The other day I was asked:  “Jeremy Zach…once a student has gone through your youth ministry program what is one thing you want them to have internalized?”

My answer: That every teen KNOW they are a full time missionary in every facet of their life.  They are missionaries in their neighborhoods, schools, athletics, house, movie theater, restaurant, etc…  They have the ability to see God moving everywhere–in and outside of church.  I call this teenage missional living.

20.  Start a lunch time prayer meeting or Bible study during school

19.  Serve, love, respect, & obey  parents (Romans 1.30, Ephesians 6.1, Colossians 3.20, 2 Timothy 3.2)

18.  Respect  teachers and coaches authority

17.  Buy a non-friend lunch and eat with them

16.  Serve at the local shelter

15.  Babysit for free

14.  Provide free tutoring

13.  Pick up trash around the community

12.  Hang with “other” clusters of students on the weekends

11.  Do an after school sport, club, and drama that you would not normally do

10.  Stand up for the non-cool kids at school

09.  Help school janitor during study hall or lunch time

08.  Host study groups (don’t just give away all the answers)

07. Befriend non-believers and actually listen to their belief systems

06.  Throw fun, but safe weekend parties.  These party need to be so cool, the “real” party people want to come.  Also make sure your students are getting invite to other non-Christian parties.  Your students need to be seen as the party starters and not the party poopers.

05.  Intentionally have discussions with biology, physics, and science teachers about Intelligent Design

04.  Bring extra gum to school

03.  Get involved in school events

02.  Hang out with the school administration.  Administration are always looking for reliable and honest students as their liaisons.

01.  Talk a lot of about Jesus and how He has changed your life

2TFCAW7ZUBUH

© 2010, Jeremy Zach. All rights reserved.

A missional youth ministry highly values understanding (contextualization) and serving the local community.  In the youth ministry world, school campuses is where our students spend most of their time.  Having Jesus at the school campus, would only make logical and missional sense.  In my last post Youth Ministry In Culture, I argued one of the key components of transforming culture is serving the good of the local schools.

Traditionally churches and schools have a bad relationship.  In our culture, churches don’t have an instant street cred.  Let me say it another way:  people don’t give a rats butt that you are from a church.  Unfortunately churches have a credibility problem. 

My Assumptions:

Youth pastors enjoy….

- spending a lot of time at school campuses.

- being outward focused.

- taking their youth ministry outside of the church walls.

- going on “their” turf.

There is a right and wrong way to serve the good of the school for Jesus.

Wrong Way

- forcefully protesting and filing lawsuits against non-Christian curriculum (i.e. sex education, evolution, and religion history)

-  serve with attachments

-  demand instant respect and credibility

-  expect that prayer is welcome

-  talk trash about atheistic teachers–especially science teachers

Right Way

-  serve without conditions

-  offer free tutoring sessions

-  take prayer walks around campus

- pick up trash around school campus

-  become a substitute teacher

- attend school board meetings

- serve breakfast (doughnuts) outside of the school before it starts

-  donate $$ to school relate activities

-  if school has open lunch (students get to leave campus) host a lunch @ church

-  offer to chaperon after school activities/dances

-  attempt to coach a sport/activity

- respect school’s boundaries and laws such as preaching to students, passing out tracts, etc.

-  allow church building to be a resource for the school

-  schedule intentional meetings with school counselors, principal, and teachers asking the question how your organization can help without getting in the way

-  set up a “Christian Club” on campus

Homework

1.  How involved is your youth ministry at the school?

2.  Does your local school think your church is annoying or accepting?

3. How many Christians (teachers, students, and other staff) are at the school?

4.  Do your local schools need to see more Jesus?

Don’t forget it is not against the law to be praying people serving the good of the school

© 2010, Jeremy Zach. All rights reserved.

Many youth ministries try very hard to put on outreach events to attract the lost.  Some youth pastors get worried if non-believers attend small groups when it is for the “committed” students.  In another words, their small group ministry represents the discipleship component of their youth ministry philosophy.

I am arguing that discipling students before they believe is the new youth ministry evangelism method.  Youth pastors are dealing with such an unChristian and unChurched teenage population that deeply studying books of the Bible, theology, and ethical issues are what the students are needing.  When something becomes a rarity, it is different.  Teaching for 45 minutes about Leviticus can now be the new cool thing to do in youth ministry.  Why?  Because Bible literacy and education is so removed from the teenage culture.

Andrew Root said it best:  “youth ministry has settled for bullet pointed bible verses as theology, rather than seeking the mystery of the burning bush. Theology is not about giving the knowledge to solve kids problems but a way of being and seeing world and searching for God.”

Students are living in a philosophical fusion of existentialism and modernism, which should compel youth  pastors to cultivate environments that exhibit   informational and transformational mediums.

Did Jesus do outreach events and determine who believed and who didn’t believe?  No.  He kept preaching the message of God and restoring the world and people.  Actually the more popular He became, the harder the message.

If a non-believer shows up to my youth group, I have no problem teaching from the book of Nehemiah for 45 minutes.  Granted I carefully contextualize the story and define certain theological and Bible words.

