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Doug Fields has been a long time champion of creating family-friendly youth ministry. I’ve valued gleaning wisdom from his books. He has just completed a 3 part series with 10 ideas on how to keep your youth ministry friendly for families. Good stuff. Check it out:
- Give em dates
- End on time
- Get em talking
- Keep em home
- Talk em up
- Speak good words
- Teach em more
- Keep costs down
- Watch their calendar
- Invite em along
Check out the 3 posts for an explanation of each: one; two; three.
I’m planning on producing a youth ministry training paper most Wednesday’s throughout the year. These papers will be discussed at our Soulies weekly leaders meeting. Anyone is welcome to interact in the comments. Click here to access archive.
This week’s paper is basically a summary of John Chapman’s method of preparing a Bible Talk. For a much more comprehensive treatment, check out his brilliant book – Setting Hearts on Fire – from Matthias Media. “Chappo” is one of the most experienced and gifted evangelists in Australia during the last 50 years. The book particularly focuses on preparing an evangelistic message, but I use his structure as the basis for all of my talks.
Preaching matters. According to Romans 10:13-15, if people don’t preach, people won’t hear the good news of Jesus, they won’t believe the good news of Jesus and they won’t call on the name of the Lord to be saved. Preaching is a big deal! Not all preaching is done from behind a pulpit, or black music stand, preaching is much more than delivering a sermon. However this paper will focus on how to prepare a short Bible talk.
What follows are the 10 steps involved in preparing to preach from the Bible.
Continue reading “Youth Ministry Papers: Preparing a Bible Talk”
The Weekend Australian Magazine featured an article on the relationship between Christianity and “cool” in Australia. Basically it’s about a variety of Gen Y peeps that don’t fit the Ned Flanders (or any other traditional understanding) template of a Christian. These guys and girls are cool and yet unashamed to be into Jesus.
It includes some interesting comments on the decline in mainline denominations.
The highlight for me were the quotes from Mark Sayers on the danger of crafting a “cool” Jesus and the drift towards man-centred theology:
“When, in their quest to remain relevant to young people, churches begin to turn him into a cool Australian, latte-loving guy who hangs out with his surfboard and is cool with everything we do… kids will come [to church] because they are attracted to that. But then they discover they’re not going to be turned into a superstar and they read the Bible and they discover Jesus dies at the end.”
Along with a consumerist ideology in which ‘cool’ is the motivating force, Sayers says another dominant culture factor troubling the church is the triumph of the self-help movement, which preaches a message that life should be about self-fulfilment, not suffering.
“So the quest for salvation has been replaced by the quest for wellbeing. And the danger is Christianity will end up looking like the empire of Oprah, in which God is a sort of cosmic butler who delivers things for us… We need to return to a biblical world view that grapples with suffering, rather than avoids or denies it, and that recognises that man is not the focus. God is. And that God is not going to transform you into this buff entrepreneur with a beautiful wife. There is a much deeper reality than that.”
Go read the article and let me know what you think.
One of the things I love about Christianity is that you don’t have to be cool to follow Jesus. I love seeing awkward, uncool people (me?? you?? haha) that don’t fit in anywhere else, accepted and included into the people of God.
We’ve got to keep calling all people (cool or otherwise!) to make counter-cultural commitments in response to the gospel of Jesus – we don’t just fit Jesus around the cool stuff in our lives, but Jesus is to shape all of life!
(h/t Mark Sayers for the heads-up on the article)
I’m planning on producing a youth ministry training paper most Wednesday’s throughout the year. These papers will be discussed at our Soulies weekly leaders meeting. Anyone is welcome to interact in the comments. Click here to access archive.
Vegemite is delicious. There wouldn’t be many weeks in my life that I haven’t enjoyed its salty yeasty goodness. Not everyone thinks that Vegemite is delicious. It is definitely an acquired taste, but a taste none-the-less worth acquiring! So I was shocked to recently read that “Kraft has been forced to launch a milder tasting version to woo a new generation of Australians.” My First Vegemite is part of a strategy used by Kraft to “wean people onto the traditional spread, sales of which are flat.” The hope is that as children get older they will graduate onto the heavier stuff. I think it’s a terrible idea.
I also think that sometimes we try and run youth ministry like it is ‘My First Vegemite’. We try and water things down in such a way to make it more palatable for teenagers. A branding expert has suggested that watering down Vegemite actually “robs it of its unique qualities”. That is likewise the problem with watering down the gospel of Jesus for a teenage audience.
Even when “sales are flat”, we continue to preach a message that is full of salt as we declare the “unique qualities” of Jesus.
I’m not saying that contextualisation is a bad thing. It’s a good thing to share the gospel with teenagers in a language that they will understand. It’s appropriate to use cultural artefacts and illustrations from their world to help explain the profound truths of the Bible. The problem though is when we misunderstand relevance. Our job is not to make the message of Jesus relevant for teenagers, rather it is to show how the message of Jesus is already relevant to all people in all places.
