Paul Turner, a 15 year youth ministry veteran, emailed me this past week with an interesting projected called, The Cure for the Common Youth Ministry. Just shy of 100 pages long, his ebook begins by venting about his frustrations with youth ministry, many of which we all are very familiar with. He covers everything from church rivalry to families and apathetic kids. But, unlike most youth ministry blog rants, he actually gives some answers. Furthermore, almost half the ebook consists of worksheets for you and your youth staff to work through together to come to your own answers and conclusions. Personally, I’m not sure I agree with all his answers nor the direction of some of the worksheets, but at least he’s offering answers and helping us think through the issues. That’s more than a lot of people are doing right now, including myself. (I admit, I’m still in the “this is totally not working and I have almost no idea what to do about it” category.)

Paul will most likely publish his work, so download it while it’s still free.

Download “The Cure for the Common Youth Ministry” ebook

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Join us at 2:00 PM EST this afternoon in our LIVE YM Talk. Matt McAlack, a youth ministry professor, will lead us in a discussion about academic youth ministry training. College, seminary, do you need it, where should you go, what happens afterwards, and more. We’ll also talk about the future of formal youth ministry training. See the LIVE YM Talk page for details on how to join the call and/or the live chat.

The media is has really latched on to the Online Missions Trip over the past two weeks and given it more publicity than I ever imagined. In fact, last week I did 2-4 radio interviews per day, plus several magazine and written interviews. What started as a 2-week outreach campaign for my own youth group has really spread into something huge. Over 3,000 teenagers representing almost every continent will be actively sharing their faith using social media from February 1-14, 2009. Crazy! Sounds like the Lord is doing something here.

I’m continually adding resources to OnlineMissionsTrip.com, the most recent being a link to a free book download called, “Welcome to the Family,” by Youth for Christ. It’s 6 chapters long and would work perfectly for helping a new believer start the life-long journey of discipleship. It probably works best in a one-on-one format, but it could also be used in a small group setting. Thanks to Jonathan McKee for making this book freely available at TheSource4YM.com!

Download “Welcome to the Family” book

There are several other good options for new believer follow-up at OnlineMissionsTrip.com.

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Join us at 2:00 PM EST this afternoon in our LIVE YM Talk! Jason Lamb of Dare 2 Share Ministries will lead our discussion about Deep & Wide Ministry. Info on the LIVE YM Talk page.

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Been in youth ministry for 2 years or fewer? Apply for a FREE 10 week one-on-one Life In Student Ministry Mentorship with one of our 13 youth ministry veterans. Application closes on January 24, 2009. Mentorship is made available for free thanks to Lifeway Students, who are supplying all the resources and materials to each mentee. Thanks, Lifeway Students!

Some of the feedback I’ve heard about what you’d like to see added to Life In Student Ministry are reviews of different curriculum so you know what’s worth your money and what isn’t. Personally, I don’t purchase much curriculum because I like to write my own for our ministry — I feel it allows me to be much more precise in addressing the issues that are important to us while targeting it exactly at my kids, something no publishing house can do. However, I have used a couple different curriculum packages before in other settings and currently use YouthBytes to aid discussions with jr. highers. Here’s a bit about my experience with various curriculums.

Note: Since I only write reviews on products I’ve actually used, each of these product reviews comes from my personal and practical experience from actually using them in ministry with teenagers, not just by looking at a box or flipping through some pages of material.

Disclaimer: Every ministry has different values and works with kids who are coming from different backgrounds in different contexts at different levels of spiritual maturity. The following reviews are only based on my own values and experiences. Your experience(s) may be very different from mine.

The Gospel Journey

Published by Dare 2 Share Ministries. Website. Price: $149 for 7 lessons.

To this day, The Gospel Journey has sparked the most spiritually significant discussions I have ever had with a group of high school teeangers. In fact, it was even an influential piece in shifting my own approach to youth ministry.

Set in mountains of Colorado, Greg Stier of Dare 2 Share Ministries takes a group of teens and young adults of various backgrounds (wiccan, atheist, agnostic, and others) on a journey through the Gospel. It attempts to be a reality show, but even Greg admits it’s not really a reality show as we typically think of. Rather, it is a show about reality.

