How to Reach Half Your School District with the Gospel in 1 Year

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The ostentatious title of this post aside, what if this was actually possible? And how would you gauge it? Wherever you fall on the “numbers don’t matter” or “numbers are everything” spectrum, it’s safe to assume that youth workers would generally love for as many students as possible to hear the message of a great, big God who loves them unconditionally and desires to be in relationship with them. And whether you count every student who walks through the door or never count anyone, I think someone once said, “We count people because people count,” and I think there’s a little bit of truth to that. So this idea assumes that there is at least some wisdom in knowing how many students that we actually reach.

Of course, you could define “reach” in a hundred different ways. I’m not necessarily talking about positive responses, “I believe” moments, or conversions (whatever you want to call saying “yes” to Jesus). I’m simply talking about walking a student through the Gospel – either at one sitting, over many sittings, through conversations or examples – however it happens, I think it has to be a verbal discussion about the story and reality of Jesus, including when he walked the earth and the implications now.

Without delving into the “What is the Gospel?” dissertation, I’ll simply define it as the story and reality of how God has, is, and will continue to restore and redeem a lost and broken creation through the life, teaching, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. There’s obviously more to it than that but for brevity’s sake, let’s simply start there. So let’s agree that communicating this message and helping students to exist in this reality by living out a daily, growing relationship with God is at the heart of student ministry. The Great Commission describes “making disciples” but of course disciples can’t be made without first hearing the Gospel.

Romans 10:13-15 – “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?  And how can they preach unless they are sent?

I’ve written HERE and HERE about how it’s vital in student ministry to engage others in your community who are doing the same thing. This will test your belief on that subject.

So here’s the idea: suppose your school district population numbers 10,000 high school students. There’s your mission field. Here’s how to tell 5,000 students about Jesus in one school year:

1. Find 20 other youth ministries/churches/parachurch organizations willing to commit to the vision.
2. Each ministry commits to recruiting and training 25 volunteers (total leader count=500).
3. Each volunteer commits to sharing the story of Jesus with 10 students who are unfamiliar with the Gospel throughout the year .
4. Avoid “double-dipping” by figuring out a way to track the plan and communicate progress.

What would happen in your community if 5,000 students heard about Jesus in the context of authentic friendship and life-sharing? What if just 10% of those students said “yes” to following Jesus? That’s 500 new followers of Jesus – the world’s been radically changed by much smaller groups of people.

Of course, then the issue becomes making disciples but isn’t that why we’re here?

What do you think? Does all this counting make you uncomfortable? Does the possibility get your blood going? What recruiting and training would this take? What would be some practical steps towards getting other youth workers in your area on board? At this point, it’s just an idea but I really want to try it.

Three Ways Youth Workers Can Be Better Together

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In reference to my previous post “We Are Better Together,” I’d like to follow up with a few ideas on how youth workers can Be Better Together. This post is Part One and will be followed by additions. My hope is that these ideas will also highlight why it’s absolutely necessary to connect with others doing youth ministry in your town.

#1 Think Like a Missionary

Often, when a missionary lands on the ground in a far off land, the first order of business is to find out where God is already at work. While the missionary may enter the field with lots of training and ideas regarding how they can best accomplish the specific work they’ve been called to do, it’s guaranteed that there have already been faithful people of God at work for years in the location the missionary finds themselves. Thinking like a missionary for a youth worker is simple – even if you’re ministering in your hometown, you’re not the first to do so and you most likely won’t be the last. Because no one ministers in a vacuum, God’s plans often call for a community of people to come together to accomplish something for the Kingdom. By not connecting with others in our mission field, could we inadvertently be limiting what God’s trying to do in an area? Maybe. Our starting and on-going points should always be connecting with where God is already at work. We do this through connecting with the people that God is already using.

