Remember The Good News pt3

I have spent the last two articles sharing why it is critical that sharing the Good news of Jesus Christ is foundational to a youth ministry and why the Bible must be the heart and core of all teaching. In the next two articles, let’s briefly see what that looks like in your weekly youth ministry. I’ll share two applications this article and two in the next.

Application #1 – Examine Yourself

An effective youth ministry starts with you, the youth leader. How foundational is Christ in your own life? Is God’s Word, the Bible, at the heart and core of your own life? It will be difficult, if not impossible, to passionately communicate to your teens the need for a Savior if He is not central in your own life.

Here is my advice: go back to the cross. Continually take yourself back to that place where you first met Jesus. Remind yourself of His blessings. Think about what your life would be like without a relationship with God. Sometimes we get so busy doing church stuff that we forget what it’s all about. When you renew your love and gratefulness to the Lord for His work in your own life, that passion will spill over to your students.

The same principle applies for God’s word. Are you in God’s Word daily? How do you presume to teach God’s Word to your students when you are not constantly being taught by it? I know you’re busy. We all are. But you must carve the time aside to refresh ourselves in the sweet springs of God’s inerrant Word. And again, as you fall more in love with the treasures of His Word, your students will sense that fragrance and join you on the journey of knowing God personally.

Application #2: Make Bible teaching the centerpiece of your youth night.

What is the most important activity at your average youth gathering? Is it the crazy group games? Is it pool, video games, and ping pong in the youth room before the meeting starts? Is it the pepperoni pizza served afterwards?

If it is true that an effective youth ministry must have the Good News of Jesus Christ foundational and the teaching of God’s Word at the heart and core, then the teaching time of your youth ministry must be the centerpiece. Does everyone do this? No, not even close.

A young youth pastor who had just been hired into a small church recently visited me. He was looking for direction on how to improve the youth program. He was truly a godly young man who desired to help the teens, but was already frustrated:

“Greg, we only have a five minute devotional at the end of our meetings. If I do anything longer than that the kids get really out of control. The other night, they started throwing paper at me!”

I speak with youth leaders from a lot of places and hear similar stories. Too often, youth group is made up of an hour or more of games and activities followed by a brief inch-deep devotional at the end of the meeting.

Look at it like this: if you were a football coach, you would be passionate about teaching young people the game of football. Football would consume your conversation. As a coach, you would not play unrelated games for 45 minutes, eat cookies, talk about a white water rafting field trip, and then finally practice football for five or ten minutes at the end. No! Football would be your priority. Certainly you would try to make it fun for the teens. Certainly you would change the drills and practices to keep boredom from setting in, but one thing would be for sure: football would be the centerpiece. And if a player only went to one practice and quit, he would at least leave knowing what those people stood for . . . football.

My daughter Hannah is in a dance class and a company performance group. When she goes to dance, do you know what she does? You guessed it! She dances. The instructors teach the techniques and steps in a fun and motivating way for the young girls, but one thing is for sure: they are there for dance class. The dance instructor does not let the girls run around aimlessly for thirty minutes, dance for five minutes, and then go home. Why . . . because Hannah’s dance instructor is passionate about teaching dance. And if a girl only went to dance class one time, she would at least know what those people stood for . . . dance.

If the teaching of God’s Word is not the centerpiece of what happens in your youth meetings, then why have the meeting. I fear that way too many teens visit youth groups and leave with no idea what those people stood for. Strangely, football coaches and dance instructors do not have that struggle. Are we as passionate as they are?

Allow me to share with you how I make the teaching of God’s Word the centerpiece in our weekly youth rally. But first, you should know that our youth rally is a combined middle school and high school group made up of teens from the most mature young believers to those without Christ and in the most godless environments. Our youth rally is not a Bible study. (I will address this later when we discuss a ministry game plan). Rather, we spend the last 35 minutes each week in worship and the preaching from God’s Word. No exceptions. Each week before we transition to this time, I say something like:

“I want to remind all of you that our worship, and time in God’s Word, is the most important thing we do here at Faith Church. I’m glad you will be a part of it. But remember that we do not leave the room unless it is an emergency [my youth leaders monitor the doors]. If you have a friend sitting near you that will be a distraction, then choose wisely and sit somewhere else.”

From that moment on the teens at Faith Church are keenly aware that we are doing something very different and far more special than the entertainment-type activities we did earlier. And yes, I just may have a young visitor that does not like that and maybe they will never come back, but at least he or she knows what we stand for.

Now I’m not suggesting that your youth meetings be “all work and no play.” In fact, research reveals that teens have limited attention spans, and we must be sensitive to this. However, the main point is that God’s Word remains the centerpiece of our youth meetings.

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