Youth Ministry Sherpas: Coast To Coast

In an age of rising mental health awareness, constant connectivity, and youth sports worship, it has become increasingly common for parents to care more about protecting their kids from struggles than developing their charac ter. As youth pastors, we can sometimes get caught in the spinning blades of helicopter parents. How can we encourage parents to permit the proper amount of discomfort to exis...

On today's episode, we discuss this generation's infatuation with authenticity. Is the fear of being.a hypocrite keeping kids from following Jesus, and if so, are we doing enough to teach grace? Fittingly, we also have an authentic conversation about how to be a pastor when we don't feel worthy ourselves. Is it hypocritical to stand up and teach when we have doubts and struggles of our own? How do...

Episode 6 is probably what you need right about now! With the fall season ramped up, it's easy to focus on "doing" instead of "being." When life as a youth pastor takes on breakneck speed, how do we keep ourselves spiritually healthy and serve from overflow instead of overwork? Then we talk about authors who have influenced our spiritual journey. Hint: most of them are dead. Lastly, in the world o...

Episode 5 might be our most fun -- and honest -- yet. Brock and Shannon survive the "Great California Hurriquake" of 2023, right before Fall Kickoff (always fantastic). There's nothing quite like that early momentum and seeing all our kids come back for another year together. But as much as we love students, we have to admit some are harder for us to like than others. Following up on our conversat...

It’s our fourth episode, and we keep learning more about each other. We discover that there are actually people (at least one) who don’t like Brock. Or Steve. (Of course everyone loves Shannon.) How do we handle the inevitability of not being liked by everyone? Next, with school starting back up, we talk about the school choices church families make. Is there a difference between homeschool, priva...

It's the 3rd episode of the Youth Ministry Sherpas ** Coast to Coast ** and we are having a great time together! The Barbie Movie is all the rage. Steve and Shannon think it's hilarious. Any good youth pastor (sorry Brock) should have seen it by now. What does it teach us about this cultural moment and issues facing our students, and should we re-think how we do ministry to the girls in our group?...

It's the second episode of the Youth Ministry Sherpas ** Coast to Coast **! As we redirect our thinking toward the fall, we stop to celebrate the iconic moments of Summer Camp 2023! But first, we have to address the pressing question on the minds of youth workers everywhere (especially Shannon): Are Aliens real, and what in the world (or outer space) do we tell our students about them? Then it's b...

It's the inaugural episode of the Youth Ministry Sherpas *Coast to Coast* Podcast, featuring Brock Morgan, Shannon Dunn, and Steve Anderson. We call ourselves "Sherpas" because we have over 80 years combined experience leading ministries. It's "Coast to Coast" because we serve on opposite ends of the country (Steve in Maryland; Shannon and Brock in California). We love students, we love youth mini...

PLEASE LEAVE US A ***** FIVE STAR REVIEW ***** ON I-TUNES! It’s Thanksgiving Week, and before Mathew overdoses on carbs and Steve spends 20 hours in the car, we thought it would be good to show our gratitude. I mean, who isn’t thankful for free t-shirts, Fabreeze, and youth group leftovers? But in all seriousness, we are thankful for many things, both youth ministry and personal. We are even thank...

PLEASE LEAVE US A ***** FIVE STAR REVIEW ***** ON I-TUNES! It’s Sunday night, and you are riding the spiritual high from all the great ministry that took place at the retreat this weekend. All your planning, effort, and prayer came together in an amazing weekend. Lives were changed. The Spirit was there! You were fulfilled. Life is great! Until Monday. The Day After. Or for some of us, Tuesday. Th...

PLEASE LEAVE US A ***** FIVE STAR REVIEW ***** ON I-TUNES! Kids are going to mess up. That’s a fact. Blame it on their undeveloped frontal lobe. Blame it on their non-Christian friends. Blame it on yourself. Whatever the case, teenagers are going to mess up. They are going to disappoint us, embarrass us, and leave us wishing we could send them to timeout. In fact, both of us have done that before....

PLEASE LEAVE US A ***** FIVE STAR REVIEW ***** ON I-TUNES! An interview with Brad Griffin! So much of youth ministry is built on programming, hype, and fun. But under the surface of all of that great stuff lies the existential workings of the teenage mind. That’s where we need to go, and where we go in today’s episode. What are teenagers really thinking about? What are the deeper questions they ar...

PLEASE LEAVE US A ***** FIVE STAR REVIEW ***** ON I-TUNES! Youth ministry is all about the teaching, right? “You killed that message!” “That was a homerun!” “You were on fire!” Yeah, maybe. But the truth is, for most of us, teaching is a bit of a grind, a grind which is not enhanced by the pressure we put on ourselves. Sometimes we might be really good; other times not so much. We are not called t...