The DVD sessions mostly consist of Greg teaching through the Gospel Journey acronym followed by very significant objections and questions by youth of other religions. Watch the trailer on YouTube to get an idea of what it’s like.

The included leader’s booklet includes two different guides: one for using with your churched kids and one for using with unchurched, unsaved kids. I personally started by using the guide for churched kids, but quickly had to supplement it with some of my theology books from seminary because the high school kids took the discussions very deep. In fact, there were some weeks we went almost 30 minutes over our meeting time and no one wanted to leave.

Check out my earlier post about The Gospel Journey for a more detailed review. Also see Dare 2 Share’s new Gospel Journey: Maui.

SUMMARY: The Gospel Journey definitely gets 5 stars for it’s depth in content, creativity, and unique approach to helping teens think through very critical theological issues. Best geared for high school students.

Goin’ All the Way

Published by LifeChurch.tv. Website. Price: FREE!

LifeChurch.tv has an amazing amount of resources available for free, but probably my favorite for use in youth group is Craig Groeschel’s 4-part sermon series called, Goin’ All the Way. (Watch it online here.) I downloaded the DVDs of his messages, showed them in their entirety to the small group, and then led a discussion afterwards. You may think that sitting kids in front of a TV to watch someone preach is kinda lame, but it’s definitely not when it comes to this series. I’ve used this series a couple times and every group has been completely glued to Pastor Craig Groeschel, listening intently, and even answering his rhetorical questions out loud to the TV!

Craig also has a book by the same title, Going All the Way: Preparing for a Marriage That Goes the Distance, which addresses this issue in more detail. Could be used as a good accompaniment to the video series.

SUMMARY: Goin’ All the Way is an excellent sermon DVD series that talks about dating, relationships, sex, how to find “the one,” and how to make marriages go the distance. I highly recommend it. Geared best for high school students.

YouthBtytes

Published by YouthBytes. Website. Price: $300 for 40 lessons (individual pricing available).

YouthBytes is a video-based curriculum with content that is very solid. It focuses on only a single point, and has a very fast-pasted, professional, MTV-style production. The format of the videos is to set the youth leader up to have a meaningful discussion with kids about the topic at hand. To help leaders do that best, each DVD includes of a version of the video in different lengths: a 1-minute, 3-minute, 7 to 12 minute, and even a 30-minute version. Of course, each video includes a lesson guide that includes key scripture verses, illustrations, ice-breakers, stories, and discussion questions.

Although the videos are excellent, the lesson guides are a bit lacking. Any lesson you buy from any vendor must be tweaked and tailored to the individual needs of your specific students, but these guides leave you tweaking a bit more than you might expect. For example, the ice-breakers are typically stories that introduce the topic in some way. However, I think experiential learning is always much more effective, so I like to engage the students in an activity of some sort to introduce the subject matter, which means I have to come up with more creative introductions for each lesson. The discussion questions also do not probe as deep as I like to go with my students, so I always re-write those, too.

Check out my earlier post about YouthBytes for a more detailed review.

SUMMARY: The videos are 5-star quality, but the lesson guides do not yet have quite the same value. However, in the near future YouthBytes will be updating their lessons to include many of my ideas, activities, and discussion questions. At that time, the whole package will definitely be 5 stars. *wink* Best geared for jr. high students.

Go Wide Kit

Published by Dare 2 Share Ministries. Website. Price: $74 for 3 training sessions.

If you’re looking for a tool to help train your kids in normal, every day, social evangelism, Dare 2 Share’s Go Wide Kit is definitely the way to go. The kit includes several things, but the core of it is a DVD containing three sessions where Greg Stier both trains and motivates teens to share their faith with their unsaved friends. He teaches them to first Pray for them, Pursue a relationship, and gently Persuade them into a relationship with Christ by taking opportunities to steer conversations toward spiritual matters.

