There are endless possibilities when it comes to service projects. Some are as quick as sharpening pencils in the sanctuary for ten minutes during confirmation class. Others involve weeks-long trips to foreign countries. One of the more challenging questions for youth leaders is how to choose service opportunities. As valuable as service opportunities are, they have to be provided in a thoughtful and deliberate way. There are four rules we suggest for finding appropriate service opportunities.

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!

Summer is officially here. Now that school is out, it is a constant battle to keep the kids entertained. To all the hardworking, selfless, tired youth ministry servants…

First, the bad news . . . our teen girls are in crisis. I'm worried about them, and you should be too. My oldest daughter, Catie, is in high school and my younger daughter, Elisabeth, is in middle school. We’re living the teen girl life around here, and I see what’s happening to these young women. These girls believe they have to be perfect, and they are so hard on themselves when they don’t live up to impossibly high standards that they see on the internet.