they? Well, they would—and they did!

Chances are, you are going, or have already gone, on a vacation this summer. Maybe you took a day trip to a state park; maybe you’re flying to Europe for two weeks. Whatever you have planned or have already done, vacations are part of life. This is by God’s design—God rested on the seventh day of creation (Genesis 2:2), God commanded the Israelites to rest one day out of every week (Exodus 20:9–11), and God told his Old Testament people to keep three week-long feasts (Passover, Pentecost, and Booths). God set a pattern for all people to find rest in the midst of the work and toil of this world.