The reason I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 is because in a separate section of the DVD, Greg talks about his idea for starting an e-team (evangelism team) in your youth group. I resist the idea that sharing Christ should be expected primarily of whoever joins an e-team, and fortunately, from my own conversations with Greg, he agrees with me. If he had the choice, he’d remove references to an e-team idea, but what’s published is published.

Check out my earlier post about the Go Wide Kit for a more detailed review.

SUMMARY: The Go Wide Kit is an excellent tool for training teenagers to share their faith. It gives them confidence to “bring God up” in normal conversations with their unsaved friends. Just ignore that e-team parts. Best geared for jr. high and high school students.

The Journey

Published by the Evangelical Covenant. Website. Price: $12.95/student journal; $39.95/leaders guide

The word “confirmation” carries a lot of different meetings for different people in different denominations, but if you’re willing to strip away all that baggage, my denomination’s discipleship (confirmation) material really is quite excellent. It’s a small group discipleship experience for 7th and 8th graders that takes them through the entire Bible in 2 years — Old Testament one year, New Testament the next. Students are expected to complete journal work each day during the week where they interact with scripture and answer questions about how it connects with their daily life. In their weekly small groups, the jr. highers discuss their journal work and learn more about the next major event or theological issue in the Bible.

I am honestly quite impressed with how thorough the material is, how practical it is for a jr. higher’s every day life, and how well the leader’s guides are put together. The best part is that by the time every jr. higher moves into high school, they have a solid grasp on the message of the entire Bible as a whole. What a great foundation for high school!

My personal ties to any one denomination are very weak, but I’d still recommend this material for any church’s jr. high ministry.

SUMMARY: An excellent overview of the entire Bible in 2 years that encourages jr. highers to reflect on it’s practical implications in their personal life on a daily basis while having accountability and relationships in a small group. Geared best for jr. high students.

Girls and Guys Curriculum Pack

Published by Youth Specialties. Guys Website. Price: $11.24 | Girls website. Price: $10.94

This curriculum pack is actually two books for small groups that are gender specific.

• Guys: 10 Fearless Faith-Focused Sessions on Issues That Matter to Guys
• Girls: 10 Gutsy, God-Centered Sessions on Issues that Matter to Girls

My wife and I have found them to be well balanced in addressing critical issues of manhood and womanhood. Each of the 10 lessons includes several different options so you can tailor the lesson according to your needs and time restraints. The activities are fun, break the ice, and illustrate the issues very well. Interactive handouts are included to ensure that the teens are tracking with you through the whole lesson. Unfortunately, it also serves up too much text to just read to the kids, so you’ll need to feel comfortable enough with the content so you can share it in your own words.

SUMMARY: Great books for addressing gender specific issues with teenagers. I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 because I’d like to see them probe a bit deeper, but if you have comfortable relationships already built with the kids, I’m sure you may end up asking those hard questions anyway. Geared best for jr. high and high school students.

Design for Discipleship

Published by The Navigators. Website. Price: $6.99 each

Design for Discipleship is the series I use for one-on-one discipleship with new believers. It consists of a 6 workbooks that walk a new believer through the core foundations of Christianity. Although a leaders guide is available, I don’t use it. I just complete the workbook assignments on the same schedule as the guy I’m discipling and meet with him once a week to discuss our answers together. It lends itself well to very meaningful discussions and questions.

The workbooks include passages to read, a bit of explanation, and many questions to answer about the scripture text that was read. What I like best is that the questions are not asking you to list the obvious — they require some engagement with the passage, thinking, and processing through observation, it’s meaning (interpretation), and application, which is great because that leads to self-discovery, the most significant way to learn and take ownership of something.

SUMMARY: I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 because I would prefer that there was a bit more teaching in the workbooks to balance all of the questions. Otherwise, it’s great for one-on-one discipleship. Geared best for jr. high and high school students.

TeenLifeMinistries.com

Published online at TeenLifeMinistries.com. Price: $9.95/month for unlimited access.