PLEASE LEAVE US A ***** FIVE STAR REVIEW ***** ON I-TUNES! Youth ministry is all about the teaching, right? “You killed that message!” “That was a homerun!” “You were on fire!” Yeah, maybe. But the truth is, for most of us, teaching is a bit of a grind, a grind which is not enhanced by the pressure we put on ourselves. Sometimes we might be really good; other times not so much. We are not called t...

PLEASE LEAVE US A ***** FIVE STAR REVIEW ***** ON I-TUNES! As much as we love what we do as youth pastors, we’ve come to realize that there’s more to building the Kingdom of God than building our youth group. We want to impact students beyond the walls of our church. But how? Today’s conversation takes a different tone. We aren’t as interested in providing answers as we are asking the right questi...

PLEASE LEAVE US A ***** FIVE STAR REVIEW ***** ON I-TUNES! Who doesn’t love retreats? They are part of every youth ministry, as essential as pizza and Axe body spray. But how do we go about planning a great retreat? What factors should we consider as we take students away for the weekend? In this episode, we talk about retreats in terms of “spaces.” We need space for relationships, for spiritual g...

PLEASE LEAVE US A ***** FIVE STAR REVIEW ***** ON I-TUNES! When Steve and Mathew first got this idea, back in 2017, to create a podcast to encourage youth workers to keep going, it seemed like a fun, somewhat daunting, pie-in-the-sky concept. It also seemed like overkill. I mean, who needs another podcast? Who would listen? And who do we think we are? Until we got the most brilliant idea in the hi...

Holy Llama Lips, it’s the Fourth Season of Sherpa ShortsI This June, for 22 straight days, we are choosing a memorable song and then riffing about how it relates to youth ministry. This year we decided to go decade by decade, choosing 2 songs each, starting with the 70s and progressing to 2021. What’s the best decade for music? Steve says it’s the 80s. I mean, it’s hard to top Springsteen, the Pol...

Holy Llama Lips, it’s the Fourth Season of Sherpa ShortsI This June, for 22 straight days, we are choosing a memorable song and then riffing about how it relates to youth ministry. This year we decided to go decade by decade, choosing 2 songs each, starting with the 70s and progressing to 2021. What’s the best decade for music? Steve says it’s the 80s. I mean, it’s hard to top Springsteen, the Pol...

Holy Llama Lips, it’s the Fourth Season of Sherpa ShortsI This June, for 22 straight days, we are choosing a memorable song and then riffing about how it relates to youth ministry. This year we decided to go decade by decade, choosing 2 songs each, starting with the 70s and progressing to 2021. What’s the best decade for music? Steve says it’s the 80s. I mean, it’s hard to top Springsteen, the Pol...

Holy Llama Lips, it’s the Fourth Season of Sherpa ShortsI This June, for 22 straight days, we are choosing a memorable song and then riffing about how it relates to youth ministry. This year we decided to go decade by decade, choosing 2 songs each, starting with the 70s and progressing to 2021. What’s the best decade for music? Steve says it’s the 80s. I mean, it’s hard to top Springsteen, the Pol...

Holy Llama Lips, it’s the Fourth Season of Sherpa ShortsI This June, for 22 straight days, we are choosing a memorable song and then riffing about how it relates to youth ministry. This year we decided to go decade by decade, choosing 2 songs each, starting with the 70s and progressing to 2021. What’s the best decade for music? Steve says it’s the 80s. I mean, it’s hard to top Springsteen, the Pol...

Holy Llama Lips, it’s the Fourth Season of Sherpa ShortsI This June, for 22 straight days, we are choosing a memorable song and then riffing about how it relates to youth ministry. This year we decided to go decade by decade, choosing 2 songs each, starting with the 70s and progressing to 2021. What’s the best decade for music? Steve says it’s the 80s. I mean, it’s hard to top Springsteen, the Pol...

Holy Llama Lips, it’s the Fourth Season of Sherpa ShortsI This June, for 22 straight days, we are choosing a memorable song and then riffing about how it relates to youth ministry. This year we decided to go decade by decade, choosing 2 songs each, starting with the 70s and progressing to 2021. What’s the best decade for music? Steve says it’s the 80s. I mean, it’s hard to top Springsteen, the Pol...

Holy Llama Lips, it’s the Fourth Season of Sherpa ShortsI This June, for 22 straight days, we are choosing a memorable song and then riffing about how it relates to youth ministry. This year we decided to go decade by decade, choosing 2 songs each, starting with the 70s and progressing to 2021. What’s the best decade for music? Steve says it’s the 80s. I mean, it’s hard to top Springsteen, the Pol...