Raising teens is tough, but when teens want to start dating things can get even tougher. Here is help for parents of teens in making sure their teens have healthy relationships.

Prep early.
Ideally, the process of preparing your teen to date should start when he or she is young. Healthy dating is, in part, about learning how to relate well to others (and it’s never too early to teach that). Kids learn from watching others and will build their worldviews based on what they see around them.

If you want your teen to live out functional relationships, do what you can to create a healthy and Christ-centered living experience for them. Get involved in a small group at church. Invite other families over for dinner or a movie and popcorn. Expose your kids to others who live Christ-centered lives.

Fill in the gaps.Continue Reading “Before the Dating Begins!!”

How many times have you attended student ministry training events and returned home ready to implement new ideas, to challenge your ministry team to a deeper commitment, and to more clearly focus your day to accomplish the goals of your ministry and become a more deeply committed Christ follower in the process? Here are some ideas to help follow through with your intentions in your life and ministry. Whether it was a recent student ministry conference or something you discovered at camp this past summer, certainly there has been at least one “ah-ha” moment in your life sometime this year. Sometimes your day is so fast-paced and tightly scheduled that you literally don’t have time to stop and organize your thoughts. You want to take action on your “ah-ha” moment but life gets in the way. Whether you have a new idea or a brand new direction in which you would like to head, consider these ideas to help you move from intentions to something real in your life and ministry.

Prior to Training EventsContinue Reading “What Do I Do After the Conference?”

Children are not born with instructions. Even if they were, I doubt that many parents would actually read the directions. Most parents, like me, learn from experience. The following four pointers are some principles I’ve used to reduce the parent/teen conflict in my own home and to increase my teen’s involvement in making responsible choices. 

Realize Your Own Needs. Parents of teenagers are usually approaching an age of reflection, and this mid-life stage can be a time of personal crisis! Parenting a teen can add to the intensity, as you must face your own issues and those of a budding son or daughter. As a parent, you must come to terms with your own emotions and not transfer these to the challenges of parenting.

Respond Productively to Emotions. Teens are a bundle of emotions, but never discount the vital role of these emotions. Emotions are at the surface, but they offer parents an open line of communication with their [...]

Continue Reading “Parent – Teen Conflict”

We at SimplyUrban want to make sure you are on the up and up of any new music or videos that would assist you in your ministry. I found another hot one on Youtube by LeCrae.

We  found a great comparison list created by: Chris Dawson (aka) Jeremaya. Jeremaya created a urban alternative list a few years back and it has become popular within his church.  He states, “He saw many list out there but none were marketed towards gospel or rap”. He wanted to expose kids to different type of rap music besides the harmful things they are being exposed to.

 Check out Chris’s list and LeCrae’s new video.

Click here to view file 

Don’t forget to tell us what you think.

Goal setting is an important concept to consider in guiding our teens to become fully functional adults in this world. Understanding what drives people is a first step in guiding our teens to set reasonable goals for their own lives. Psychologically, the will to live, the need to feel important, the need to be unique, and the need to love and be loved is what motivates most of us in our lives.

Whether we have a definite method of educating our teens about goal setting or not, we should remember that they are watching us to see how we plan our future and how we achieve our goals. Goal setting will give your teens direction. Following are a few things to remember related to goal setting.

Try the MAPS Principle: 
1. For teenagers, goals must be Measurable. For many of us, goals tend to be vague and obscure instead of definite. Our teens should be able to tell if they have reached them or not.

2. Goals must be Attainable. Being [...]

Continue Reading “Helping Students Set Goals”

Graduation—a word which sends spirits soaring to the greatest heights while at the same time causing streams, if not rivers, of tears. Smiles, hugs, shouts of joy and excitement mark an ending as well as a beginning. Dreams, anticipations, and hopes sail as highly as the graduation caps. The day has arrived. Diplomas in hand. Graduation is over. Now what?!