#2 Be a Cultural Anthropologist

Cultural Anthropology is a particular field of Anthropology that deals with the study of the customs, backgrounds, history, traditions, language, and meanings of a group of people with the aim of more holistically understanding the true nature of the studied group (happens to have been my major in college). This kind of study by Cultural Anthropologists utilizes the methods of ethnography in collecting data. The more we see how those in this field study people and culture, the more obvious the applications to youth ministry. You can read up on the science if you’re interested but the bottom line is that in order to reach high school students with the Gospel, we must understand the specific nature of the youth culture not generally in America but specifically in our town. This is where we can be like cultural anthropologists but this is also where many youth workers take certain knowledge for granted. In a sense, kids are kids wherever you go. They have similar needs, developmental stages, customs, and language. As our worldwide use of certain media increases, adolescents receive the same messages regarding their culture and so kids can appear to be similar both in different places around the country and in certain years. But is it possible to have a certain understanding of American youth culture without really getting to the core of kids in your town in 2010? I think so. The students in your town are different than the kids in my town and the kids in your town are different today than they were 5 years ago (or even last year!). As we come to a deeper understanding of where our students are coming from, the uniqueness of their experiences, backgrounds, and histories, then the better we’re able to contextualize the Gospel to their situation today. Connecting with other youth workers enables us to check our impressions and get a clearer picture of students in our unique area. Knowing your high school or middle school inside and out by comparing notes with others is vital.

#3 Let Your Theology Inform Your Methodology…

…not the other way around. The methods, applications, and programs that we use to reach and disciple students are simply tools but have a tendency to become sacred cows. What’s most effective today might not be most effective in 2 years and what worked 5 years ago may not work as well today. But how many times have we felt slave to a certain program or paradigm because “it’s always been done this way?” We minister within certain church & organizational cultures and cultures like these resist change. Like it or not, our churches and organizations have brands and brand loyalty. “We’ve always done it this way” may be code for “don’t mess with the program because our identity is wrapped up in it.” Additionally, youth ministry is difficult enough and when we stumble on an effective method it may feel it’s impossible to consider changing things up. While the authority of scripture and God’s message to a broken world remain unchanged, the many applications of scriptural truths are able to be contextualized in a given culture. So when culture shifts, applications shift. Or at least they should. For a fascinating commentary on recent cultural shifts and effects on youth ministry, check out Youth Ministry 3.0 by Mark Oestreicher or related thoughts in my previous post Youth Ministry Models. Adam’s blog also has great insights on recent generational shifts and applications to ministry. And what works for the megachurch across the country may not work for you. Nothing against the exportation of systems and designs by those reaching thousands – while many are exciting, relevant, and highly effective, your town and your kids have a unique context. Systems and models of ministry developed in another context may not necessarily be “plug and play.”

So what is your theology of the following things: ministry, community, the kingdom of God, evangelism, discipleship, calling, and the church? What is your current understanding regarding: youth culture in each particular high school, resources available to you, leadership/calling in your ministry, and how your ministry fits within the overall landscape of youth work in your town? This is where dialogue with other youth workers is essential. What are other folks in your town doing that’s effective in reaching kids? What can you learn? What can you contribute to the overall effort? What do you need to change in your methods in order to be more effective today while remaining true to core theological beliefs? What do you need to hold tightly to and what can be held a little more loosely?

Building a movement and navigating change are two of the most difficult issues we face in youth ministry and honestly it may just seem like too much work to consider changing methods. But ultimately it’s worth the investment if we can reach and disciple students more effectively.

More to follow. Would love to hear your thoughts.

We Are Better Together

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I got my start in youth ministry in the ’90’s with Young Life.  Parachurch ministries occupy a unique and challenging place in the world of youth work.  As an evangelistic arm of the church, I appreciated the single-minded focus on reaching lost students with the Gospel.  However, if there is something like an end goal, it’s not just winning students to Jesus but connecting new believers with a church community.  The reasons for this are many but one of the most significant is that students are not always students and when they leave our sphere of influence they should understand the importance of being connected to a church body as they move into adulthood. Additionally, students moving into adulthood should be familiar with what to look for in a church when it comes time for them to seek a new home when they’re on their own.

