In 2007, I (Steve) started my blog, on Apple’s iWeb service, primarily as a way to communicate with my ministry support team. For those who weren’t around then, I had to raise support for the beginning of my ministry in New England, and this was a way for me to give quick updates on my life, the ministry, and what my support team was actually supporting.

Over time, I realized I liked blogging, and I began including random posts that were about Scriptures, things I’ve learned in ministry, book/resource reviews, and other random thoughts and experiences I was having (kind of like what people now use social media).

In 2009, the church I was serving at became financially independent, meaning that I was not raising support anymore. But I decided to keep the blog going for those who wanted to continue hearing about our life and ministry. I also began sharing other random things from time to time, including what would eventually be called memes. (I was so ahead of things! Haha!) I believe it was around this time that I moved it over to WordPress.

In 2010, I went to the Orange Conference for the first time, and I decided to share all my notes and things I was learning on my blog. It was after that when the Orange blogging team contacted me and asked if I wanted to do that in a more official capacity next conference. I said yes, and I’ve been blogging for them at almost ever conference since then. To this day, they are some of my most read posts.

After blogging for Orange in 2011, I began blogging a lot more, including notes from every conference I attended. Beyond that, my content began to include more youth ministry resource reviews, things I had learned from my experience, and encouragements for others serving in youth ministry.

In 2016, I started my ministry-focused podcast, Student Ministry Connection (originally called The Student Ministry Podcast), and I posted those on my blog in addition to sending them to all of the major podcast feeds.

Also in 2016, I began having a few blogs that caught some traction and were getting more views than just family and friends who wanted to keep up with my life and ministry. This made me think more about pushing the blog more fully into that direction–tips and encouragements for those in youth ministry.

In 2018, I began blogging for Youth Specialties on a regular basis, and I shared excerpts of those posts on my blog, redirecting people to the official YS blog. This meant that I wasn’t posting as much on my personal blog, as I had begin putting more effort into the content for YS.

In 2019, I had the privilege of heading up the blogging team for the Youth Specialties’ National Youth Worker Convention, which included posting several blogs about the event on my site that garnered some national attention since YS was promoting them.

In 2022, I rebranded my podcast and started a new website dedicated to those posts, which meant that I stopped sharing every episode on this blog.