TeenLifeMinistries.com isn’t a curriculum as much as it is a youth ministry resource site that includes almost 15 years worth of Bible lessons (with accompanying PowerPoint presentations) for youth groups. If there’s a topic or passage you want to talk about, I can almost guarantee that TeenLifeMinistries.com has something for you. The lessons are easy to use, simple to modify, and include all the handouts you could ever want. If you want to use the lesson as a small group discussion, there’s a sheet for that. Or, if you’re an up-front-and-preach kinda person, there’s an outline version for “preaching,” too. Of course, you could easily combine the two options together in a sort of “I preach, then we discuss” fashion, too.

The weakness of TeenLifeMinistries is that the lessons all start to feel a bit similar pretty quickly. After a couple months of the outlines, format, and questions, my teens were saying, “I can tell exactly where this is heading” and would somewhat check out mentally due to the repetitious nature of the structure. Fortunately, it’s a subscription-based site so you can cancel whenever you want.

SUMMARY: TeenLifeMinistry.com’s real value is in having a goldmine of very flexible resources and ideas to kick-start your own lesson planning. As stated earlier, you should never use anyone’s lesson “as is,” but be especially intentional about not doing that here.

You’re Next

Published by Dare 2 Share Ministries. Website. Price: $29 for leader’s guide

This is Dare 2 Share’s response for the “go deep” part of their Deep & Wide ministry strategy. Greg Stier goes through the 30 Core Truths (found in the Deep & Wide thesis downloadable from here) and shares youth group lessons that are intended to take kids deep into God’s Word in a systematic approach to theology. While the concept is great, especially because the lessons are highly practical and heavy on application to real life, it really doesn’t go as deep as I think it has the potential to go. I found myself using it for ideas on how to introduce one of the 30 Core Truths, but took most of my “depth” from one of my systematic theology books and integrated that into my lessons instead.

I gave it 3 stars because, even though much of the content is based on stories from Greg’s life, if you substitute his stories with ones from your own life and mix in some deeper theology from another source, it has the potential to be pretty powerful. I know that sounds like I’m saying you basically need to re-write Greg’s lessons, but it’s not quite like that. He lays a solid framework for which to work when taking kids deep into God’s Word.

SUMMARY: This “go deep” tool doesn’t go as deep as the Go Wide Kit goes wide, but it still provides a decent framework for addressing the 30 Core Truths with the youth group. Geared best for high school students.

Soul Fuel

Published by Dare 2 Share Ministries. Website. Price: FREE!

You sure can’t beat the price of this weekly curriculum from Dare 2 Share Ministries — FREE! Every week it shows up in your email Inbox and includes a devotional sheet for teens, a youth group lesson plan, and a parent sheet. They each loosely address one of the 30 Core Truths in some way.

Although each lesson follows an outline, most of the content is written as a transcript. I know some people prefer reading something word for word, but it doesn’t seem to work too well in this context because the lessons are intended primarily for small groups, not preaching from a pulpit. It just doesn’t feel right to discuss some questions as a group and then make students sit and listen to you read the next paragraph to them, ya know? If you can memorize it, that’s great, but I mostly just shared it in normal conversational English using my own words to keep the dialog going.

The length of the material is also fairly short — probably enough for a 15-20 minute discussion. Most of my teaching in my youth group goes for 30-60 minutes, so this is a bit short for us.

SUMMARY: Soul Fuel gets 3 stars mostly because it’s free and consistent every week. It’s probably better suited for quick devotionals with kids than it is for youth group meetings.

Talking the Walk: 31 sessions for new small groups

Published by Youth Specialties. Website. Price: $13.59

This book is probably one of the best books I’ve seen for solidifying a new small group of teenagers together. It’s cram-packed with ideas and activities that will grow new friendships, build trust, and create an environment that feels safe for everyone. If you have a new group of teens in a small group who don’t know each other very well, this book is perfect for you.

However, I find it odd that it seriously lacks a spiritual influence. There are scripture passages in each lesson, but both myself and my leaders had difficulty figuring out how it connected with the rest of the lesson, as weak as the lessons already were. The focus of this book is definitely on building community in your new small group, not really on Bible study.

SUMMARY: If this book had stronger Biblical content, it would be an excellent resource for new small groups of teens who don’t know each other very well, but without it, the group-building games and activities need to be combined with an actual Bible study from elsewhere.

