A month ago I shared the results of our high school ministry evaluations and how our large-group meeting time seemed to have almost no spiritual influence in teenagers’ lives. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking since then. Usually I’d start by looking at the different elements of our meeting time and ask questions like, “What do they need to be taught? Maybe I’m not going deep enough? Maybe it’s not relevant enough? Less teaching? More discussion?” My mind has gone in hundreds of directions with these kinds of questions and more. But the more I think about it, the more I feel like I’m asking the wrong questions, and, of course, the wrong questions lead to wrong conclusions.

So, I backed up to this idea of being spiritually influential. I’m not really sure what that means exactly, but it’s interesting to think about. As I do so, I feel drawn to the question, “What creates a spiritually influential environment for high school teenagers?” Is it a better teaching series? Someone with more charisma? Bigger games? Giving teenagers 30 minutes to discuss a lesson instead of 15 minutes?

According to the evaluation survey I used (and some good common sense), I think a spiritually influential environment depends on three things. Two of them I can somewhat control, one of them I can’t control at all.

1. What is the most spiritually influential aspect of our ministry?

The evaluations showed that shared experiences are the most spiritually influential aspect of our ministry. These shared experiences took place through trips, events, spontaneous hang-outs, and sharing life together. It’s not really too surprising because, if you think about it, experiences are what have shaped most of us into what we are today. When you think back to the life-changing moments in your life, very rarely is it a sermon you heard, or a small group discussion. Granted, those things have their place and they definitely contribute to life-change, but typically we think back to experiences in our lives that have shaped us, and usually it’s the negative ones that have shaped us the most.

I’m not saying I’m going to try to intentionally create a series of negative experiences for teens, but I do believe that youth ministry needs to become more experiential, in which case the question shifts from what we teach to how we teach. I think I need to be more intentional about creating flexible experiences for teens and teaching through those experiences. For example, going into the inner city to feed homeless people and teaching teens on the spot about materialism, servanthood, equality, etc. The downsides are that it would take a lot more time and energy to prepare, it has the potential to be a lot messier than teaching in a sterile classroom, and I really can’t control the experience anyone actually has.

2. Who is the most spiritually influential person in our ministry?

Although I’d like to think I’m the most spiritually influential person in our ministry, we all know that’s not true. According to the survey my high school teens filled out, the students who claimed they grew a lot spiritually last year are the same ones who admitted to having frequent spiritual conversations at home with their parents. They also said their parents are the #1 spiritual influence in their lives.

So what if we combined the most spiritually influential aspect of our ministry (experiences) with the most spiritually influential person (parents)? What if we intentionally created environments where teens and parents had spiritual discussions and experiences together? What could happen if teens and parents went to the inner city together to feed the homeless? And what if I taught briefly to everyone about materialism, servanthood, equality, etc, and then let the parents lead discussions about the experience with their teens?

3. How does spiritual influence happen?

I’d be remiss to neglect the role of the Holy Spirit in the process of life-change. Obviously, I can’t coerce the Holy Spirit to do anything, but I’d like to do the best job I know how in partnering with Him. That mostly means begging Him in prayer to move, work, and change hearts through the experiences and people involved.

How would it work practically?

I’m still thinking this through, but I’ve been talking with our adult ministries pastor about pushing hard to get parents plugged into small groups where they can “grow deep.” The youth ministry pushes teens into small groups, but statistically a lot of parents aren’t connected to one. The idea is that, as parents grow themselves, the more they can become the spiritually influential person their kids desperately need. And the more that happens, the more effective the bi-monthly experiences to serve and “go wide” together in family-oriented missions trips will be.

I know this isn’t necessarily an earth-shattering idea. In fact, I know some ministries who already do something like this. Even our own church has done things that could fall into this strategy, too, but it would definitely be a shift for us to intentionally make this our focused strategy in taking kids and families deep and wide.

I’m still wrestling with a lot of this. Mostly thinking out loud here in this post. What do you all think?

…before I started.