Continue reading “Youth Ministry Papers: Don’t Water it Down”
I’m planning on producing a youth ministry training paper most Wednesday’s throughout the year. These papers will be discussed at our Soulies weekly leaders meeting. Anyone is welcome to interact in the comments. Click here to access archive.
The Christian youth leader can have an endless number of roles in the life of young punks. Friend, encourager, example, skateboard instructor, Bible teacher, prayer partner, motivator, maths tutor, mentor, guitar teacher. I’m sure there’s more! That’s cool. What an exciting thing to be involved in so many different ways in young lives! But among the many things a youth leader can do, what should be their primary responsibility?
This paper will argue that fundamental to the role of youth leadership is making disciples who will then go on to make disciples. The Great Commission is a key text in this regard: “Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”” (Mat 28:18-20 NIV)
Disciples are to be made “of all nations” with an agenda of “teaching them to obey” Jesus. This is the pattern “to the very end of the age”. According to Marshall & Payne, “The commission is not fundamentally about mission out there somewhere else in another country. It’s a commission that makes disciple-making the normal agenda and priority of every church and every Christian disciple.” (The Trellis & the Vine, p.13)
Disciples making disciples is the bread and butter of Christian life and ministry. It is therefore the foundation of Biblical youth ministry. Discipleship doesn’t just include work with Christian young people, but it includes getting them (evangelism) and then growing them (edification).
Continue reading “Youth Ministry Papers: Disciples Making Disciples”
When you do your upfront welcome at church/youth group, repetition is good. The regular person may have heard the same blurb 100 times, but the welcome blurb is not for them. It’s for the new person. Often our language is not outsider friendly and we assume that everyone knows who we are and what we’re on about. Repeating the same welcome will hopefully welcome newcomers, and also create an outsider-friendly culture among regulars. Matt Chandler has some good thoughts on how he does it at The Village Church.
“Good Morning. My name is Matt Chandler I am the Lead Pastor/Teaching Pastor here at The Village. If this is your first time visiting with us I want to welcome you. I am guessing that if this is your first time here you are in one of two lanes. The first lane is that you are a believer with a background in church and you’re new to the area or are just checking out our community. If at some point in the next hour or so your heart and mind are moved and you want to know more about us, you can fill out one of the cards in the seatback in front of you and either drop it in the joy boxes or, and this would be our preference, walk across the parking lot to the white portable buildings and there are some men and women over there that can answer any of the questions you might have about the church. The second lane is that you’re here today and you aren’t a Christian and don’t have a background in Church or not a recent one anyway. I want to welcome you. This is a safe place for you to have some doubts about what we are saying to be skeptical and curious. There are no doors that are closed for you here so explore as much as you want. Go to a home group, check out Recovery, help us mentor local students, hop on a plane to South America or Africa and help us, help others. As a former agnostic myself, I have a great deal of respect for the genuine seeker. If we can help answer any of your questions or serve you in anyway let us know.”
I like that he does the same blurb every week and the content seems to be disarming for the uneasy newcomer. I also like that he gets up twice during the service, once to preach and earlier on to welcome and make announcements. Read more of his reflections on it here.
Over the first 3 weeks of youth group this year I got up twice during the evening. Once to do a welcome and once to preach. During week 1 and 2, I used my first spot to speak about the vision of our youth ministry – as well as welcome new people. The main aim with getting up during week 3 was to welcome new people. I think it went well. I said who I was, then opened with a fun story. I then borrowed some of the ideas from Chandler’s quote above about different types of new people and then let people know that we’re on about Jesus and glad they were here to hear about him. I think it went well.
The first 3 weeks of our youth group year were done together, year 7 to year 12. Soulies Junior Crew + Soulies Senior Crew = Soulies United. It was a sweet time to hang out as a larger family. I also used the time to speak about how it is we roll: Love Jesus; Love Jesus’ People; and Love Jesus’ World. While any week is a good week to bring a friend to youth group, week 3 was particularly aimed at friends who don’t yet know Jesus.
In week 1, I encouraged people to bring so many friends that they wouldn’t fit in. Good news… they didn’t! We had young punks sitting out in the foyer and in the door ways. We grew by 47% from week 2 to week 3. Very cool. I’m really encouraged by the boldness of the teenagers in our community.
But the best news about this past Friday night is that 6 people indicated that they prayed to become a Christian and another 14 said they were keen to find out more about Jesus. Praise God for his kindness. We’re now praying that we’d look after new Christians and keep pointing enquirers to Jesus.
Involved in youth ministry? Keep encouraging your young people to bring their friends; preach Jesus; pray that God would work.
Don’t know Jesus? He’s the King who Saves and Rules. Check him.