Youth Ministry Sherpas: Coast To Coast

Welcome to Sherpa Shorts Season 2! Tired of waiting for summer to actually arrive? No Prob-llama! Steve and Mathew are back with another burst of Sherpa fun. We pulled out our Bermuda shorts, dark socks and Hawaiian shirts just for you! For 26 straight days, we will race through the alphabet, taking turns choosing a word that begins with the next letter as it relates to youth ministry. Some might...

Welcome to Sherpa Shorts Season 2! Tired of waiting for summer to actually arrive? No Prob-llama! Steve and Mathew are back with another burst of Sherpa fun. We pulled out our Bermuda shorts, dark socks and Hawaiian shirts just for you! For 26 straight days, we will race through the alphabet, taking turns choosing a word that begins with the next letter as it relates to youth ministry. Some might...

Welcome to Sherpa Shorts Season 2! Tired of waiting for summer to actually arrive? No Prob-llama! Steve and Mathew are back with another burst of Sherpa fun. We pulled out our Bermuda shorts, dark socks and Hawaiian shirts just for you! For 26 straight days, we will race through the alphabet, taking turns choosing a word that begins with the next letter as it relates to youth ministry. Some might...

Welcome to Sherpa Shorts Season 2! Tired of waiting for summer to actually arrive? No Prob-llama! Steve and Mathew are back with another burst of Sherpa fun. We pulled out our Bermuda shorts, dark socks and Hawaiian shirts just for you! For 26 straight days, we will race through the alphabet, taking turns choosing a word that begins with the next letter as it relates to youth ministry. Some might...

Welcome to Sherpa Shorts Season 2! Tired of waiting for summer to actually arrive? No Prob-llama! Steve and Mathew are back with another burst of Sherpa fun. We pulled out our Bermuda shorts, dark socks and Hawaiian shirts just for you! For 26 straight days, we will race through the alphabet, taking turns choosing a word that begins with the next letter as it relates to youth ministry. Some might...

Welcome to Sherpa Shorts Season 2! Tired of waiting for summer to actually arrive? No Prob-llama! Steve and Mathew are back with another burst of Sherpa fun. We pulled out our Bermuda shorts, dark socks and Hawaiian shirts just for you! For 26 straight days, we will race through the alphabet, taking turns choosing a word that begins with the next letter as it relates to youth ministry. Some might...

Welcome to Sherpa Shorts Season 2! Tired of waiting for summer to actually arrive? No Prob-llama! Steve and Mathew are back with another burst of Sherpa fun. We pulled out our Bermuda shorts, dark socks and Hawaiian shirts just for you! For 26 straight days, we will race through the alphabet, taking turns choosing a word that begins with the next letter as it relates to youth ministry. Some might...

Welcome to Sherpa Shorts Season 2! Tired of waiting for summer to actually arrive? No Prob-llama! Steve and Mathew are back with another burst of Sherpa fun. We pulled out our Bermuda shorts, dark socks and Hawaiian shirts just for you! For 26 straight days, we will race through the alphabet, taking turns choosing a word that begins with the next letter as it relates to youth ministry. Some might...

Welcome to Sherpa Shorts Season 2! Tired of waiting for summer to actually arrive? No Prob-llama! Steve and Mathew are back with another burst of Sherpa fun. We pulled out our Bermuda shorts, dark socks and Hawaiian shirts just for you! For 26 straight days, we will race through the alphabet, taking turns choosing a word that begins with the next letter as it relates to youth ministry. Some might...

Welcome to Sherpa Shorts Season 2! Tired of waiting for summer to actually arrive? No Prob-llama! Steve and Mathew are back with another burst of Sherpa fun. We pulled out our Bermuda shorts, dark socks and Hawaiian shirts just for you! For 26 straight days, we will race through the alphabet, taking turns choosing a word that begins with the next letter as it relates to youth ministry. Some might...

Welcome to Sherpa Shorts Season 2! Tired of waiting for summer to actually arrive? No Prob-llama! Steve and Mathew are back with another burst of Sherpa fun. We pulled out our Bermuda shorts, dark socks and Hawaiian shirts just for you! For 26 straight days, we will race through the alphabet, taking turns choosing a word that begins with the next letter as it relates to youth ministry. Some might...

Welcome to Sherpa Shorts Season 2! Tired of waiting for summer to actually arrive? No Prob-llama! Steve and Mathew are back with another burst of Sherpa fun. We pulled out our Bermuda shorts, dark socks and Hawaiian shirts just for you! For 26 straight days, we will race through the alphabet, taking turns choosing a word that begins with the next letter as it relates to youth ministry. Some might...