1. It’s very emotional, unlike any other job. You’ll experience the highest of highs, and the lowest of lows.

2. It’s very messy, and always will be as long as you work with people who are just as imperfect and sinful as you are.

3. It’s constantly changing. Youth culture never stays the same from year to year, and neither do the kids, values, nor worldviews. Youth ministry must always morph along with it. As soon as you think you have a handle on it, think again.

4. It requires strong vision casting. Any leadership position does, but leadership in youth ministry does especially. Your leaders, teens, parents, church and community all depend on it.

5. Don’t think you need to do it all. In fact, the ministry is healthier when you enable others to serve instead of taking responsibility for every youth event, trip, fundraiser, small group, idea, and strategy that furthers the vision.

6. No matter what people at your new church say, don’t make deep rooted changes in the ministry until after two years of building trust and respect.

7. Live a life that is above reproach in everything. Eventually even “little things” will come to light and you will be held to a higher level of accountability for it (and rightly so).

8. Kids really don’t care how “cool” you are or how well you know scripture as much as they care about how much you love them as individuals, not as a group.

9. Have a firm grasp on what your values are in ministry and make sure they’re are aligned with a church’s written and unwritten values before accepting a paid youth ministry position there.

10. Don’t be too discouraged if you don’t see results and life-change take place right away. Sometimes it takes years, and even then you won’t always hear about it.

What do you wish someone would’ve told you about youth ministry before you got started? We’d all love to hear it in the comments below.

I’m not saying that every youth group should combine jr. high and sr. high ministries, but I do think there are some valid reasons for keeping them together. Most ministries that have the two age groups combined do so only because they don’t feel as if they’re big enough to divide into two groups yet. Although some prominent youth ministers will tell you to divide the group right away regardless of how many students are in the ministry, I’d like to encourage us to think through the other side of the argument before proceeding just because some guru tells us to.

1. High school kids can leave a huge impact on jr. highers.

Seriously, this is HUGE! Think back to when you were in jr. high. If a high school kid actually talked to you and gave you attention, that meant the world! I still remember a Boy Scout trip back in 8th grade. One of the older guys who just got his driver’s license had a conversation with me while we were filling up water bottles — that made my entire weekend! Almost 20 years later I can still tell you what our conversation was about. I felt valued, appreciated, and totally accepted.

Encourage your high school students to reach out to the underclassmen as much as possible. If the guys on the wrestling team I help coach at our public high school can help train, encourage, and teach the upcoming jr. highers how to wrestle every day in practice, we should certainly be able to expect Christian kids to do the same spiritually.

2. It models what the body of Christ is all about

The body of Christ is not about segregating into groups of a similar age range. In fact, that could even have devastating affects on the body of Christ if we’re not careful. Diversity, working together, genuine community in spite of differences, all for the sake of bringing glory to God — this is what the body is all about.

3. It shapes a healthier view of church for their adult years

We must always be careful about how our ministries are unintentionally (even subconsciously) shaping our teenagers’ view of church, especially as they grow into adulthood and retain that perspective. Are they learning that church is a place where you latch on to peers in the same stage of life? Are they growing up with the expectation that they are at church to be served instead of serving others (consumerism)? Are they learning to embrace the diversity in love?

Question:

If you have jr. high and sr. high ministries split, why? If they’re combined, why? I’d love to process this more with you all in the comments below. I’m not convinced that one way is better than the other, but I do think it’s extremely critical that we think through why we divide or combine them.

Oh, and let’s try to get past all the general reasons like, “They’re at difference places in life,” and, “The jr. highers get on the high school kids’ nerves.” I don’t think they’re valid enough reasons to excuse greater benefit of keeping everyone together. They’re easily worked through given a bit of time to help kids and parents shift their perspective of youth group.

Just for the record, my youth ministry is divided into jr. and sr. high and that will not change anytime soon, although I’d love to explore the possibly some day.