I couldn’t do what I was called to do alone, nor should I even try

The process of connecting new believers with a church is accomplished with varying degrees of success depending on structure, strategy, and vision of any given parachurch ministry in different areas of the country.  Some do it well and some don’t. But what I realized throughout those years was that I couldn’t do what I was called to do alone, nor should I even try.  When it came time to connect a new believer with a church community, I had to have a relationship with a church community (not just my own church) if not an outright friendship with the youth pastor – and so I set about to make connections with every church in the communities that I ministered to during my tenure. Non-denominational, Presbyterian, Methodist, Catholic, Lutheran, Episcopalian, you name it; I felt the burden at the very least to know a name at every church with which I could connect a student. When a new believer finally darkens the door of a church, I think they should be welcomed with open arms, a personal invitation, and an “I’m so glad you’re here.”  I can think of many personal friendships with church youth pastors that started this way: John at St. Aloysius, Todd at Hope, Sean at Stanwich and Trinity, Jacques and Tyler at Rock Harbor, Dave at St. Andrews, the whole crew at Mariners just to think of a few. These folks love students and were just as excited as I when those newly born in the faith came to check out what church is all about.  They offered a new home to new believers. And I got some great friendships out of it too. But it can’t happen without relationships.  So knowing someone, having an ally, at every church became my goal. While this may be bordering on naïve idealism, one has to start somewhere.  I quickly learned which churches in the community had a sincere heart for students and new believers, which paid lip service, and which were too overworked to notice.

If you’re trying to reach a mission field for Jesus Christ then you’re on the same team regardless of where your paycheck comes from or how your organization governs itself

My attempts at connecting with church youth pastors were met with varied levels of acceptance over the years, ranging from missionary kinships to one pastor informing me that parachurch ministries were not biblical and didn’t have a place in the landscape of youth work.  The latter mentioned theological differences between Young Life and his denomination.  Little rant to get this one out of the way: we all have theological differences.  But if we can agree that Jesus is the reason then let’s leave the theological bickering behind and major on the majors. We’re talking about connecting new believers to the Body of Christ. If you’re trying to reach a mission field for Jesus Christ then you’re on the same team regardless of where your paycheck comes from or how your organization governs itself. End of rant.

So here’s what I noticed over time (the aforementioned arbiter notwithstanding), nearly all of the youth pastors I met over the years were at least interested in connecting with another ministry working in the same mission field (I say “nearly all” but honestly I can’t think of a single one off hand that wasn’t at least interested).  We’re obviously not in it for the money (i.e. we love seeing students meet Jesus, grow in their faith, and connect with other believers) so the interest was always there. But not all those interested were able to follow through. And it seemed in most cases that the reason for this was not unwillingness but that sustained partnerships with others working in the same mission field were not overtly part of the paradigm.  By “sustained partnership,” I don’t mean shared programs or even lunches to check-in and hang out but an ongoing dialogue about what’s up at the high schools, in the youth culture, with parents, in the mission field.  By “sustained partnership,” I simply mean being aware, recognition that we wear the same jersey, mutual support, and when necessary coming together to share knowledge or resources that will benefit the students in our collective mission field.  And maybe even praying together.  It was a challenge to make connections, stay in contact, and try to get something on the calendar with many church youth pastors. Because I was most often in the place of seeking allies, often I couldn’t quite understand why my attempts at connecting were not reciprocated. I don’t know if this is a common experience in youth ministries or not, it’s just what I experienced over the course of 10 years with a parachurch ministry.