Jr. High Grapple

Published by Group Publishing. Website. Price: $89.99 for 16 lessons.

Grapple is one of the few curriculums I’ve ditched mid-way through. In fact, I only used it for about 4 weeks before I stopped wasting my jr. higher’s time with it. The format is to introduce a topic to your teens, watch a short video that illustrates it, and then continue with the discussion. Sounds good in theory, but videos were very weak in both content and production value. For example, the video that introduces the topic of salvation was based on a visit to a pet shelter where animals were asked if all dogs go to heaven, and it looks like it was produced in iMovie.

Furthermore, my adult leaders found the discussion sheets to be very difficult to understand and follow, partly because the sheets tried to communicate too many points in one lesson or that the points didn’t seem to connect very well with the main idea of the lesson. Anyone who works with jr. high knows that they need only one solid point driven home in a variety of ways, not multiple points that are weakly connected to the main idea.

However, the one thing that Grapple offers that I absolutely love are the parent sheets included with each lesson. These sheets are designed to send home with parents after the jr. high meeting to inform them on what was discussed. The parent sheets include a couple discussion starters for parents to use with their kids and take the topic deeper at home, which is a great way to help families have spiritual conversations at home.

The other thing I really appreciated about Grapple was that all of their lessons, parent sheets, videos, and discussion sheets were available for download from their site, which meant that I could easily embed the video illustrations in PowerPoint presentations, email discussion sheets to adult leaders in advance, and make parent sheets available for download on our website.

SUMMARY: I would’ve given it 0 stars, but it’s availability in digital format and parent sheets are definitely worth at least 1 star. Best geared for jr. high students.

Add your own review

If you’ve used a curriculum you’d like to recommend or would like to warn people to way away from, please write about it in the comments below. I just ask that you only review it if you’ve actually tried using it in a youth ministry context.

Thanks for helping youth workers around the world make an informed decision about the material they use at youth group!

NOTE: Reviews and links from publishers and advertisers will be deleted.

We’ve all had them — students who cause trouble, play on their cell phones all night, are disrespectful, and generally seem mad at the world. Although we love these teenagers as much as we love the others, sometimes it feels like we’re constantly sacrificing the quality of the ministry to all the other kids for the sake of that one (or three or whatever).

When I had my first encounter with this kind of situation, my sr. pastor at the time gave me this advice and I’ve followed it ever since: “Never sacrifice the ministry to all the kids for the sake of one or even a couple.” If, because of one or a couple disruptive students, other kids in the group are not receiving the attention they crave, the spiritual input they seek, and the time to focus on God that they need, then a course of action is needed.

Here’s the plan I usually follow. Of course, every situation is unique, so this should be tailored accordingly, but here’s a framework to help you get started, anyway.

1. Talk with them privately. Ask why they come to youth group because their actions make you feel like they don’t want to be there. Affirm them as a person, but confront their actions. Give them a chance to change their attitude on their own.

2. If it continues, talk with them again, but this time tell them that if things don’t change by next week, you’re going to talk with their parents about it (if applicable). Follow-through the next week by calling or meeting with the parents if nothing changes.

3. If the issues continue after that, talk with your sr. pastor about the situation and present him or her with the following plan:

First, talk privately with the student again and tell them they have 1 more week to change their behavior. If things aren’t dramatically different at youth group next week, they will be on a 4 week probation from youth group. At the end of 4 weeks, they are welcome to return and try again.

However, during that 4 weeks do NOT just send them away. Always discipline with the idea of restoration in mind, just as Christ does for us. Either you or another adult must meet with that student one-on-one every week outside of church. Go to Taco Bell and just talk about life and spiritual matters. Just because that kid is not permitted at youth group for 4 weeks doesn’t mean they still shouldn’t get spiritual encouragement from you and your ministry.

4. If you’ve met with them one-on-one every week for 4 weeks and really loved on the student, the chances are pretty high that their attitude problem will be gone when they return because they now have a new respect and trust for you, the leader. But, in the rare situation that their disruptive behavior continues, then you must put them on probation again, this time for 3 months, 6 months, or whatever you and your adult staff deem appropriate. But only do so knowing that you or someone else on your team is going to meet with that student one-on-one every week during that time.

