Videos, Stories, and More

The Story of Building Cathedrals

In Building Cathedrals, Ted Travis shares his blueprint for Transformational Discipleship (as well as accounts of its profound impact on young people) and exhorts today’s youth workers to reimagine their ministries and raise up a new generation of visionary urban leaders.

What is Transformational Discipleship?

Separately, the terms “transformation” and “discipleship” highlight important aspects of one’s spiritual formation. Together they create a new and dynamic approach to urban youth development.

In this Workshop segment I break down the essence of Transformational Discipleship.



Transformation into the heart of the city, where youth grow in faith and confidence to serve others, starting with the children of their neighborhood, reaching as far as God’s purpose for their lives takes them.

Know the Code

“You cannot solve problems you do not understand …”



All youth take the adolescence journey, but those at risk do so through the sociocultural grid of the inner city, where formative development strains against the negative forces of poverty, family brokenness, and a culture of violence.

To reach youth in hard places we must be mindful of the Code …

The Divine Imprint

Long before the Code of the Streets (the unwritten rules for survival in the ‘hood), God created mankind (including youth residing in hard places) in His Image.

Of all the potential motivations in life, none is more powerful than to be who you were created to be, experiencing in your person the fullness of God’s creation.



How does the imago Dei impact youth ministry? More profoundly than we realize …