Mike Haynes is a youth ministry veteran and the creator of G Shades. A vibrant contributor to the youth ministry landscape, Mike’s passion is to help students and youth pastors alike see life through the lens of the gospel. He and his wife Anna have five kids spanning elementary, middle, and high school, and he serves as the high school pastor at Christian Fellowship Church in Ashburn, Virginia.
We’ve all been there in youth ministry where a student asks a question or poses a doubt to Christianity that we’re not totally prepared to answer off the top of the dome. That’s a hard place to be because, let’s face it, none of us likes to look stumped in front of a group of […]
If you’ve been doing occupational youth ministry for longer than five minutes, you understand that we have no shot at doing this well without a team of amazing volunteers. It’s just too much. It involves too many details. It’s too many students—even for those of us with ministries that don’t have that many students! But […]
Before we jump into fostering authentic faith in teenagers, let me share why this topic is top of mind for me. My wife and I recently went from parenting three kids to parenting five. No, we didn’t have twin babies! We brought in two teenage siblings we already knew and loved from around the neighborhood. […]
If it wasn’t the new normal before, COVID ensured it had to be: Digital Youth Ministry. With technology continuing to rapidly progress and shift the world we live in, it becomes even more important that we have a lens for navigating youth ministry in the digital world. To that end, I’m not here to suggest […]
I want to share for a minute about how life is long, but first: can we just be honest and admit something really quick? As youth workers, we love all of our students equally, but we love some more than others. It’s okay. No one’s looking. You can just admit it. Sometimes God puts certain […]
I Prompted AI On Using ChatGPT For Ministry “Write a blog post on the following idea: Using ChatGPT for ministry will elevate the efficiency with which people complete tasks and create content, but new tools aren’t new, and AI will demonstrate itself to be a poor substitute for the Holy Spirit at work in God’s […]
When college students come back, we get the scary privilege of checking in with them as youth pastors. If you haven’t had this experience yet, you will. Sometimes we discover that our former students have fallen off a bit faith wise as they’ve begun their official transition toward adulthood. Disillusionment. Disengagement. Dissection. Deconstruction. Specifically, faith […]
If you’re reading this blog post the day it comes out, and your Christmas tree is already up in your living room, I want you to know that you are/live with an insane person. It’s way too early! But in the same breath, thank goodness we’re knocking on the door of the Christmas season, because […]
Up until recently, I had worked with the same person side-by-side in full time youth ministry for the past five years. She and I developed a vision for our youth ministry, a framework, and a culture. We decided together what aspects of youth ministry we were going to pay most attention to, and what aspects […]
This post revolves around the mantra “no more excuses” and was originally shared during the COVID era. I caught COVID. I finally caught it on July 29, 2022, and in true youth pastor fashion, I got it at summer camp. As you know, COVID-19’s effect on people or families ranges from medically devastating to mildly […]
