Handy Dandy Youth Ministry Blog

Youth ministries sometimes have cultures of interest groups.  I’ve had youth groups heavily populated by athletes, drama students, musicians, artists, and even one time ukulele players.  Recently, I met a youth leader that had a unique youth culture that’s growing more and more common – Gamers.  Perhaps this describes your ministry.  Even if it doesn’t,…

Today’s climate in both the wider church and youth ministry as a whole is one of pursuit – we are all chasing the big guys. We go to summits and conferences they put on, shell over our budgets for curriculum and books they publish, we do everything in our power to mimic those megachurches that…

I stepped into the head pastor’s office the day before our mission trip. I carefully stepped over my comedically long to-do list that was uncoiled in front of me like in the cartoons. The pastor had sent me an email that morning asking to meet, and as I sat down across the desk from him…

Recently I read that the University of Phoenix ran a poll that found that the average teen has 3.5 hours of homework a night. That’s outrageous. Assuming I had spent the time to do all my homework in high school, which is a poor assumption, it surely wouldn’t have amounted to such a number. And…

This rad new game is now available through DYM, so check it out!

If you are anything like me, you got into ministry for the steady diet of greasy pizza and Mountain Dew.  But, as the Bible tells us, we cannot live on pizza alone (I think that’s the King James version, if you can’t find it in your Bible).  Too often we find our health is the…

Handy Dandy Youth resources are now available on the Ministry Market!  We’ve listed them at an affordable rate so that you can get some of the best that Handy Dandy has to offer! Click the picture below to be magically transported to our store: So why did the chicken cross the road?   To get…

Around Christmas time and the end of the school year, I see a mad, frantic scurry to secure the perfect gift for adult youth ministry volunteers. Which low-cost, high impact, trendy but practical item is going to make that volunteer gush with fulfillment? I am a gift giver by nature, so it’s natural for me…

Having spent time working in ministry for as long as I have, there are a number of similarities I’ve found between youth leaders. First, we seem to have a disproportionate amount of pizza in our diets. Second, we seem to own more t-shirts than the average adult. Third, we are a bunch of liars. We…