A variation of this is to start meeting one-on-one with the student outside of church even before you get to step number three, which I’d probably advise anyway if it’s at all possible. The difference is that the one-on-one meetings are still optional, whereas in step number three, the individual meeting time is required if the student is going to be permitted back at youth group again.

Eric Groezinger writes with the following question:

I’ve been challenged and motivated to consider [implementing the Deep & Wide ministry strategy]. My challenge is discovering how to implement this in practical, weekly meeting formats. I’ve watched how you’ve modified your weekly meetings to be more intensive with study and discussion – did you just jump in and do this, how did you share this burden/passion with your volunteers, adjust their thinking, student thinking, etc.

The short version is that my high school youth group had already started drifting in this direction before I even intentionally did anything with Dare 2 Share and Deep & Wide. The shift from “games and fun with Bible study thrown in” to extended periods of in-depth Bible study took place naturally on its own. Significant theological discussions were going overtime every week, forcing me to shorten fun and games a bit more every week to make more time for study. Sometimes kids hung around afterwards for a half-hour longer just to continue their study together! The results of kids becoming more passionate about their walks with God and inviting friends to hear the Word was an unexpected result of that (embarrassingly so). It wasn’t until after this discovery that Greg Stier again encouraged me to check out Deep & Wide. Although Greg and I both agree that the thesis itself needs to be rewritten (the second revision should be released this fall), the main idea of Deep & Wide put words to what we were already experiencing. So, in other words, Deep & Wide fit what was already happening in our group — we did not change our group to fit Deep & Wide. Starting this fall, however, I will communicate Deep & Wide to the entire youth ministry as the intentional direction our ministry is taking. Right now the discussion is just between me and some of my adult youth workers, but that will change in August.

I realize most youth groups and churches may not “stumble” across this like we did and will instead have to make an effort to make the shift to a Deep & Wide approach to ministry. The danger is that youth leaders will see Deep & Wide as just another philosophy of ministry or an approach to try to coerce God into performing a certain way in your group. Nothing could be more detrimental to your view of ministry! Deep & Wide is partly a ministry strategy, but even moreso it’s a lifestyle. It’s not just something you DO, it’s something you strive to BECOME. That means it has to start with you, the youth leader. Unless you first dig deep into the Word on a personal level, become passionate about your walk with God and sharing it with others, any changes you make to the youth ministry to be “Deep & Wide” will be completely superficial. After your own spiritual appetite is fed with the Word and your personal evangelism is on fire for God, only then can the Deep & Wide passion become contagious to your students. Otherwise it becomes just another program instead of a lifestyle. So, if you’re looking for practical ways to implement Deep & Wide in your youth group, start with yourself. At that point, how to implement it in your ministry will be evident because it’s become an ingrained part of you. Nothing else will sit well with your conscious. That’s where I’m at now.

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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!

We’re all in youth ministry because we want to see teens move from being spiritually apathetic to being spiritually passionate, so when time passes and we see no signs of growth, it gets frustrating. Often we feel like we’re wasting our time, that our investment is pointless or that we should move our focus to a student that might produce more favorable results. It’s important to understand why we become frustrated because maybe then we won’t give up as easily on that “hard to reach” kid.

1. Unrealistic Expectations
What is it exactly that you expect to see in the teenager who’s supposedly not growing? Apparently you feel the student is not where you think they should be, but what is it that place where you think they should be right now? Perhaps your idea is unrealistic, especially since it’s quite possible that there are other factors in that student’s life and thought process that are unknown to you.

2. Remember: growth is a process
The process is longer for some than for others. It also takes a different path for everyone. There’s no such thing as microwavable spiritual fruit — it takes time to grow. Just because the fruit isn’t ripening as fast as you think it should doesn’t mean it won’t ripen eventually, maybe at a time when you’re not around to observe it. Allow the Holy Spirit to work in His timing.

