7 Sure Fire Ways to Vastly Improve Your Youth Ministry Impact
I believe that every youth leader worth his/her salt wants to make the biggest impact possible in the lives of their teenagers and in the communities in which those teenagers live. But how can that be done effectively?
The 7 strategies I'm about to share with you have been validated by a major research project we commissioned a few years back. But, more than anything, they have their roots in the book of Acts. There's really no magic formula or shocking surprise here. What's shocking is that somehow we have missed so many of these strategies in how we view and do youth ministry.
So, without further adieu, here they are...
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1. Make intercessory prayer your numero uno priority.
It should be no surprise that the most effective youth leaders are the ones who prioritize prayer in their personal lives, in their leadership meetings and with their teenagers. They pray for their Christian teenagers and get them to pray for their lost friends. This is exactly what Paul told Timothy to prioritize in his church planting/strengthening efforts in 1 Timothy 2:1-8. If we can make intercessory prayer a true priority, our youth ministry efforts will add divine traction to our human actions. And it's only then that we will begin to see true and lasting results.
2. Train your teenagers to engage in relational evangelism.
In Matthew 11:19, Jesus is labeled "a friend of tax collectors and sinners." He purposely hung out with the lost so that he could reach them. And he set a pattern for his disciples to do the same. Jesus built relational bridges and then crossed them with the cargo of the gospel. We must exemplify this to our teenagers and equip our teenagers to follow suit. As Chris Selby, my friend and fellow Gospel Advancing leader, often says, "We must look at our teenagers who go to public school as federally funded missionaries."
The question is are we equipping these young missionaries to make and multiply disciples. By the way, bringing your teenagers to Dare 2 Share Live could be a really good. start to that process. Here teenagers from coast to coast will be simultaneously inspired, equipped and unleashed to share the good news of Jesus with their friends. It's coming to a city near you on October 13th so be sure to sign your teenagers up now!
3. Make sure your leaders are modeling these values.
As Jesus said, "No student is above his teacher but every student, when they are fully trained, will be like their teacher." (Luke 6:40) Look at your adult leaders and your student leaders and ask yourself, "Is this what I want the rest of my teenagers to look like spiritually?"
If your leaders are not reflecting a heart for God, a lifestyle of prayer, a passion for evangelism and a drive for discipleship, then how can we expect the teenagers they are leading to exemplify these traits? Of course this doesn't mean they have to be perfectly doing all these things (who is?), but they need to be, at the minimum, willing to go for it. If they are willing to become the leader that Jesus calls them to be, then, by his power, we can make them ready and able!
4. Develop a disciple-multiplication pathway for your teenagers.
Don't just be about making converts, teaching lessons or doing programs. Be about making and multiplying disciples. This means that we must have a growth pathway that we are nudging our teenagers down.
For help on doing this effectively I strongly recommend 4 Chair Discipling by Dr. Dann Spader. It gives you a simple and very Biblical way (following the example of Jesus' discipleship "methodology") to move your teenagers from unbeliever to believer to worker to disicple multiplier.
5. Identify your bold vision and keep it in front of your youth group.
Jesus gave his disciples a bold vision in Acts 1:8 when he told them, "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." Here he gives them a vision to reach out across the street (Jerusalem), across the tracks (Samaria) and across the world (ends of the earth.) We must do the same with our teenagers. A bigger, bolder vision drives bigger, bolder results and increases our dependency on God in prayer!
6. Start measuring the right things.
As someone once said, "Not everything that counts can be counted and not everything that can be counted counts." This is especially true in youth ministry. Instead of mere attendance, how about measuring things like...
...the percentage of new believers attending your youth group year over year?
...how many teenagers in your youth ministry are actively sharing their faith?
...the number of teenagers spiritually qualified to disciple other teenagers or be on your leadership team?
In Luke 15:16, Jesus calls us to, not only bear much fruit, but to bear fruit that will last. These kinds of outcomes matter to God. To do this effectively we must start measuring the right outcomes and not just how many showed up to our events.
7. Program your true priorities.
The proof of the pudding is in the programs. In Acts 6:4, the early disciples made a bold determination not to get distracted by other ministry duties so they could focus "on prayer and the ministry of the Word." The ministry of the Word was both external (evangelizing the lost) and internal (teaching and equipping the believers.) In one verse, we see the Apostles programming three major priorities (intercessory prayer, relational evangelism, disciple multiplication.)
The disciples programmed their priorities. Are you?
Your youth ministry priorities are either empty platitudes or true priorities depending on whether or not they get programmed. For instance, if you spend more time in annoucements than actual prayer during youth group, is prayer a true priority? If you push all of your outreach efforts into a monthly or quarterly outreach meeting, is it a real priority? If I told my wife that she was a priority and only talked to her once a month, then would she be a real priority?
We must relentlessly program our priorities. We must put intercessory prayer, leadership development, evangelism training and disciple multiplication strategies into our programs and onto our calendars. If we don't, we are only fooling ourselves.
These 7 sure fire ways of VASTLY improving your youth ministry impact are easy to understand, but not necessarily simple to apply. Sadly, youth ministry today is not built for a movement, but built for a meeting. But if you take these 7 strategies and begin to implement them (starting with prayer), you will begin to experience diving momentum and deeper impact. It will take time and effort, but it will be more than worth it.
To dive deeper into these 7 keys, take the diagnostic on Gospeladvancing.com, download the Gospel Advancing Ministry app and pick up my book Gospelize Your Youth Ministry.
It's time to transform the way we do and view youth ministry! These 7 keys will help you do just that in the power of Christ!
Originally posted at Greg Stier's blog.
