Someone recently emailed me with some good questions about my youth group’s vision to go Deep and Wide. Thought I’d share them with you here, along with my responses.

1. What difference has the deep and wide program made to your youth ministry on the ground compared to any program you used before?

Going “deep and wide” is not a program. Taking kids “deep and wide” is our mission statement, purpose statement, core values, strategy, and our philosophy all in one simple vision for teenagers. It directs and determines our programs, the content we teach, the relationships
we build, and every other aspect of our ministry, but it is not a program.

2. What are the positive (and negative) you could share with me about it?

There’s really nothing negative about it. It follows Jesus’ commission to “go into all the world” (go wide) and “teach them to obey everything I have commanded” (grow deep). It’s also the great commandment to “love the Lord your God” (grow deep) and “love your neighbor as yourself” (go wide). Everything is wrapped up in those two inseparable aspects of Christianity: worship, fellowship, discipleship, evangelism, missions, everything.

If you want to read more about it, Greg Stier (of Dare 2 Share Ministries) wrote a thesis on it that goes into more detail.

3. One concern I have about the material is [your] use of the word “push” which could potentially have negative connotations in terms of “pushing” young people to make a commitment. Maybe this is a difference in our theologies but there have been several ministries…over the years (of which I was involved in one as a young person) that have “pushed” young people and for many this has had long term negative fallout. I agree that we ought to be hastily encouraging young people to have relationship with Jesus and to share it, but I am keen for that relationship to be long term. Do you have any thoughts?

I understand your hesitation with the word “push” and I agree with what you’re saying. Too many churches are very passive when it comes to encouraging teens in their faith. We think that if we talk with them once a week at church for an hour about it, then that’s sufficient to help them grow. But in comparison to everything else in their life — academics, athletics, band, family, relationships, whatever — they are definitely pushed. There are expectations and boundaries for each of those things that are much more rigorous than what we expect of teens spiritually. Mormons, for example, expect their kids to go to seminary for classes every day early in the morning before school and the Mormon drop-out rate is almost 0! We barely expect that they show up at youth group.

So, when I use the word “push” I mean we need to raise the standards and expectations of spiritual growth in kids lives. According to my theology, we are all naturally sinful and rebel against the things of God. Pursuing Him does not come natural for any of us. That’s why it requires some gentle, sometimes forceful, pushing. In my experience, never has a kid rebelled against that. In fact, they always rise to the challenge and start seeing Christianity as something more than just a wussy thing on Sunday mornings.

The kids who are spiritually apathetic need to be challenged the most. Jesus said, “teaching them to OBEY everything I have commanded.” Sometimes we have to challenge kids to just try what Jesus commands in an area of their life, and as they see that it really works, that this
is real and not just old Bible stuff, they start to become more interested. As they continue to obey and follow the Lord and see Him at work in their lives, then they move to becoming more excited about their faith and then passionate. That doesn’t mean teens (and even myself) don’t fluctuate spiritually, just that we are striving to obey the Lord in every area of our life.

Ultimately, you’ll have to be sensitive to how much you “push” a kid. It’s different for every teenager. Some need a lot of accountability, challenges, and follow-up. Some only need to be “pushed” once.

—————————————————————-
If you’re on Facebook, become a fan of the “Life In Student Ministry” Facebook Page for status updates, special messages, previews of upcoming features, and more. It’s also an easy way to interact with other readers of this site.

Today in our LIVE YM Talk, Rob Kashow talked with us about teaching theology in youth ministry. We didn’t get into any theological debates, but we did cover a lot of ground.

Some of the things we talked about:

• Ideas for integrating theology into our teaching
• Some misconceptions about theology
• Why theology is important
• Evaluating who should teach and who shouldn’t
• And a lot more…

You can listen to the whole conversation below or grab it in iTunes.

Download this episode

Subscribe to LIVE YM Conversations in iTunes

Next week’s discussion

June 26: Next week’s topic and guest is still to be determined. Keep your eye on the LIVE YM Talk page and Twitter for details as they’re released this week. for details on how to join us.

Join our next LIVE Youth Ministry Conversation!

Last Sunday night at our sr. high large-group meeting I took the teens through Matthew 9 and specifically focused on Jesus’ illustration about old and new wine skins. After digging into the text a bit, I applied it to our youth ministry and the discontentment I feel toward are ineffectiveness. Sure, there are glimmers of life-change here and there, but nothing close to what I believe God wants to see happen through our ministry.

