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Four Things Youth Pastors Can Do To Help Students Value Race
Teenagers need safe places to talk about race. I wish it were my parents who pushed me to value race. But the truth is, they didn't have parents who valued race. They did their best raising us, but they weren't able to help me as much as they likely wanted to. My...
5 Things Teenagers Can Do
Advocating for an end to racial injustice is work that all of us should be committed to. For teenagers, it can feel scary not knowing who to talk to as they begin to articulate their beliefs, express their doubts, and challenge things that aren't right. Teenagers need...
5 Practices To Transform Your Life In Quarantine
Remember the time, back in early 2020 when we went places? It's starting to feel like we've been living the quarantine life for longer than we've lived our regular lives. It takes me a whole year to wash my produce and everything else I buy at the grocery store now. I...
The Auto-Immune Paleo Journey
My name is Brooklyn. I struggle sticking with plans. I get bored easily. I don't like feeling like my options are limited. I'm a seven type personality with a seven wing (if you speak Enneagram). But sometimes life gives us surprises, like a diagnosis or a disease,...
WE ARE HELD: A MESSAGE IN MEMORY OF RHE
It was my turn to preach this Mother's Day. I was having a hard time deciding what to preach. As a result, I called my friends in preacher panic. Preach panic is sort of like writer's block, but worse because you have to say waht you've written (or not writtten) out...
PARADISE BOOK SPOT
The paradise book spot doesn't exist. I'm sorry if this has also been your lifelong daydream and you weren't expecting this plot to twist today. I get it. I'll sit with you while the thought sinks in. I've searched most of my reading life for a book spot that...
Meet me in a few? An ongoing relationship with books.
Brokenhearted. Brain fogged. Exhausted. Anxious. Mid 2014 I found myself in a place I had never been before. I was suffering from severe depression. I had swerved into unknown territory. It was scary and I was embarrassed. How did this happen? I kept working, writing,...
Show Me Your Friends
My grandma and childhood best friend died before Christmas. Just a few months ago we were still chatting nightly on Facebook messenger. I knew that the cancer she was fighting was real, but it didn't seem real when we were telling each other stories. Some of the more...
Somos Church – Human Series
I can't believe we are already heading into week four of the HUMAN series at SOMOS! All of us are humans. We've got one wild life and it's time we took at look at some of the ways we can grow! We are- studying 9 complex personalities of the Bible exploring the 9...
Somos Church Series – How To Be A Better Human
Church planting wasn't on my list of things I hoped to do someday. But it has helped me to become a better human. It's helped me get up and get moving because if we're being real (p.s. there's no other way to be unless we want to be boring and horrible pretenders)...
What’s Your Plan?
What's your plan for 2019? Love is my plan this year. In every circumstance, relationship, and decision, I truly want to know what love would do. Because I've not always used love as my compass. Honestly, I'd say fear has allowed to lead for too long. ...
ADVENT WITH AN ELF
ADVENT WITH AN ELF Hi. I’m Brooklyn. I’m a mom of two kids (three if you count our goldendoodle Marley). I’m a writer and a pastor and I love everything there is to love about Christmas. When The Elf On A Shelf tradition came about I jumped on board. Fun always draws...
I Was Wrong About 6th Grade
I feel like I've been training for 6th grade since my daughter was born. I've researched, studied, witnessed middle school through the eyes of parents and students in our youth ministries. I've been hoarding a stack of ideas, stockpiling what I've learned for the...
Sweet Revenge: How to Help Your Kids During A Church Plant
Wow. It's been five years. May 2012- I sat at a church plant conference thinking, "this is such great advice, but I highly doubt we will ever plant a church." Then I wrote a blog post to help me remember what I learned...just in case. Turns out we needed the advice...
Middle School Small Groups #OC17
Today I'll be leading a breakout at a conference for church ministry leaders from all over the world. You can learn more about it here! I LOVE connecting with the youth ministry tribe and always end up gaining just much as I give. Learning is best. And also TEAM...
What are passions? How do you follow them?
Weekly mantra that never becomes reality... "I'm going to give myself enough time and space to tell the stories that I have lived." They are stories about the crazy inside, about love and family, and laughs on the kitchen counter (usually after we've cried first)....
You Have A Youth Ministry
I don't think I realized how much the last two years would wreck my idea of what youth ministry is and isn't. The thoughts actually started during a college ministry internship in Brazil, 2001. I conveniently protected the different ideas of youth ministry that I saw...
Do What You Can
Someone asked me this week, "how do you do it all?" The simple answer is that I don't. I can't. There aren't enough hours in a day or enough energy in my tank to do all of the things. But somehow without much margin this month I was able to do #22 push ups for 22 days...
Come Home Curious
This was the first year I didn’t post photos of our kids’ first day of school. Something was changing in all of us and the reality of those changes needed to sink in. I needed to wait to talk about it because it felt like a dream. I should back up a little. I started...
Three Things Humans Need
Maybe you’ve noticed. My blog has been a wee-bit silent lately. Sometimes it feels easier to write a few sentences for an Instagram post than to write a few paragraphs for a blog post. Anyone feel that way? I do. I’ve posted things here and there but not at the...
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