How to Turn Your Youth Group into a Reality Series

By Greg Stier, Op-ed Contributor Tuesday, October 07, 2008

I am doing two youth leader trainings (Monday and Tuesday) in Atlanta at the ESPN Zone. I love this particular training. It's called "How to turn your youth group into a reality series!"

During this youth leader focused equipping session I train youth leaders how to unleash the power of discussion in the context of youth ministry to dive deep into key questions of theology, morality and life. Why is this vital? Because if we don't then the Philosophy 101 professor during our teenagers' freshman year of college will do just that. But his goal will be to push Humpty Dumpty off the wall and turn him into a secularist omelet…hold the onions.

At this youth leader training event we equip youth pastors to initiate discussions with their teenagers by asking the hard questions, allowing teenagers to share what they really believe and then help them rebuild a Biblical theology from the ground up! I share a lot of lessons I learned from GOSPEL Journey Maui during this training time with youth leaders.

Please don't mistake what I'm talking about for the theological deconstructionism going on in some strands of the church today. Some have used deconstructionism as a license to destroy and mock the historic Christian faith in the name of relevance.

Instead our goal is to deconstruct so that we can help our teenagers reconstruct a stronger, more grounded faith. In other words after you ask your teenagers the hard questions (pushing them off the wall so to speak) we want you to put them back together again.

My prayer is that, as a result of really helping your teenagers wrestle through the big questions of their faith that they are ready to face the Philosophy professor on their own in the power of the Spirit of God. We are talking Humpty on steroids. Bionic Humpty. Super Humpty.

You get the idea.