I concluded the night by doing a bit of vision casting for the fall and asked them to take a survey evaluating our high school ministry based on our deep and wide ministry strategy. I’ll make the survey available as a free download for this week’s Freebie Friday in case you’re interested, but here is a general summary of the results from my group.

[UPDATE: The survey and my lesson are now available to download.]

The evaluation results

• Kids who claimed to have experienced significant spiritual growth over the past year are also the same kids whose parents have regular spiritual conversations with them at home. These kids also said that the #1 influence on their spiritual growth is their parents. No huge surprise there, but it’s good to have it in writing.
• Students who claimed to have experienced little to no spiritual growth over the past school year said their parents have infrequent or no spiritual conversations with them and that their friends are the primary influence in their lives. I guess that’s okay as long as they have solid friends, but how mature can their peers possibly be?
• Our sr. high large-group gathering (game/worship followed by me teaching with interruptions for small group table discussions) was almost unanimously “a little bit” influential in their spiritual growth this year. Follow-up questions indicate that it is not due so much to my content as much as it is due to how it is delivered. The teens want to talk, discuss, and control the conversations themselves. They want to ask their own questions and have less structure. But they also want more depth and they want it to convict them, not just let them feel okay.
• Almost every teen comes to our large-group gathering because of friends, which tells me that if a couple key people stop coming, the meetings would drop to 0 attendance really fast.
• Conversely, the high school small groups were almost unanimously “pretty influential” to “it helped change my life” because they say that they feel safe, people are open with each other, and they talk about how God’s Word interacts with their daily life.
• Most of our kids are not really having spiritual conversations with unbelievers because they’re afraid and nervous. The “go wide” aspect of our strategy/vision/values/purpose/mission isn’t really taking place in kids’ individual lives.

My response

Based on this, I’m talking with the other pastors at my church about ditching sr. high large groups to create another small group that’s more of an open-forum discussion of life issues while I pray that somehow I’ll be able to join their conversation and take it deep into His Word without the prep I’m used to. However, there are a couple things I need to consider:

• Jesus’ had his small group, but he also saw value in teaching to the multitudes. He didn’t do it the way the religious system called for in his day by using a synagogue, rather he taught from hillsides and boats off-shore, essentially, where people were already gathered. Because of Jesus’ example, I’m not quite sure I’m ready to eliminate large-group teaching times completely, but something must change to make those times more effective in facilitating spiritual growth.
• Although our small groups are highly influential, do the large-group teaching times play a part in making those groups effective? Maybe the large-group time is what sets the biblical context and background for the small groups to have their effect.
• I’m not sure how teens defined “spiritual growth” when they filled out the evaluation. It’s possible that some kids equate spiritual growth to an emotional feeling at a camp or conference, in which case, their input about spiritual growth in the survey may or may not be helpful or accurate.
• An open-forum/deep theological format may be appealing to teens, but part of leadership is knowing what teens needs to hear and think through because they may not know what they really need. We often have to give kids what they need, not just want they want.

I think the next step is to have several of the high school teens over for dinner sometime to talk about these results and the future direction of our high school ministry in the fall. I’m also going to experiment with their “open forum/deep theology” discussion approach in our summer small groups here at my house. But that’s only the beginning. If we keep the large-group meeting time, the changes have to be deeper-rooted than re-microwaving the same large-group ministry or just trying to a different format. I’ll be sure to let you all know what comes from it.

[ This post is based on an interview I did last year. ]

These lists could be a lot longer, but here are a couple to get you started. I’d love for you guys to continue these lists in the comments below.

Current problems

1. Youth leaders are not internalizing the Word themselves before they teach it to others, and thus a disconnect between real life and faith is unintentionally communicated.

2. Parents are not being the spiritual role models their teenagers desperately need.

3. Youth ministries are too wrapped up in “doing” ministry rather than “being” ministry. Ministries find their identity in their function instead of seeking the Lord first for their identity and vision and then letting function flow from that.

4. Youth leader don’t pray enough. If we truly believed in the power of prayer, we’d spend more time in prayer than anything else.

Future challenges

1. Perhaps the biggest challenge for youth ministry in the next several years will be defining what community is, and then somehow enabling it to organically take place. The Internet and youth culture continue to change how people view relationships and how they interact. Since we are made in His image and one of the core essentials of that is relationships, we know that community will never go away, but the church’s ideology will either have to shift or be intentional about making a stance. Forming small groups and telling the participants to talk to each other for a couple years is not necessarily community.

2. Somewhat related is that our communication and teaching styles may need to change. Rather than lecturing from a stage or even discussing in a classroom small group, perhaps teaching will need to change to a community-driven experience that interacts with the real world.