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A couple months ago I had a conversation with Brian Eberly about some of the great ways his church is shifting from segregated age-specific ministries to a more holistic approach of parent-based ministry. I asked him to write about it for us and he did! This guest post is contributed by Brian Eberly. Thanks, Brian!

Recently I have been experiencing a rather large shift in my thinking. For years I have seen the Church as the place to teach, train and equip young people for living out a real and authentic faith. I was even trained in college on how to pull off such a feat. Don’t get me wrong, I certainly believe the Church has a big role to play in that process, I just wonder, is that the primary role of the Church in the life of a young person?

If results are the chief way of evaluating effectiveness, one must ask then, are we seeing the results we had hoped for? Sadly, I have to say, no. Sure, I see many students that have come through my ministry over the years that are actively living their lives for the Lord. The high numbers of those who are not living for the Lord is what concerns me.

We youth pastors sit around for hours discussing why it is we see so many of our students dropping off upon graduation. Why are they abandoning their faith? Why are they walking away from the Church? Is it because we as a Church have failed them? Have we missed something? If we create a more exciting worship experience for them will they stay? If we create better programs that are attractive to their generation, will they stay? I believe the reasons are multi-faceted, and yes we as a Church, play a part. Beyond the Churches role and responsibility, I believe the weight of that responsibility falls on two very important people: mom and dad. The reason so many students give up on church and their faith is not because they don’t like the music in our worship services, or don’t like our programs, rather it’s because they have not seen a real faith lived out in their parents lives. They as a result view faith as hypocritical. They have not seen it lived out at home, so they don’t want any part of it in their lives.

Who ultimately is responsible? Is it the Church, or is the family? There is no question that God has mandated the Church to make disciples (Matthew 28:19-20) and equip people for ministry (Ephesians 4:11-12). The question is, does all of the responsibility fall on the shoulders of the Church? I believe the primary role of the Church is to partner with the family, not take it’s place. Unfortunately, much of that responsibility has been abdicated to the Church.

We have created programs for kids to be dropped off at, in the hope that they will get everything they need for living a God centered life. The average church spends 40 to 50 hours a year with children. Contrast this to the 2,500 hours a parent has, and it’s easy to see, who has the greatest impact. I find it hard to believe that the drop off systems we have created is what God had in mind for the spiritual nurture of His children.

It is the families responsibility, that being mom and dad, to nurture the spiritual lives of children. Researcher George Barna correctly states, “When a church – intentionally or not – assumes a family’s responsibilities in the arena of spiritually nurturing children, it fosters an unhealthy dependence upon the church to relieve the family of its biblical responsibility.”*

So what is the role of parents? In instructing God’s people to “Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength,” (Deuteronomy 6:5). Moses presented them with very practical instruction on how to lead their children in living out that command. He writes, “These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up” (Deuteronomy 6:6-7). That is some pretty specific instruction!

We are to pass our faith on to our children all throughout the day. In the slow time, (when you sit at home) in the go time, (when you walk along the road) in the down time, (when you lie down), and in the up time. (when you get up). This will not be accomplished in the “drop off time.”

Let us remember as a Church, it is our role to partner with parents in this ever important task. In our programming let’s dream of ways we can come alongside parents and families to equip them and resource them in their God given task. Ephesians 4:12 instructs us to prepare God’s people for works of service, so the body of Christ may be built up. Let us as youth workers not merely focus on preparing students, but let us consider how we may also prepare parents for the task of discipling their children so the body of Christ may be built up.

*George Barna, Transforming Children Into Spiritual Champions (Ventura, CA: Regal Books, 2003), p 81.

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Brian Eberly is the Family Pastor at Grace Point Community Church in Tigard, Oregon. He’s been actively ministering to students for 23 years. When not doing ministry he spends most of his time with wife Robin and two kids, daugther, Brittnie and son Benjamin. He blogs at www.brianeberly.com. Feel free to contact him at brian@brianeberly.com.

A Life In Student Ministry reader who wishes to remain anonymous emailed me with the following question:

How am I supposed to deal with a Senior pastor that passionately wants to make (most) decisions about our youth ministry? I understand that I must be humble and submissive to his authority, but little room is left for the leaders and kids to participate in the decision making process.