I think too many youth ministries have dumped down their youth talks, hoping to be more translatable to their audience.  Unfortunately, students are only getting three really cool pithy statements that are very surface level and redundant.  Stuff like….. “it is great to date, but worth the wait. (Proverbs 3)”

Implications for Youth Pastors:

1.  He/she must become theologically trained so he/she knows what the heck they are talking about.  If a youth pastor does not like theology, he/she doesn’t belong in youth ministry.  It is like saying:  I like Football, but I don’t like practicing it.  It is essential to be in theological conversations.

2.  Understand discipleship is a freaking messy process and cannot be assessed by how many  committed students are in “small groups”.  Small groups are not for the good and committed students. Serving and being missional is for the committed and core students.

3.  Comprehending that being a follower of Jesus involves more than just believing and saying the sinners prayer.  It is about learning the deep historical roots of Christianity and knowing the ins and outs of exegesis.

4.  Evangelism doesn’t necessary mean sharing your faith and conducting outreach events.  Evangelism means to invite non-believing students into the faith of Jesus and shows them the beauty and wonder about following Jesus.

5.  Evangelism means letting our non-believing students test drive the faith before they believe and buy into it. Therefore our youth ministries need to show them the ins and outs about being a follower of Jesus.

Discipleship as the New Youth Ministry Evangelism means we show a non-believing student the complexities, richness, landscape, and reality of what it means to be a follower of Jesus before he/she signs the Christianity lease agreement.  Youth ministries need to reverse their priorities by immersing non-believing students into faith (discipleship) before presenting the convent agreement (Evangelism).

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© 2009 – 2010, Jeremy Zach. All rights reserved.

One of the defining elements of missional youth ministry is the how the youth ministry does evangelism. There are two types of evangelism strategies:

Inside/Out– Prep, train, and educate kids and sent them out into the world to do evangelism. Basically you go a non-believer on their turf.

Outside/In– Throw events and get non-believers into your youth room. Basically you take a non-believer put him/her on your turf.

Obviously, in order to be missional it is imperative to send our kids out into the world. Many non-believing students have a very negative perspective about church and Christians, which sucks but it is the reality we have to work with. So youth ministries have to work very hard to project a positive, non-arrogant, and nonjudgmental feel towards non-believers when we go onto their turf. Going to them is huge because they already feel comfortable, secure, and safe, which is essential when striking up a conversation about God. Once we expose them to church land there is an instant intimidation and weirdness factor that is attached to being in a church setting. If we really think about it… our youth ministries are weird. We singing unfamiliar songs, we have a christian code language, we use this foreign book, we accept everyone, and we know how to have some good sober fun. If we meet non-Christians on their turf and build a strong relationship with them, we can start talking about God and hopefully and prayerfully invite them to church. We should give them a taste of Jesus and if they want more they should know where to find it.

My point: Youth ministries need to focus on the sending OUT aspect of evangelism.

Pete Ward has an excellent book titled: God At The Mall, that I highly recommend.

© 2009, Jeremy Zach. All rights reserved.

NT Wright in his book “Justification” states:  God’s plan, God’s single plan, always was to put the world to rights, to set it right, to undo Genesis 3 and Genesis 11, sin and the fracturing of human society which results from that sin and shows it up into full colors.

Some youth ministry philosophies heavily rely on small groups ministry.  Some youth pastors think getting students in small groups is the bread and butter of youth ministry.  Some think if only students would take the next step and join an awkward small group, then their life with Christ will be legit because of the authentic accountability that transpires in youth ministry small groups.

My point:  Small groups aren’t bad or not necessarily good.  But, what is the sole thrust of  our youth ministries?  Getting kids to join small groups or getting kids to join the mission of God, here and now? Or both?

Small groups are more about accountability which essentially means more “sin management”.  Participating in the movement of God means to restore the world, which is more about “participation in advancing the Kingdom of God”.

The majority of Jesus’ ministry is not about gathering his disciples to talk about how they feel and what sins they committed.  No.  Jesus’ ministry with the disciples was about healing people and leading people to Jesus.

My problem:  Too many youth ministries devote to much time, $, resources, staff, and effort to small group ministry, than they do to advance the kingdom of God in their town and on their school campuses.

Think about it…small groups are for the good Christian kids.  Atheists are not necessarily stoked to join a small group, but they stoked to join a movement of God that restores.

Here is a crazy thought….what if our small group ministries not only confessed their biggest sins, but actually served the community together while sharing the good news?  Youth pastors need to have a shift.  The shift is accepting the reality that throwing a new Christian into a small group, who they would not naturally get along with, is NOT the end all for youth ministry.  Throwing a new Christian in a service project where they have to collectively share and talk about Jesus with other Christians is a better solution.

Can you see my point?

Hear me out here because I know I am going to get some angry youth pastor who loves small group ministry commenting on this post.  I think small groups are great if they are outreach focused.  Generally small groups are inward focused and closed off to outsiders.  Think about how intimate and closed off small groups are?  Yeah we say small groups are open and want “visitors” but there is no way an atheist will feel a sense of belonging in a Christian based small group.

I am recommending we rethink our small group youth ministry.  Youth ministry small groups need to have a mission focus agenda in order to move past a “self help-AA (alcoholics anonymous)”  type of small group youth ministry mentality.

What should bother youth pastors more?

1.  Students who don’t memorize their Bible verses?

2.  The local needs of their community

No, you cannot say both.

© 2009, Jeremy Zach. All rights reserved.