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.
Young punks today are scared of commitment. Mobile phone companies are aware of this, so they’ve lowered the commitment bar: no longer is it the norm to lock-in to a 24-month contract, but 12-month, 6-month and pay-as-you-go options are all now available. If you’ve tried to run an event via “Events” in Facebook, you’d know how difficult it is to get people to commit to your event. If they actually respond to the invitation they’re more than likely to click “maybe” just so they can leave their options open. If you say “yes”, you limit your options if a better offer is made closer to the event. Why do you think people are afraid of making commitments? How might this make youth ministry harder?
There is a sense in which the Christian life is all about making a commitment. A Christian commits to trust in Jesus (John 3:16) and to “no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.” (2 Corinthians 5:15 NIV)
As a member of our church, you are asked to make a commitment to the direction and mission of our church. By being part of the leadership in our church you are indicating that you are on-board with the doctrine of the church and the church mission statement: “Our desire is to be: A community transformed by Jesus’ love; fully devoted to loving one another; and radically committed to impacting the world with Christ’s love.”
Our youth ministry is thoroughly behind this mission statement. However, we’ve changed the wording to summarise the statement for our youth community.
How do we roll at Soulies? We want to be a community who:
- Love Jesus
- Love Jesus’ People
- Love Jesus’ World
We want to be urging and encouraging teenagers to be making (at least) 3 commitments. There is logical flow and process within the commitments.
- Commit to loving Jesus – first of all we want them to commit to Jesus. We commit to loving Jesus by first of all recognising his love for us (1 John 4:10). Committing to Jesus means that he now becomes the object of our worship and we seek to grow as his disciples. At our Friday night gatherings, we want to continue to call young punks to make this commitment of becoming a Christian.
- Commit to loving Jesus’ people – once we have committed to loving Jesus, we want it to be committed to loving his people. This involves committing to regular fellowship with our brothers and sisters and seeking to serve each other in love. Our commitment to one another is modelled on the love that Jesus has shown to us (1 John 3:16). As well as committing to our Friday night gatherings, we will also want to be committed to meeting regularly in small groups.
- Commit to loving Jesus’ world – once we’ve committed to Jesus and to Jesus’ people, we then want to commit to being on mission to Jesus’ world. There are two ways we love the world: we seek to be involved in social justice and evangelism. Social justice means we care for the physical needs of people and evangelism means we care for the spiritual needs of people. We want to provide formal opportunities for social justice and evangelism, but also encourage a lifestyle of loving people in all of life.
It is worth noting that there is a danger in using the “commitment” language. We need to keep remembering that first and foremost God is committed to us in Christ Jesus.
- What does Romans 8:28-38 show us about God’s commitment to us?
- How does Philippians 2:12-13 show our commitment and God’s commitment at work together?
Commitment is counter-cultural. What we are calling people to do is be different from the culture around them. But that really is the call of the gospel. Jesus desires his people to whole-heartedly follow him: “Then he said to them all: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” (Luke 9:23 NIV)
KEEP IT REAL
How do you personally find this challenging in your discipleship? What different things are competing for the whole-hearted commitment of those in your group? How can you help them to make these 3 commitments?
great paper.
at all saints, we have (almost) the same mission statement!
http://allsaintsnorthepping.org.au/
cheers man.
hey good church website! yeah – it’s very close! has it been developed from ‘simple church’ reflections?
Hey Dave,
Good post. There is certainly a ‘wait till the best option’ mentality that abounds in youth circles. However I wonder whether it’s a touch simplistic?
I work at a school where I see both the lack of commitment you’ve written about, but also huge amounts of commitment from and equal number of others.
I’m not sure how to nuance it, but I wonder if there is something deeper than ‘lack of commitment’ going on. Could it be that teenagers are equally able to commit as in the past, but they can’t see anything worth committing to?