Observation Period

It’s probably best to try to understand why he is a micromanager. Is it fear of failure? Is it insecurity? Is it a trust issue? Is it something that he learned from a previous ministry? Have you made big mistakes in the past? Is someone else micromanaging him? Is he just very detail-oriented in general? Get to know this man on a personal level and establish as much trust is possible. Let him see that you’re on his team and that you support him 100%. Trust and respect on a ministry team is huge! The thing about trust, though, is that it’s not a right someone will automatically give you just because of the position you hold. You have to earn it. That takes time. It takes years to build trust and only seconds to destroy it, so be patient and be careful.

While earning his trust and respect, try to observe what kinds of situations kick him into full “micromanaging” gear. What do each of those scenarios have in common? Do certain issues make him breathe down your neck more than others? Is it mostly after a board meeting? Is it when his wife just yelled at him on the phone? This will help you understand him and his leadership style and also know how to better respond when you know he’s about to flex his control-muscles.

During this time, also pay attention to your own job performance. Are you meeting the expectations laid out for you? Are you casting a compelling vision for the ministry? Are you doing anything that could possibly give him reason to feel uncomfortable with your leadership? Are you undermining his leadership in any way?

The Confrontation

After you’ve spent time observing these things, confront him about it. All the normal principles for confrontation apply. So do all the rules for fair fighting. Be honest about how it makes you feel. If you’ve noticed your own shortcomings, admit them. This may be one of the hardest conversations you’ll ever have, but, Lord willing, it could also potentially be the most rewarding and freeing conversation you’ll ever have. But even if it isn’t, there’s no other way this issue can be resolved. This kind of thing won’t go away on it’s own. You have everything to gain and probably not much to lose.

Realistic Expectations

If the confrontation goes well, don’t expect things to change right away. People don’t normally change their life-long patterns instantly. This may be a hard journey for him to start letting go and trusting your leadership. So, look for the little victories and thank him profusely when they occur. Let him know that you notice the progress and think he’s the best guy in the world because of it. And, of course, continually go out of your way to support him and his leadership, both publicly and privately to his face.

Give your input

This is a pretty touchy subject and I’m certainly no expert on it. What do the rest of you recommend? Drop a note in the comments below. Thank you!

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Have a youth ministry question you’d like me and other readers to answer? E-mail it to me! Please keep your question brief and to-the-point. Thanks!

NOTE: I hope you guys enjoy Q&As here at Life In Student Ministry because I’ve had a backlog of them queued up for a while. I’m going to publish a lot of them this week and next before the answers are irrelevant to the people who originally asked.

Jeremy Zach emailed me and asked, “Have ya’ll ever done a youth Sunday? Basically where the students lead the church service. If you have, what key ingredients are essential to make this Sunday work? Any recommendations?”

I actually think Youth Sundays are a really bad idea. In my opinion, every Sunday should be a “youth Sunday.” I don’t like what youth Sunday unintentionally communicates to kids: “This is your Sunday. The other Sundays are not so much for you.”

We don’t have youth Sundays. Instead, I make sure teens play significant roles in church every Sunday. I want them to feel like they have significant ownership and responsibility in the body here every week. Fortunately, our church is very good about using teens in services every week and integrates them into the life of the body pretty well, but I realize not every church is like that.

Here are some easy ways your teens can get involved every Sunday:

• Leading worship
• Leading a time of prayer
• Ushering
• Passing offering plates
• Sharing testimonies of how God is working in their life
• Leading a “children’s sermon” or even the “adult sermon”
• Running lights and sound
• Engaging visitors before and after service
• Serve communion
• Dramas/skits that illustrate the sermon
• Dance (depending on your denomination!)
• Pray with the pastor(s) before each service

Help teenagers take ownership of the church outside of services, too. Some ideas:

• Maintaining a church website, Facebook page, YouTube channel, and Flickr photo albums
• Participate in the decision-making process in board meetings (seriously!)
• Visiting shut-ins and making hospital visits
• Teach children Sunday school classes
• Lead a workshop for adults on things like Facebook and txt messaging
• Leading small group discussions among their peers in youth group
• Pray for prayer requests that are submitted during services

Other responses

I asked on Twitter for people to give me their ideas for how they integrate teens into both the church body and church services. Here’s some of the feedback I received.