3. We’re watching close-up
Staring at a pot of dirt to watch a seed grow is frustrating. You could stand there for a week and not see any evidence of growth. However, if you come back maybe three weeks after it’s been nurtured, watered and cared for, what was happening all that time beneath the surface is now displayed as a visual sign of growth. But if you stared at the plant the entire time, it would appear as if nothing was changing. Likewise, in our daily interaction with teens, we’re often watching for growth from a constant up-close perspective so we don’t notice the slow, but drastic, changes taking place. Look at your own life: where are you now spiritually compared to five years ago? I see my little brother and sister every couple months and they look more grown-up every time, but to my parents, who live with them, the growth is unnoticeable. Just because you don’t see the growth doesn’t mean it’s not there.

God never gives up on you. Don’t you give up on spiritually apathetic teens!

1. Be passionate about your own personal relationship with Christ.
2. Develop and train volunteers who are also passionate about their relationship with Christ.
3. Hang out with kids and pray like crazy that your passion become contagious.
4. Expect the Holy Spirit do some awesome things to spiritually grow your kids through your influence.

(What, did you think this was about numerical growth? Are you a little disappointed that it’s not?)

The first point is this: it starts with us, the youth leaders. To take our kids to new levels of spiritual maturity means we have to be at that level first. I’m convinced that most Christianity is caught, not taught. We can stand up in front of a group and say a lot of good things about God and, although that’s significant, none of that will leave the impact that the presence of a passionate sold-out-for-God youth worker will who gives students a chance to see a relationship with God lived out in daily life.

The second point is that spiritual growth is ultimately a work of the Holy Spirit. There’s nothing we can do to force a kid to grow. The best we can do is pray like their lives depend on it (because they do) and seek the Lord’s wisdom in creating environments that facilitate spiritual growth. Beyond that, the best we can do is remain open for the Lord to use us however possible in communicating His Truth and let Him be the one that makes the Truth penetrate their hearts and souls.

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."]

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

A solvent and solid theology of youth ministry as family ministry. I’m convinced that our grid is jacked. Parents need to be central to the process of our teenagers’ spiritual formation and not disengaged bystanders. Deuteronomy 6 was written to moms and dads not youth leaders and adult sponsors. We need to get better at engaging parents in the process and giving them the tools they need to bring it up with their teens.

In addition we need to lead the process of helping our teens engage with significant Scriptural truths and wrestle with the most basic questions of God, His Word, Jesus, salvation, etc. If they don’t wrestle now they will wrestle later. But the one lined up against them in this wrestling match will be the Philosophy 101 professor their freshman year of college. He most likely will pin their premises to the mat in less than twenty minutes and full nelson their faith until they cry uncle. The result? More posers. More rebels. Fewer losers (who have lost themselves to follow Jesus longterm.)

I propose a radical new paradigm that’s 2,000 years old. Sorry to be so simplistic, but Scripture is either sufficient, relevant and transformational for every generation (even the tricky postmodern ones) or it is not the Word of God. If we don’t get back to the basics and stop trying to entertain our teens we are going to lose them. After all we are not as cool as we think we are. But the Word of God is every bit as powerful as it claims to be.

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

I think youth ministry is responding to the deep-seated hurts of teenagers in more effective ways than ever. Youth leaders are getting better at being aware of the teen world of angst, self doubt and inner pain. Perhaps the growing list of resources that deal in these areas is a big part of the reason youth ministry is responding more effectively in this area.

In addition I am excited that more and more youth ministries are getting technologically engaged. If we can learn to use the internet instead of fighting against it (why try? it’s an unstoppable force and fully integrated into this generation’s psyche) we can find more ways of communicating to them, creating true community and providing resources that will equip them in real and relevant ways to be a Jesus follower at home, school, online, offline, wherever, whenever.

In what ways does youth ministry need to change?

In a ministry world that is constantly on the look out for “the next new thing” I am of the mindset that we need a recalibration back to the core “old things.” Truth, theology, evangelism, relevance, love, servanthood and the power of the Holy Spirit.

Greg Stier is a Jesus-loving raving lunatic and is the President of Dare 2 Share Ministries.

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

[tags]Greg Stier, Dare 2 Share[/tags]