5 Ways You Are Becoming an Unhealthy Leader
A spiritual leader is only as effective as his/her spiritual health. And likewise, your faith reflects your ministry. Where you are with Jesus, reflects where your ministry, as a whole, is with Jesus. You cannot effectively pour out of you what has not been poured into you. Without spiritual, emotional, and physical self-care, you are…
Burning Out and Finding Healthy Rhythms in Ministry
If you’ve been in ministry or leadership for any amount of time, you know how easy it is to burn out. And while burning out is a scary thought, I believe leading a ministry WHILE burnt out is even scarier. Unfortunately, the world is full of ministry leaders leading while burnt out. We lead, because it’s our job,…
5 Best Decisions About Planning a Retreat
When I started out in Student Ministry over 13 years ago, I knew what I didn’t know, and one of the things I knew I didn’t know was how to put together an effective weekend retreat. So, naturally, I looked around for retreats or weekend conferences I could just take my students to. Although, it…
Dealing with the Highs and Lows of Student Ministry
If you’ve been in Student Ministry for longer than 2 days, then chances are you’ve experienced the emotional & spiritual roller coaster that comes with the job. It might even start on Day 1…”Woohoo, I have a job!” “Oh no, this is what I get paid?!” Or possibly it’s a season, where attendance is high,…
HOW Short-Term Mission Trips in Student Ministry? (PART 2)
If you haven’t read Part 1 of this post, click here to read WHY Short-Term Mission Trips in Student Ministry. In that post, we covered why it’s important to do short-term mission trips in Student Ministry. But how do we plan a trip, especially if we don’t have a large budget? What if I told…
WHY Short-Term Mission Trips in Student Ministry? (PART 1)
Mission trips, in general, are a very interesting concept within the local church. There has been criticism that mission trips don’t do enough good, as in they are not worth the amount of money spent to go on them. For example, taking a team of 15 to another country for 7 days could cost $2,000/person,…
3 Ways to Keep Seniors Engaged in Youth Group
Student Ministry can be emotionally draining. One of the reasons it’s so draining, is because every summer, you have to say goodbye to students you’ve had for several years. Students you’ve come to know and like really well, students you’ve poured into for years, students who have been leaders in the ministry, and even babysitters to…
3 Ways to Planning Events w/Intentionality
The Student Ministry Calendar is extremely busy, especially compared to all other ministries in the church. It can be exhausting just looking at a yearly or even a summer student ministry calendar. You have outreach events, discipleship events, community events, worship events, serving events, camps, retreats, mission trips, and then you multiply all of that…
Read to Lead
I’m not the best reader. I always had a difficult time in school keeping up with all of the required reading. I actually took a speed-reading class in college to get better, but I couldn’t keep up with that either. Sometimes I wish that all the books I want to read would just be laid…
Are Your Students on the Jesus Diet?
Who likes diets? I mean seriously, I cannot think of anyone who likes them. The best thing about diets is that the very nature of a diet is that it is temporary. Usually whenever I go on a diet, I do a 10, 20, or 30-day diet. I can typically handle a diet, because I…
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About Nick
Nick is the Formations Pastor at Harvester Christian Church in St. Charles, MO, which is outside of St. Louis. As the Formations Pastor on the Lead Team, Nick oversees all of the Kids & Student Ministry teams as well as the Adult Discipleship teams. Nick has been in full-time student ministry since 2005. Nick and Blaire have been married since 2004, and they are parents to 2 awesome girls and 1 incredible boy. Nick loves the next generation, the local church, and believes that God has big plans for this generation of teenagers! Nick is an avid sports fan and ping pong enthusiast.
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Student Ministry Life by Nick Ballard 