Kara Powell is the Executive Director of the Fuller Youth Institute and a faculty member at Fuller Theological Seminary. Named by Christianity Today as one of “50 Women You Should Know,” Kara serves as a Youth and Family Strategist for Orange, and also speaks regularly at parenting and leadership conferences. Kara is ... more
Sometimes being a leader means that you need to have some tough or challenging conversations. In the world of student ministry, that often means you will be faced with having to confront a volunteer leader or you may need to challenge a parent in a manner that may feel uncomfortable.In this episode, Kenny interviews ... more
Podcasting has become a very popular medium that can be effectively utilized by churches and non-profit organizations for messaging, training, and for a variety of ministry purposes.In this episode, Kenny interviews Todd Cochrane, the CEO of RawVoice (parent company of Blubrry), about all the important things any pod... more
In this episode, Kenny interviews Jeremy Zach to talk about the importance of being relational and personal in student ministry, and empowering other leaders to do the same.Jeremy was a full-time youth pastor for nine years before joining the staff team at the reThink Group working with the XP3 Orange team. Jeremy ge... more
In this episode, our host Kenny interviews leadership expert (and personal friend) Kenneth Freire about the importance of engaging students in such a way that they will develop in their leadership abilities, as well as how to effectively train our students to be the future leaders of the Church. He gives us four steps... more
In this episode, Kenny interviews one of his previous students, and now personal friend, Meg Monson about the values of a gap-year program. She tells us about her experiences as a student in YWAM-England’s Discipleship Training School (DTS), her life lessons learned living in Europe, and why she believes every young a... more
In this episode, Kenny interviews author and international speaker Ajith Fernando about the importance of Christian leaders having a healthy family life.Anyone involved in Christian ministry knows how challenging it is to balance ministry and family responsibilities, but it is essential that we master this balance. M... more
Each ministry has an identity, and whether you realize it or not, you are sending a message to the world about your identity. The problem we often observe is that many ministries are not nearly as intentional in communicating their identity as they should be. That’s where branding comes in. Design, communications, and... more
To be an effective leader, you need to be a quality thinker as well as become an efficient problem-solver, and there is no better way to solve problems than to proactively stop them before they ever even occur.In this episode, Kenny dives into one of his favorite illustrations for leadership and proactive problem sol... more
In 1979, Bill Walsh became the Head Coach of the San Francisco 49ers. He went on to become one of the greatest coaches in NFL history. In this episode, Kenny talks about some of the great leadership lessons we can learn from Bill Walsh:1) Develop a successful team-oriented culture2) Develope a system that maximizes ... more
Reading good books is an essential discipline for any leader, both for the feeding of our own souls as well as for the development of our leadership skills. Anyone who desires to be successful in student ministry must be a regular reader.In this episode, Kenny interviews pastor and blogger Paul Turner to dialogue abo... more
Anyone who works with teens or college students knows the importance of text messaging as a means of connecting with and starting conversations with students. In this episode, Kenny interviews digital marketing guru Dan Sanchez about the things any leader or pastor can do to better utilize text messaging in their minis... more
Just about every person in our society is familiar with Bill Gates, the co-founder and long-time CEO of Microsoft. He has been a business man, entrepreneur, philanthropist, investor, consultant, and software programmer. Gates has also authored and co-authored several books. Throughout his leading, speaking, and charita... more
Student Ministry is most effective when it serves the local church by connecting the church with families. Every youth worker ought to seek to make their local student ministry a bridge between the church congregation and the families that the students come from.In this episode, Kenny interviews author, blogger, past... more
Effectively engaging with students is super important, therefore training your leaders to effectively engage with students is also super important. In this episode, Kenny gives us eight tips and ideas on how to be most effective in training our leadership teams.The Eight Steps:1- Make sure they know that connecting... more
In this episode, Kenny interviews missionary Jonathan Ferguson about the theology of world missions, the importance of taking students on short-term mission trips, and the four things we must do to be great short-term missionaries. Those four things are:1- Be a student2- Drop the hammer, grab a cup of coffee3- Su... more
Facebook has become as much (or more) a part of American life as any sport, activity, or tradition. Recently the Pew Research Center surveyed teenagers (ages 13-17) and young adults (ages 18-24), they discovered:- 71% of teenagers and 85% of young adults use Facebook daily- 52% of teenagers and 55% of young adults ... more
In this episode, Kenny interviews student ministry veteran and preaching stalwart Jon Nielson about the importance of giving students a lot more than just fun in student ministry gatherings, but how to truly give them the depth of the Bible and the Gospel.Jon gives us wisdom in several arenas of student ministry such... more
Being successful in student ministry often involves being at the right place at the right time. Some might say you need to be "lucky" in order to "catch" ministry opportunities. But how can we put ourselves in a position to get "lucky" more often?In this episode, Kenny recounts the narrative of Zack Hample, the man w... more
The importance of having a student ministry that truly is Gospel-centered cannot be overstated. In this episode, Kenny interviews youth ministry veteran and author Cameron Cole about a variety of elements of local youth and family ministry; specifically how we, as student pastors, can effectively remind students of the... more
This is the very first episode of the Student Ministry Podcast. In this first episode of the podcast, our host Kenny Ortiz explains the genesis of the show, his motivation for doing the show, its format, and its goals. He also tells his own personal story and why he love student ministry.This podcast is for any perso... more