“Communion assistants, Worship leaders, Greeters, Acolytes, Help with Family Service Groups, Allow them the ability to lead Everyday services, Pray with the pastor, ect… lots of ideas!” — via Jeremy Hallquist in Facebook

“worship team, video/computer/sound, children’s ministry, cafe, welcome, greeter, usher, list goes on and on…” via Kevin Twombly in Twitter

“we only do multi-gen missions, teens are on worship team, serve in children’s min, etc…” via Chris Szulwach in Twitter

“For the tech geeks – I’ve plugged them into the sound/video team for church services. I’ve also plugged them into being door greeters for church services. It gets them plugged into the church and if families with teens come for a visit they can introduce themselves and help the visiting teen feel more comfortable. I’ve also done something we called ministry shadow. In short have your students shadow someone for a day that serves in a ministry within your church.” via Brian Ford in an email.

“getting them on committees if the church has them.” via Russ Bowin in Twitter

“We have our youth read scripture and usher on the 3rd sunday of the month.” via Nicole Cox in Twitter

“help in nursery, be a Sunday School teachers aide for younger kids” via June Camizzi in Facebook

Give your input

Do you have “Youth Sundays?” Why or why not? What would you recommend for Jeremy? Drop a note in the comments below.

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Have a youth ministry question you’d like me and other readers to answer? E-mail it to me! Please keep your question brief and to-the-point. Thanks!

In a couple weeks I’m speaking at a retreat for sr. pastors who serve here in the northwest. For the first session they asked me to teach sr. pastors how they can support their paid and volunteer youth workers. However, the second session is wide open to whatever I think sr. pastors need to hear from youth workers. Interesting, huh? That’s a lot of free reign to say all the things we all want to say that could possibly get us fired.

Here’s what I’ve brainstormed for the first session on how sr. pastors can support their youth workers. What else should I add?

How sr. pastors can support their youth workers

Always publicly support your youth workers. Always. Even if it makes you look bad. Later, take the youth worker privately in your office and give them the, “What were you thinking?!” talk. There’s nothing that will erode your youth ministry team faster than feeling unsupported by their pastor. And nothing will deter others from serving in the youth ministry more than when they see that taking place.

Make yourself available to the teens. Don’t push youth work off onto a couple volunteers and expect that you’ll understand what they’re dealing with with issues arise. Visit the youth meetings on a regular basis, talk with the kids, show them that you’re real and approachable and that you care about them.

Change your mind about only using “young married couples” as youth workers. Consider the retired generation: they have time, life experience, spiritual maturity, and love for youth like no one else! Kids don’t care about how “hip” their leaders are or if they’re familiar with all the latest bands and movies — they just want to know that someone cares about them unconditionally.

Give your youth workers direction and guidance, but other than that, be hands-off. Let them experiment, explore and try new things. Let them pursue their God-given vision for the ministry (as long as it’s within the vision of the church, of course). Give them the freedom to fail and learn. And when they do fail, support them and encourage them through it. Understand that most sr. pastors are the engineering-type: they pay attention to detail, are very bullet-point linear people, and like to manage things. But youth workers usually the opposite: they are big-picture people, not always linear, and feel comfortable with a bit of controlled chaos. Enable them to serve how God’s created them, not however makes you feel most comfortable.

When recruiting youth workers, listen to their heart, their dreams, passion and giftedness for ministry and plug them in a place where that can vibe. Don’t just use people to fill the ministry’s holes and empty classrooms. Create places where their passion can shine and become contagious to those around them. And if your ministry holes aren’t filled, that’s okay — trust that the Lord wants to go a different direction.

