Hurting students

Today I had coffee with Rich Van Pelt. What a guy. He's been such a blessing in my life over the past 11 years of working in student ministry at my church. He reminded me today that I don't have to go looking in our community to find hurting students to make disciples. They show up every Sunday and Wednesday. They're already a part of our church. They're cutting, suicidal and whole host of other things.

The question our student ministry must wrestle with is how are we doing caring for every student that attends our church? Do we have all their names? The ones that are part of our core and the ones that are on the fringes? Rich is speaking at all of the youth specialties CORE events on this topic. He also refreshed his book, Helping Teenagers in Crisis, which is a must own! I am hoping he'll be at our Southwest Connection Network meeting of youth workers.