Is it perhaps more a reflection on a growing secular culture?
food for thought….
hey craig,
thanks for the comment. i think you’re right.
i do think teenagers are generally able to commit to things like in the past. i was going to have a comment or two on this in the paper (but had kinda already reached my word limit!). sport is one area that lots of teenagers make a commitment and follow through. they turn up to training 2 (or more) nights a week, they turn up to the game early, they are ready to play. they know that to play on the team they need to be committed to the team.
…but they can’t see anything worth committing to?
that’s good. i guess part of what i want to do in youth ministry is show young people that Jesus is worth committing too.
playing on his team is more important than any sporting or extra curricula commitment.
Is it perhaps more a reflection on a growing secular culture?
i think so.
i can’t remember where i’ve read it, but i think there is a general decline in the number of young people in clubs and societies – like scouts and guides etc.
(i wonder if that trend is also the case on university campuses?)
also – because there are so many options, we often jump from one thing to the other. when things get hard or boring – we’ll give things the flick just as quickly as we picked them up.
anyway – it’s getting late and i’m getting a bit rambly!
HEY YOUNG PUNK – IF YOU’RE READING – COMMIT TO JESUS, HIS PEOPLE AND HIS WORLD!! IT’S WORTH IT!!!!!
ps – the commitment level in a significant number of students in your school is not the norm for the average government school in sydney. many teenagers have an apathetic ‘who cares?’ attitude to life.
actually, my senior minister used to work at St Faiths, and he brought the mission statement with him! They came up with it at a conference years ago, I think.
while this trend of apathy towards commitment is a generally true, I’ve also seen it happen a few times that when a teenager finds something they believe is worth committing to, they seem to feel a bit more ’empowered’ at making things happen. A bunch of student leaders at arden are taking heaps of initiative (more than I ever did!) in getting things organised for the Cru group. One of the guys in a Bible Study I run is super keen for it to happen, is there every week, is inviting his mates along, and I can tell he’s almost offended if people don’t turn up.
These people may be cultural anomalies, or it might just be that they’ve found something that they believe is truly worth the commitment.
ah cool. i don’t know the history of the mission statement. but that’s cool that we’re both sharing the same one!
how do you communicate in your youth ministry?
i reckon there are plenty of examples of what you’re talking about.
both of us have probably witnessed lots of teenagers committing to do good things.
here’s a post i wrote last year. a little relevant: http://davemiers.com/2010/05/17/breaking-news-teenager-does-something/
“how do you communicate in your youth ministry?”
mainly with the youth leaders as a framework for thinking about doing what we do.
any time it fits in with application; we’ve got a big sign over the kitchen servery thing, which is kind of next to the stage area at the front, so people can see it as we talk about it.
yeah ok.
good having it in a prominent spot for people to see.
I’ve been thinking about Craig’s comment and wonder if it’s not so much a reflection of a growing secular culture we’re seeing but more an increasingly consumerist one…?
Hey Nath,
I think that is a good reflection. Consumerism is certainly a ‘wait for the best option for me’ approach to life.
I think if you look at the two core tennants of Secular Humanism you’ll find 1. Consumption 2. Happiness.
So potentially consumerism and secularism go hand in hand.
Craig
this is good. thanks nath and craig. appreciate the discussion. nothing to add at the moment. :)
I think commitment from you is defintely an issue. But I think this has a lot to do with trust. My observation of youth as a chalkie and a youth group leader has been that they take a long time to be willing to let you or your youth group into their world.
But at the same time, they are on the look out for what is real. The challenge then I think is to build a genuinely Christian community that people can see is real and be willing to trust.And to offer a stability and commitment which they might be struggling to see elsewhere.
But once they have tasted Christian community they get hooked and will keep coming back for more.
oops, meant youth NOT you. Dave you seem quite a commited dude!
haha!! nice typo.
good reflections beitsch.
real Christian community is beautiful. it actually is where the action is, and it is actually worth committing to.
just remembered a related post from a few years ago:
http://davemiers.com/2008/10/23/subject-to-a-better-offer/