What problems do we have? What future challenges do you see for youth ministry? Perhaps most importantly, how are you addressing these problems and challenges in your youth group?

I don’t do alter calls or invitations to come forward or anything, but I do make sure that I point every youth group lesson back to the gospel for several reasons.

1. It’s the foundation of everything else in scripture. In fact, we wouldn’t even have scripture in the first place if it wasn’t for the gospel. It’s the core, the hub, the center of everything we teach. Everything is dependent on the gospel. No matter what subject, issue, or passage you’re teaching, it all ties back to the gospel message. Don’t believe me? Watch Craig Groeschel of LifeChurch.tv do it with almost every message he preaches.

2. I’m not naive enough to think that all my youth group kids have made a decision to trust Christ. Actually, often the very opposite is often true. The church kids are the ones who are the most immune to the gospel. They mentally check out thinking, “Yeah, yeah, I know. I’ve heard this part before.” That’s why it’s important to always tie every lesson back to the gospel! I’ve found that some teens listen to my lesson just to try to figure out how I’m going to make the connection at the end. When I get there I explain the gospel in a way that’s relevant to the lesson we just discussed. In this way it doesn’t become redundant for them, but instead they get the gospel from a new angle every week.

3. The more my kids hear the Gospel, the more clear it is for them, the easier it is for them to share it with someone else, and the more confident they feel when doing so. When I do one-on-one discipleship with teen guys, one of the questions I always ask is, “If you had 30 seconds to share the gospel with someone right before they died, what would you say?” It’s surprising to me how many good, solid church kids have a perspective of soteriology that is totally confused. They often miss key elements such as sin, or the fact that Jesus was God. They know all the elements in their head, but they’ve never been asked to put all the pieces together. That’s why it’s so helpful for them to hear the gospel every week from me because it makes it more clear each time they hear it. Coincidentally, that helps them share it more clearly with others, which in turn boosts their confidence. Of course, that means I must first have a firm grasp on the gospel myself. Do you? Can you clearly answer my question?

4. Scripture expects that both me and my youth group kids share the gospel with others regularly. There are some things scripture expects from us whether we’re gifted in that area or not. For example, some people have the gift of serving, but every believer is still expected to serve others. Some people have the gift of giving, but every believer is expected to tithe. Some people have the gift of evangelism, but every believer is expected to share Christ with the lost people around them in one capacity or another. When we keep the gospel in front of our teens at youth group, it moves it to the forefront of their theological grid, and thus they are more apt to follow the Lord’s command in obedience to share Him with others.

Ultimately, it helps both the youth group teens and myself go deep and wide at the same time.

What kind of role does the gospel play in your youth ministry?

A while ago Greg Stier told me to check out the Deep & Wide ministry strategy and asked me to share my thoughts with him. I honestly put it off for a while just because of time and priorities, but a couple weeks ago I read the 34-page thesis and was actually surprised how much it coincided with what’s already taking place in my youth group. We’ve been taking a natural shift in this direction already — Deep & Wide just put words to what we’re already experiencing.

Deep & Wide is not another ministry philosophy. It’s not intended to be a formula for youth groups. It’s not the newest, latest, wave of ministry hype. It is simply an approach to ministry that movies spiritually apathetic teens to spiritually passionate teens. And it truly is simple. Just as the book Simple Church advocates, our modern approach to ministry is very cumbersome: we have purpose statements, vision statements, mission statements, core values, target audiences, various strategies, blah, blah, blah. It’s all supposed to fit together somehow, but yet the average Joe in our church has no idea what any of it means, and often we don’t either. Deep & Wide is simple: the vision is the mission, is the purpose, is the values, is the strategy and everything else rolled into one cohesive approach.

But most importantly, it’s straight from the Word of God. As my own ministry has discovered, it’s funny how God works when we actually do what His Word tells us to do in ministry and stop focusing on all the other fabricated stuff we add to it.

Lest you think scripture isn’t foundation enough, Willow Creek and REVEAL are finding that the typical approach to church ministry is not moving people toward a closer relationship with Christ. All their research and statistical data backs up Deep & Wide exactly.

I’m not going to explain to you what Deep & Wide is since you can read it yourself. However, I do have some reactions to it that Greg and I have already discussed extensively. He agrees with my critique and plans to make these changes as they go through an evaluation process and release a revised copy later this summer.