Fast forward a few years, I went on staff at a church as a youth pastor in 2006.  Pastoring students in a church setting has some of the same challenges as a parachurch setting. In many ways, we all face commonalities in working with students, but it was immediately evident to me that my church setting was very different than my parachurch setting.  I finally got to see the other side of the folks I was approaching about building relationships.  Then it happened.  I found myself on the end of not reciprocating attempts by various youth pastors and parachurch directors to build new sustained partnerships simply because I had my hands full with what I was trying to do with my own job. I wasn’t able to follow through with others in our shared mission field.  Additionally, our church had its own way of doing things and the deeper I got into that the more I noticed the differences between the way we did things and the way others working in the same mission field did their thing.  It wasn’t better or worse, it was just different.  If I’m honest, I think ministry became more about winning students to Jesus for my church, to grow our faith community, than winning students to Jesus for The Church and supporting others around me doing the same.  Compound this with the hours spent focused on the spiritual growth of our volunteers, staff, and students already connected and I began to drift from the paradigm that says we can’t accomplish what we want to accomplish without other ministries.  Every youth pastor, parachurch director, and volunteer leader seeking to reach students for Jesus regardless of denominational affiliation or seminary affiliation in my town is on my team. But I wasn’t acting like it.

What could we do better together that we simply can’t do on our own?

Here’s the stark reality: if you take all the youth ministries in your town and add up all the students that are being reached and connected and then compare that to the overall population of students in your town then it’s obvious that we’re all just barely scratching the surface of reaching even half of our mission field.  Half? Are we all together reaching a third? A quarter? I don’t know what it is in your town but in the 6 regions of the country that I’ve worked in youth ministry that number barely approaches 20% and there were some big youth ministries in those places. How does that sit with you? It kind of bugs me. I feel uneasy knowing that in the last school district in which I ministered, of the 6,647 students enrolled in public high schools, we could only account for roughly 1,500 students city-wide in all our church and parachurch ministries (as best I could tell from personal conversations with all the people I knew leading Christian youth work).  What does it look like in your town?  Is it worth knowing or asking around?  Is it enough to be satisfied with the numbers or composition of your group on Sunday morning or Wednesday night? If all the folks trying to reach kids for Christ were on my team then I figured I needed to start acting like it.

If you work in youth ministry, I believe the question we should be asking is, “What could we do better together that we simply can’t do on our own?” Youth ministries deal in the commodity of relationships in a particular community and we’re in the business of reaching new students for Christ, connecting them with The Body, and facilitating an environment conducive to spiritual growth.  But all too often, we can have a propensity to drift into silo-building instead of bridge-building – not intentionally, mind you, but if we’re not intentionally building bridges with others then silos are the inevitable consequence by default.  We can no longer afford to pay lip service to building coalitions, sustained partnerships, and friendships with other youth workers in our town. Our mission field is simply too huge and diverse to plod along, head down, and assume we don’t desperately need each other in our collective pursuit of students with the Gospel.

As my friend Mike DeVito always says, “We are better together.”

Fix Your Oxygen Mask First

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Admittedly, I don’t know much about pressurized cabins in airplanes.  Actually, I don’t know anything about how it works.  In the past, I occasionally listened to the flight attendants giving out instructions over the crackily, ancient PA system but I don’t really know what it would be like to suddenly lose all cabin pressure if, say, a wing tore off the plane.  I know what I picture in my head – gasping for air, ears popping, people passing out, the full catastrophic scene from Airplane.  So I never truly grasped the wisdom of placing your own oxygen mask over your face before helping the little one next to you until I took a flight a while back with my then 4 month old son, Greyson.   Then I listened.

There’s nothing like having the life of a child in your hands to get you to wake up and pay attention.

I used to think that if the cabin pressure suddenly dropped and we’re all gasping for air and screaming at the pain in our no-longer-pressurized ears, the first thing I would do is lean over and put the mask on Grey first.  How could I not?  What kind of selfish monster would ignore the cry of pain or the gasping for air of the little one in the next seat?  Then I realized it:  if I’m passed out unconscious in my seat, who’s going to revive me so I can help my son who probably has even less time than me before the lights go out?  I guess the reasoning goes, worst case scenario, I put on my oxygen mask first and if my kid passes out then I’m right there to help.  I know this sounds catastrophic and my imagination tends to run wild but have you ever been in a de-pressurized airplane cabin?  And if you have, what actually happens?  I honestly don’t know.  I guess I’m thinking, why else would we need oxygen masks unless there’s no oxygen left in the cabin?  So I put mine on first.  And then I help my son.  After all, I’m no good to him if I black out.

