About this series:
Youth ministry faces a lot of issues today. The leaders often feel undervalued, students are under constant pressure, and the ministry itself is sometimes misunderstood as it searches for direction. What’s going on youth ministries today? How do we need to change? What kind of direction do we need to take? That’s what I asked many youth ministry bloggers in hopes of compiling a resource that generates discussion and evaluation of our own ministries as we seek to be as effective as possible in reaching this generation.

Here’s the line-up:

1. Justin Ross (Youth Pastor) of Let wonder replace worry
2. Matt Glover (Pastor in Australia) of MattGlover.com
3. Tony Myles (Pastor, Writer) of Don’t call me Veronica
4. Grant English (Pastor) of Randomness of a distracted tour guide
5. Josh Griffin (Manager of Doug Field’s “Purpose Driven Youth Ministry”) of Don’t believe everything you read on the Internet
6. Buddy Rathmell (Youth worker missionary in Japan) of YouthBuddy.com
7. Ben Gray (Youth Pastor) of Open Switch
8. Paul Martin (Youth Pastor) of Like a fire
9. William Berger (Camp Director)
10. Evan Mattei (Youth Pastor) of Evan’s Blog
11. Mark Oestreicher (President of Youth Specialties) of YSMarko.com
12. Ben Kraker (Youth Pastor) of That Ben Guy
13. Adam McLane (Youth Pastor) of AdamMcLane.com
14. Jason Curlee (Youth Pastor) of Making difference makers.
15. Bill Scott (Founder of ZJAM Youth Ministries and Teenhopeline.com)
16. Ian Mcdonald (Youth Minister in England) of YouthBlog
17. Joshua Michael (Youth Pastor) of Junior High Blogs
18. Dennis Poulette (YM seminary prof in Mexico) of YouthMinistryTV.com
19. Greg Stier (President of Dare 2 Share) of Rantings of a Jesus-loving, raving lunatic
20. Heidi Abbott (Youth Pastor) of Church of the Harvest.
21. Dot Gosling (Senior Lecturer of Christian Youth Work & Applied Theology) of dot gosling.
22. Abby Fox (Youth Director) of ..extraordinary...
23. Other community blog posts.
24. James Tippins (Associate Pastor) of Being Wise and More Stupid.
25. Tim Schmoyer (Youth Pastor) of Life in student ministry
26. Your biggest struggle: Survey conclusion
27. Summary, highlights and discussion of “Issues in Youth Ministry.”

Conclusion of the series
I’ll conclude the series with my own summary of the top 10 issues in youth ministry based upon the content of these authors, feedback from you guys and the survey running in the right side-column, so your input and discussion is very much requested and appreciated.

If you’d like to write an entry as a part of this series, please feel free to contact me.

Posted on November 16, 2006