For the last post of this "Triple Your Youth Ministry In One Year" series, I will have to admit that the topic is one that I am most passionate about and feel it is the main reason we grew.It's About Lives Being Saved And Making Disciples
When it comes down to the money in the bank....this is it. We have always had a passion for creating an experience that reaches beyond our walls. One part of the culture or DNA we have sought to create is one that is oriented to seekers.
It is one of the reasons that I believe God has blessed us with growth. Jesus' mission as stated by him was to "seek and save that which was lost." His prime motivation was to restore mankind to a proper relationship with God.
When you take the focus that you are going to reach the lost in youth ministry, you are partnering with God to fulfill His mission. I believe you get in a divine mission alignment. That is you are aligned with God's mission thus you are operating on a higher level of impact.
How you can put this in effect:
- Call To Salvation - Every week the most important time of the night for us was at the end when we gave a call to salvation. We always gave one. We would ask for two things: 1) Those that have never had a relationship with God and 2) Those that followed God once but felt they were off track. We also called those forward to the stage to lead them through a prayer.
- Follow Up - After our call we had team leaders who would take these teens to another room and counsel them through what was going on, give them a bible and reading info to help them get started, and take down any info so we could follow up.
- Evangelistic Series - Do a whole series on this topic. We did one called Lost that went through Philippians 4:13. We took kids through the process of how people rely on their selves and end up lost to totally relying on God. Many time our series had some type of evangelistic theme.
You need to determine what being a disciple means in your context. Sit down with your team and ask the question - What does a fully devoted follower of Christ mean for our ministry? Get their input. And then organize your ministry around that. If your goal is, "taking someone who is far from God and developing them into a fully devoted follower of Christ". Then that should be reflected in your process.
If you are a youth pastor what impact have you had in your ministry?
If this series has been helpful to you or you think it could be helpful in ministry for someone you know feel free to put a referral link to it on your site. Part 1 has a list of all parts to this series.
4 comments:
To Jason,
I thought these blogs were serious until you started talking about a "cool youth room." You talk so much about vision, leadership, and relevance but so little about the Word of God or the leading of the Holy Spirit. Generally teenagers are the most easily manipulated age category in our culture. Your spouting off tricks in order to create a following that has very little to do with worship of God and God glorification. Clean it up man. You think your encouraging people but your only discouraging those who don't have the magnetic personality that you possess.
Sincerely,
Mark Evans
mark@calvarybfc.org
Hey Mark...I appreciate the comment...honestly I knew this "cool youth room" post would throw some people off....the post was about "a cool youth room will get them there but love will keep them" which is a reference to First Corinthians.
I also take into account that as a pastor you don't need me to talk about the Word of God or the leading of the Holy Spirit. I assume as men or women of God these should be a given...but apparently a post on this should have been put in because when you don't talk about it people think you are out of balance.
Thank you for bringing that up...I may add in a part 8...to make sure there is balance. I spent a lot of time...about 3 or 4 weeks time of prep on each message. I always and do always feel that the Word of God and being led by the Holy Spirit are important.
I have also seen many pastors who have had "both" and have thought they are enough...struggle more than they should, often falling back on, "well if God really wanted it". I don't buy that. I believe God wants to reach this generation and we need to as pastors go all out to reach them.
Hey Jason... I really appreciate the tone of your response to Mark, because clearly there was some confusion.
And to Mark, I'd just like to say this: I hope this little experience teaches you not to jump to conclusions about the integrity of a person's heart based on a few comments. Unless you know someone personally, OR, there is an obvious deviation from true theology in what messages they share, you've got to be careful how you respond, because you just might be reacting negatively to something that - all along - you agree with.
I might not know Jason personally, but I've enjoyed his blogs. And to think that I stumbled onto his blog by accident.
Keep up the great work, Jason, and keep it coming... Folks like us need that constant encouragement and affirmation.
Peace!!!
John F
John...thanks for the comment and I'm glad you have enjoyed it. There have been times when I have jumped out and made a comment without thinking through it in the blog world. As you know once you hit that submit....you can't really take it back.
When I first read Marks comment I wanted to fire back but it did make me come back and add that one last important post for the series as a bonus.
Thanks again for the support.
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