Challenge your youth workers to think about youth ministry as something more than just a social time for kids with a Bible study thrown in. Teens want depth more than fun and games. And they don’t want to be “preached at” as much as they like to discuss and engage the material themselves.

Why teenagers are leaving the church

I thought I could do the second “free reign” session to talk about the teen drop-out from church after high school. What do you think? Is there something else that’s more pressing that sr. pastors need to hear?

Here are some of the talking points I’ve brainstormed so far:

Be intentional about getting teenagers integrated into the church. Avoid “minichurch” approach to youth ministry: youth pastor, youth service, youth band, youth building, youth church. They are part of THE church. Have them give input into church decisions, involved in leading worship, greeters, offering, sharing testimonies, teach a class to adults on how to use the Internet to communicate, offer ideas for how to improve services, etc. Make the teenagers a vital part of the church body.

Many parents are not modeling the daily interaction between faith and real life for their kids at home. Kids don’t see a faith in their parents that intersects and determines every area of life. Their parents attend church, but the home life is void of any spiritual influence. Teens see that disconnect and see no reason to be a part of it when they’re finally on their own.

The best thing you can do for the teenagers in your church and your community is NOT to start a youth program at your church — it’s to ensure that the parents are growing spiritually and actually living out their faith every day in front of their kids. Pastors need to challenge the adults to actually grow, not just be faithful attenders.

With each sermon, include a couple discussion questions that parents can use to further the discussion about the Sunday message at home or in the car. Follow-up and during the week ask people to share in front of church how the conversation went in order to offer accountability so parents and teens alike grow to expect it.

I’d love to hear your feedback. What else do sr. pastors need to hear from youth workers? What do I need to add to these notes? Is there a different route I should go with the second session?

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Join our LIVE Youth Ministry Conversation this Friday at 2:00 PM EST! The topic is, “Evaluating the spiritual depth of our youth ministries.” Of course, we also want to discuss your questions and any advice or ideas you need from other youth workers. Join us using either your telephone or your computer microphone.

Maybe it’s heresy for a youth worker to say this, but I’ve actually never been on a missions trip with a missions organization, like Group Workcamps, Global Expeditions, or Youth Works. It’s not that I’m opposed to them — it’s just that the Lord has always provided other personal connections to serve, both in the US and overseas.

Based on my experience, there’s several benefits to organizing your own missions trip.

1. Total flexibility. You’re in charge of the dates, where you go and what you do there, how long you stay, and everything else you can think of.

2. It’s cheaper. Since we’re not paying to support a missions organization, the cost of the trip is whatever we need it to be to cover expenses and not a penny more.

3. Serve according to your gifts. You can tailor the trip to the specific gifts and talents of your teenagers. Got lots of singers and kids who love to share Christ with strangers? Or do none of them sing and talking to strangers is like a Fear Factor mission?

4. Push the teens without breaking them. You can create a missions experience that will challenge them, but not push them over the edge. Since that breaking point is different for every group, so a one-size-fits-all trip may be too much for one group, but not stretching enough for another. Only you, their youth leader, know where that point is.

Again, there’s there’s nothing wrong with using an organization to plan and coordinate your missions trip. But if you’re considering a trip on your own next summer, these might be some reasons to give it a try.

Although I’ve only been in my current ministry position for a little over a year and a half, I’ve grown to appreciate several things about my Sr. Pastor, John LeVahn (pictured left).

1. Once in a while he visits the youth group for no other reason than to support me and to be available to the kids. Some youth pastors may find this intimidating, but I love it, especially since he does whatever I need just like any other adult leader.

2. Sometimes teenagers will ask pretty deep theological questions, either based on something we discussed in youth group or from what they heard in one of John’s sermons. I love doing my best to answer them, but so does John. He gladly writes responses to the teens’ questions on our youth group website, via email, or in person.