High school is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Why is it our human nature often misses the moment at hand because we’re looking toward the future or reliving the past? This scenario is extremely common among high school seniors and even juniors. There is so much pressure in our society to excel—to get ahead—to be at the top. Horizons and challenges of the future are constantly bombarding the minds and captivating the hearts of high school students, causing them to miss out on those priceless high school days which, once gone, can never be retrieved.

Balance is key. Yes, it is important to plan ahead, to study hard, and to visit different universities and colleges; but the most important thing to remember is that [...]

Continue Reading “Getting Students Ready for College!”

Ever wonder why the majority of Sunday morning church services across the globe are the most segregated time. Sad but true and our youth groups are mirroring the same reflections of big church.

 In our society and especially the area where I live, 98% of our students attend diverse schools, live in diverse neighborhoods, and participate in diverse athletics and clubs. A few years ago we noticed many of our students hung out in mixed groups within their schools. Although, our students hung out in diverse groups; they never invited those friends to youth group.

 We are having to re-access the reasons why our youth group looks the way it does. We are examining the words we use, the music we play and the jokes we tell. We discovered sometimes the jokes were using were only relatable to the community we were serving. We were not exposing our students to different genres of music, although many of them listen to more than just hip hop, so we found.

 I think it’s good to look at events and music that your students would relate to but it’s good to challenge them and expose them to other things.

 If we had a glimpse of Heaven I think many of us would be surprised to see there is NO Black side, Asian side, Hispanic side or White side. For many of us this would be a dramatic change. At what times to you [...]

Continue Reading “The Urban Suburban Crossover”

Every successful student ministry venture begins with a group of passionate people who are willing to work together to create an innovative concept in response to a problem or need. Consider these noted patterns that are evident when ideas turn into successful ventures.

Every venture starts out with a need or a problem.  Problems are often the sparks that set aflame innovation. Kingdom ventures are born out of yearning, need, and crisis. Before you can express a solution you need to eyeball the problem.

A successful venture almost always has the fingerprints of a number of people all over it. Innovation is about unselfishness. God calls the church to work as a body. There is holy interdependence in the creative process of ministry.

Don’t over-spiritualize the creative process.Continue Reading “Birthing New Ideas for Urban Ministry”

Pam Gibbs, LifeWay Girls Ministry Specialist was asked a few questions about Girls Ministry at LifeWay. Here is what Pam had to say: 

Q. Tell us what our goal is with LifeWay Girls Ministry?One of the markers we follow is this: “Girls ministry provides a culturally relevant, holistic approach to meeting the real-life needs of girls, their parents, and their leaders, helping girls to discover and embrace their identity in Christ while launching them into the world as godly, confident leaders.” Our main goal is to help teen girls have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, grow that relationship so that they can reach out to others and make that relationship known to other people. We want girls to know who they are and whose they are. That impacts everything in their lives—the decisions they make, the people they hang out with, the lies or truths they believe. We want them to know Truth in a personal way and have that truth change their futures. So much of what happens in women’s ministry is repairing the damage that was done during the teen and young adult years. We want to come back [...]

Continue Reading “Sister Circle Blog”

Today’s female students need to be challenged to be radicals for the cause of Christ. As more pressure and more unrealistic cultural expectations are placed on these young women, the church must step in to give these young women a godly focus that reinforces their value and worth in God’s kingdom. The hope for these young girls is ultimately found in the hands and hearts of God’s church – in the middle of your student ministry plan. Here are some suggestions from one leading out in girls’ ministry to get your ministry plan off the ground.

Harness Your Passion
Passion is often hard to find in a society that is raising a generation too apathetic to vote in the presidential race but aggressive enough to cast 63 million votes in the last American Idol contest. Our society has a skewed perspective on what really matters and the effects have trickled down to our teenagers.

Passion is the only thing to set you apart from the programmed apathy that [...]

Continue Reading “Sister Circle 101 – “Girls Ministry””