Welcome to Sherpa Shorts Season 2! Tired of waiting for summer to actually arrive? No Prob-llama! Steve and Mathew are back with another burst of Sherpa fun. We pulled out our Bermuda shorts, dark socks and Hawaiian shirts just for you! For 26 straight days, we will race through the alphabet, taking turns choosing a word that begins with the next letter as it relates to youth ministry. Some might...

Welcome to Sherpa Shorts Season 2! Tired of waiting for summer to actually arrive? No Prob-llama! Steve and Mathew are back with another burst of Sherpa fun. We pulled out our Bermuda shorts, dark socks and Hawaiian shirts just for you! For 26 straight days, we will race through the alphabet, taking turns choosing a word that begins with the next letter as it relates to youth ministry. Some might...

When we started as youth workers, we didn't have laptops or cell phones. We weren't distracted by text messages, emails and the latest news from our favorite sports team. But it wasn't all focus and productivity. Those floppy discs could be very distracting!  It's part 2 or our Procrastination series. Last episode we talked about the causes and costs of procrastination. In this follow-up, we provi...

Our Fourth Legend -- Walt Mueller It was 1989. The internet wasn't invented yet. George HW Bush was president. The Berlin Wall came down. The Cosby Show, Rosanne, and Cheers held the top spots on TV. Madonna, Phil Collins, and the Bangles topped the charts. Morgan Freeman was Driving Miss Daisy. And a little-known youth pastor from Pennsylvania got a crazy idea to start a resource ministry to help...

Well, we put it off as long as we could, but we finally got around to this one. We aren't proud of the need for this episode, because it hits a little too close to home. But it's time to confess. We are genetically-cursed procrastinators. This episode was recorded on a Monday morning. Mathew spent Sunday afternoon strolling through the DC cherry blossoms with his wife. He could enjoy this spontane...

Two youth pastors from different churches in the same town develop a friendship. Their relationship is so encouraging to each other that they begin to wonder if perhaps it could also be an encouragement to other youth workers. They decide to start a podcast, which leads to all kinds of cool things, not the least of which is an even deeper friendship and sharpening as youth workers. Sound familiar?...

It's hard to believe we made it to 50 episodes! Actually, it's harder to believe we made it to 50 years, including all these years in youth ministry, especially when you consider all the foolish things we have done. Its fitting that Episode 50 should be released near April Fool's Day, a holiday which holds a special place in the heart of any good youth worker. Maybe it's because we thought the day...

(Warning: Rated "IM" for "Immature") Being a youth worker requires restraint. People say things to us that drive us nearly insane with frustration. We've heard every excuse, criticism, and pathetic justification for lack of involvement. But because we represent God, the church, and perhaps even the decent side of humanity, we can't say what we are really thinking. But what if we could? What if our...

Our Third Legend -- Josh Griffin  We all know Josh Griffin as one of the leading voices in youth ministry with over 20 years experience in the trenches, most recently as the High School Pastor at Saddleback Church. He's the co-founder of DownloadYouthMinistry.com and been in 300+ episodes of the DYM Podcast with Doug Fields. He's created more than 50 youth ministry resources and authored several b...

(Warning: Rated "IM" for "Immature") Being a youth worker requires restraint. People say things to us that drive us nearly insane with frustration. We've heard every excuse, criticism, and pathetic justification for lack of involvement. But because we represent God, the church, and perhaps even the decent side of humanity, we can't say what we are really thinking. But what if we could? What if our...

Today's in-studio combination is more rare than the Northern Hairy Nosed Wombat. (Look it up!) -- two old youth pastors and two founding pastors with 84 years combined in our churches. In today's episode, we invited our senior pastors to join us. Paul Abbott is senior pastor of Cedarbrook Community Church, which he founded 30 years ago. Guy Kneebone is senior pastor of Mountain View Community Chur...

Nothing takes the steam out of our passion for youth ministry like criticism. Criticism is a reality for anyone in leadership. Youth pastors might even be in a position to receive more than most, since we have so many people groups (parents, students, senior pastors, elder) to answer to. We've both had our share, and we never like it, but somehow we are still around and loving student ministry. In...

Pizza, popcorn, M&Ms, Skittles, shaving cream wars, games involving pudding and eggs and mini marshmallows... youth ministry gets pretty messy sometimes. We've all done our share of messy activities, and more than often we are the ones who have to clean it all up. But what happens when the mess is more than spilled soda? What happens when it's a moral mess, a devastating failure, or a mistake that...