3. Every youth pastor dreams of working with a Sr. Pastor who gives complete freedom and flexibility like John gives me. Everything from the vision and direction of the youth ministry (as it aligns with the church, of course) to programming and big decisions.

4. He understands that my gifts and passions lie in the relational side of youth ministry, so he’s totally cool with me leaving the church office at any time to go be with kids, even if it means I don’t even come in to the office at all! They hired an administrative assistant to help do all the other organizational tasks that I’m not overly-gifted in.

5. Whenever I make mistakes, he always publicly supports me, listens and understands, although later he may pull me into his office privately and say, “What in the world were you thinking?!”

6. Sometimes he makes honest suggestions about changes that he thinks might be best for the youth ministry, but he never tells me I have to do it. If I choose to disregard his advice, there would be no hard feelings or disrespect (although later I might hear a half-joking, “I told you so!”).

7. Whenever I have a question, need advice, input or just need to vent, he is always gladly available, even if I call his cell phone on his day off. If I stop by his office to talk, he immediately stops whatever he’s doing to give me his full attention.

8. When issues arise in the youth ministry, he never blames me or accuses me for any of them. It’s always, “How can we resolve this?” not “You messed up again?!”

9. All throughout Bible college and seminary it was ingrained into me to say “No” often to many of the good opportunities that come as being a leader in a church. John models that and supports my initiative to say “No” to many meetings, ideas and even my attendance at some youth events!

10. The main time I was truly impressed by John was last year when I was sitting in a church board meeting presenting some youth ministry changes I felt were necessary. The board members talked about it long and hard going back and forth between all the different pros and cons. John was very strongly set against my idea, but never did he pull rank or veto the whole plan. In fact, the majority vote from the board was for my proposal and ever since then I’ve not heard a single word from him other than support and a positive attitude for the changes. No bitterness, no resentment, no nothing. (Turns out the changes worked very well for the ministry. Now it’s my turn to say, “I told you so!” lol Just kidding.)

Adam McLane and I were talking via Twitter about his post, 3 Lies of Church Growth Experts. It really is sad how many churches have become more focused on building a church rather than building the Kingdom of God. It’s not about growing mature believers and sending them out into the world — it’s about collecting as many pew-sitters as possible so you feel good about yourself and your “ministry.” It’s the same attitude people have when they do evangelism as recruitment rather than out of a burden for lost souls that could care less about which Bible-teaching church they join later.

Unfortunately, this mentality often trickles down to the youth ministry. I fequently hear about the competitive nature between local church youth ministries, about how one youth worker is upset because some of his kids went to a different youth group and how they have to compete with the big church to keep their kids. People, this is not how the body of Christ is supposed to function. It’s not about us versus them, it’s about seeing teenagers mature into sold-out passionate worshipers and dedicated students of the Word. Who cares if that happens best at your church or at someone else’s church?

Personally, I’m not offended when one of my youth group kids goes to another church’s youth group because I want that student to be wherever they’re going to grow the most. I’ll be honest enough to tell you that that’s not always in my youth group. Every youth group is different and so is every student. I have kids from other churches in my church’s ministry and other churches in the area have teens from my church. It’s not a big deal. In fact, there have been several occasions when I’ve actually sent my kids to another church’s youth group because they were doing something that I thought could really benefit them spiritually. I’m actually doing it again at the end of this month and purposefully not scheduling anything here that might conflict with it.

Remember, it’s not about being possessive and thinking of the teens as “my teens” because they’re not yours — they belong to the Lord. Your roll is to help nourish them spiritually, whether that takes place at your church’s ministry or someplace else. Don’t let your jealousy or disappointment stand in the way of that.

Besides, what’s the worst that could happen? If all of your kids leave your group and start going someplace else, would that be so bad? Take your efforts and join that other youth ministry’s efforts instead! It’s about building God’s Kingdom, not building your youth group. That’s exactly why I love partnering with many of the youth pastors in my community every Tuesday morning at our Allies meetings. We’re a team working together for the teenagers in our community. We are NOT competitors trying to collect as many teens in our group as we can.