1. The role of the Holy Spirit, although mentioned, seems largely removed from the process. It’s mentioned a couple times, but I think He deserves more credibility in the process than the thesis mentions. Absolutely none of the Deep & Wide stuff happens without Him. That’s actually a problem I have with most ministry philosophies out there — they come across as almost being a methodical approach to coercing the divine into doing something.

2. Although I think the 30 core truths are good, basing it on a survey from leaders in various denominations strikes me as being a bit too human-ordained. Where does the issue of spiritual identity come in (being made in His image in Genesis, being “in Christ” in Eph, etc.)? It seems like a lot of good topics to cover from a systematic theology approach, but a student could possibly go through every issue listed and never come out knowing what it means to be a responsible, growing and effective believer except to have a list of stuff they’re supposed to “do,” rather than knowing who they “are.” What we “do” should flow from who we are, not the other way around. Identity in Christ comes first.

3. Deep & Wide has a sense of methodicalness to it, almost as if it promises that if I do A, B, and C, that means X, Y, and Z will happen, but we all know that spirituality a lot messier than that. The graph of spiritual growth over time is never a straight upward climb. The thesis needs to reflect the bumps and setbacks that will take place in real life and not unintentionally create unrealistic expectations.

4. I’m a little more careful with the book of Acts than the Deep & Wide thesis is when making a defense for what the church should be like today. Acts was an abnormal time period for the church, a period of transition characterized by elements that aren’t and can’t be a part of us today. However, the point that God wants to bring thousands into a relationship with Him is well taken and understood.

5. Teenagers are looking for adult sponsors who can answer “yes” to FOUR questions — the three questions the thesis mentions, plus “Are you reflecting Christ more accurately every day?” I’ve had youth leaders who loved Jesus, loved kids and were real, and I’ve had to kick them out leadership for gross immaturity issues. Youth leaders must be growing in Christ if they’re going to be the spiritual role model that I (and the Lord) expect.

Of course, people usually only respond to points of disagreement, which is essentially what I’m doing here, but I wholeheartedly support and agree with the big picture of Deep & Wide. In fact, it’s the only required text to read and discuss in my youth ministry leadership mentorship program.

If you’ve read the Deep & Wide Ministry Thesis, Greg and I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below, especially now as it goes through revisions.

2. Thou shalt regularly meditate on my Word. The word “meditate” makes a lot of us uncomfortable because of the religious Eastern overtones, but we already know how to meditate. We just meditate on the wrong things. As Rick Warren said, “If you know how to worry, you know how to meditate.” Better to mediate on the Word than on all the ministry complications that seem to be always present. Besides, how can we truly be the spiritual guides that teenagers need if we’re not constantly traveling ahead on the journey ourselves? We need to spend more time preparing our own souls in the Word than we do preparing to instruct the souls of others. Only then will ministry come out of who we are rather than what we do.

What suggestions do you have for this fellow youth worker?

A Life In Student Ministry reader submitted this question:

“Sometimes when I’m praying about what to teach next to the youth I just come up blank. I have not been to seminary and maybe they teach you how know what to preach next. Sometimes messages just come, but sometimes I sit and fret about what is the next thing they need.”

I think this is a good question, worth thinking through and getting sufficient answers. I know this guy is not alone in this situation, so please leave your feedback here for him. Here’s my initial response:

1. Get your hands on a curriculum program and teach through it’s topics and issues. Just be careful not to teach straight from the curriculum. Personalize it and tailor it for your kids. If nothing else, this is a good way to get started with ideas.

2. Most of your topics and issues will come rather quickly after you’ve been more involved in kid’s lives. In an earlier comment on my blog, you said you’re only in your first week of full-time youth ministry. Give it some time and then you’ll start noticing issues that need to be addressed, such as foul language, purity, or gossip.

3. Let me encourage you not to only think about your curriculum topically, though. Teenagers need to have a solid foundation of theology, especially in Bibliology (how we got our Bible, why it’s trustworthy, etc.). It’s easy to give students the impression that the Bible should be limited to the self-help section of the bookstore. Scripture is so much deeper than that. God is so much bigger than that. If you teach practical theology, I believe the personal applications can hit a much wider range than just “don’t gossip” or “stay pure.” Besides, if you don’t challenge their theology, their future college professors will, except there will be almost no theology to challenge.

If you haven’t checked out YMExchange.com yet, register on their forums. It’s a pretty active community of youth workers. When I have questions, need input on something in my ministry or am looking for some ideas on something, I often post there. They’re a good group of people.

An old post I wrote back in 2005 about youth ministry as an unbiblical position is gaining a lot of controversial attention.

