The Drake Prayer

Thanks to entrepreneurial youth minister Matt Overton, for digging up this prayer – it says better than I can what I hope God will do with Ministry Incubators. And with me. (To join the entrepreneurial youth ministry conversation, go here). The Drake Prayer Disturb...

Begging or Making a Life?

It’s a pendulum swing: the self-sustaining fellowship of believers, and the practice of begging—two time-worn ways we have learned to support ministry.  Whenever we get seduced by the risks of one, somebody shoves the pendulum in the opposite direction. A quick...

Are You Leaving Youth Ministry?

Anna (not her real name) is a fellow lifer in youth ministry. We’ve been friends for more than two decades. Last summer over ice cream, I was telling her about Ministry Incubators. I couldn’t tell if I heard a twinge of betrayal in her voice when she said: “I just...

January 16, 2016

The Texas Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church is hosting a conversation for church leaders (lay and clergy) ready to strategize new ways to do church. There is little question these are challenging days for the church. Programs that always seemed to work...