In ministry and parenting, we’re no good to our students, staff, leaders, and families if we’re gasping for air.  Teenagers are already dealing with a critical season of life, it might feel like the plane’s going down everyday to them.  How are we to be a safe place in turbulent times if we can hardly breathe ourselves?

We must self-check often.  In addition to all of the wonderful reasons we’ve accepted a call from God to be in ministry or to have a family (yes, ministering to our own families is a high call!), there’s also a dark side.  If we’re honest, ministering to students or our families doesn’t simply fill a need in the lives of those we minister to, it also fills a need inside of us.  We like to be liked.  We may have varying levels of codependent tendencies.   We’re conscientious people and we work very hard but it can be a slippery slope towards workaholism.  The combination of all these traits and the great rewards of ministry and parenting can lead our work towards feeling like some sort of an addiction.  The pace of life gets frenetic as we find ourselves frantically running from one event or meeting or game to another and we start to feel as if we’re on some sort of human-hamster wheel.  The tension we may feel is that all these things we give our time to are good, none are bad, there are just so many of them.  I may just be projecting all over the place here but my experience with leaders and families over the years tells me that I’m not alone.

Within the antidote of the self-check, we must be aware of these tendencies in ourselves because they often lead to overworking.  The stress of overworking leads to a depletion of our inner resources.  Then we neglect what we need most.  We gasp for air.  And we’re no longer any good to those we lead.  Often in these times, we abandon the things we actually need most to be healthy in ministry and parenting:  time to breathe, time to reflect, time with Jesus, space to reconnect with ourselves and God.  It’s all too easy to be so focused on the needs of others that we forget to focus on ourselves and, after all, you can only squeeze so much water out of a sponge before it’s completely dry.

While our culturally-imbued sense of the almighty work ethic may lead us towards feeling guilty for creating space to breathe, it’s actually this kind of self-care that can restore our souls so that we’re better able to serve those we lead.

I don’t know what this might look like for you but the stakes are high and our families, students, leaders, and staff are counting on us.  This is really difficult work but those we lead need to get the best of us – our time, energy, passion, and resources.   Make sure you take time to breath deeply from your own oxygen mask so that you’ll have your wits about you when called upon to help another with their own mask.

What Should a 12th Grader’s Faith Look Like?

Recently, our team has been discussing, debating, arguing, etc over what a 12th grader’s faith should look like after 4 years in our ministry.  The issue seems to revolve around such questions as these: “Where are we taking students?”  “What should/could a spiritually mature 18 year old’s faith be like/look like/sound like?”  “What are the things that we would like for a senior to know/to be/to do so that when they go off to college they’ll own their faith and know how to walk with Jesus as an adult?”

Are these questions that your team has wrestled with?  What have you come up with?  Are these the right questions to be asking?

Here are the 7 things that we currently have in a (very) rough draft.  Please leave a comment with a few things that you would like to see in your 12th graders.  Thanks!

What Should a 12 Grader’s Faith Look Like? (Or Seven Things for Seniors)

• Passion for Jesus Christ and knowledge that Jesus Christ has a passion for them.

• Passion for how they are uniquely gifted in serving and loving other people

• Ability and desire to access the Scripture and prayer for themselves to know how they connect to God intimately

• An understanding of Christian theology (humanity, sin, redemption, incarnation, Jesus, the church, etc.)

• Ability and desire to make wise decisions stemming from a Biblical worldview

• The ability to think critically about their faith in “real world issues” which may involve wrestling with doubt intentionally

• The ability and desire to connect to Christian community beyond our church.