• Is it biblical for a church to pay its pastors?
• Is youth ministry even found anywhere in scripture?
• Are churches going completely the wrong direction with its approach to ministry?

What do you think?

Here’s a summary list of every issue in youth ministry that’s been mentioned by one of the series contributors. Whew! There certainly are a lot of issues that need to be addressed.

Discuss: Which of these issues apply specifically to your youth ministry? What changes can you make to address them in 2007?

What do you see as some of the main issues youth ministry is struggling with today?

• Students are under a tremendous amount of stress and pressure.
• It is vital that we remind them constantly that Jesus needs to have first priority in their lives and that He holds their future in His hands. Students are so busy and God and church is not always the #1 priority.
• We need students to be global Christians.
• The idea of godly sexuality for all people needs to be put back on the agenda.
• Mental health.
• The whole question of “church” is becoming more and more of a struggle for youth ministry.
• Professional youth pastors and senior pastors looking for job security.
• This generation is facing identity issues, sexuality issues, authority issues, and vocation/purpose issues, but in a much more intense, aggressive, combative, pluralistic context.
• Discipleship and teaching students to grow on their own.
• Retention after graduation.
• Engaging parents.
• Cultural relevance. The Church is often reluctant to change sufficiently to genuinely include the young people.
• Defining Success.
• Recruiting and training adult volunteers to be effective.
• Presenting God as the right and better choice over pop culture.
• A lack of understanding of youth culture and no desire to learn it.
• We’re spending so much time trying to keep the ones we have that we are not reaching the lost.
• The church leadership believes there are only a couple of kids caught up in major issues and the rest of the kids are great, god fearing and perfect.
• Employed Christian youth workers are only deployed where there are churches with significant financial resources, meaning deployment is based on money not need.
• The “dumbing down” of programs because of the myth that junior high students cannot go “deep.”
• Connections between people and real community.
• We should be focusing more on is inner-city and “fringe” type of neighborhoods and young people.
• The issue of personal holiness, from youth ministers to parents to students. Our calling should be to BE children of God and pant after Him so that teens can see HIS power in our lives.
• Apathy of the “cradle-Christian” student.
• Not enough long term funding or funding in general.
• The church allows the youth to be isolated, and sometimes they want the youth isolated, which is anything but unifying for the church.
• Viewing youth ministry as a stepping-stone to becoming a Sr. Pastor, as if it’s important to practice ministry on “little people” before being qualified to work with “real people.”

What do you see as some of the main issues youth ministry is responding to effectively?

• Loving teens and connecting with them in their world.
• The call to missions.
• Youth ministry is attempting to address the same issues that the adult church may be after, but the amazing thing is that there is more of a willingness to experiment.
• Provides a safe place for hurting students. We are responding to the deep-seated hurts of teenagers in more effective ways than ever.
• Giving students time and space to be in community with each other.
• A desire to do ministry outside of the church and where kids are.
• Youth ministry allows young people to encounter adults (and young people) who seek to live a 24/7 faith and model a life that’s Christ centered and counter cultural.

In what ways does youth ministry need to change?

• We need to make sure we’re taking our young people deeper into their faith. But not just in Bible studies, but in their experience of mission, church, worship and so on.
• Students need to be IN ministry and not just the recipient of it. If students don’t lead they’ll leave. We need to believe in students and their ability to minister effectively to their peers.
• Relational-driven is more work and less to show…at first.
• Do your deal, follow Jesus, create this environment in the student ministry IF YOU CAN. If you can’t – shut up and leave and find a place where you can if it’s that important to you.
• Less reliance on programs.
• Less “next big thing” thinking.
• Less trendy, fad, youth workers.
• Longevity. Finding a way to keep youth pastors and leader in their positions for the long haul.
• Youth ministers need to adopt more of a “Family Ministry” rather than a “Youth Ministry.” Parents need to be central to the process of our teenagers’ spiritual formation and not disengaged bystanders.
• Emotional health.
• We need to have a plan for when the kids arrive in 6th grade they graduate high school knowing the fundamentals of scripture while at the same time encountering God rather than just being taught facts about Him.
• Plug students into the greater body of Christ.
• Church leaders need to understand what youth pastors are facing and stand with them in a major way.
• Giving opportunity to live faith not just hear about it.
• There is a pretty big void when it comes to Junior High Ministry Curriculum.
• Starting where young people are instead of where we want them to be.
• Student ministry needs to change first in the heart of Lead and Senior pastors across America.

[Read previous authors and posts in this series, "Issues in youth ministry."]