The second lie of youth ministry is that it is all about discipleship. This is a lie which starts with bad hermeneutics, continues with training built around selective theology, and is encouraged by inward looking church leaders.
Here’s how this lie plays out. Most youth ministers are wholly focused on building the size of their program. If they work for a church, having a large and busy youth program means that they can justify their salary and spend their time thinking about ways to add more programs to make their programs bigger and busier. If they work for a parachurch it’s even simpler as givers like to see numbers… as in the United States big numbers mean you are significant so “hundreds” sounds so much more significant than “tens.”
The thinking of both is backwards because we think that if we disciple a lot of people, we will grow. And, if you are in a church context the busier you keep the church kids the more “discipleship” you are seen as doing from the bosses and parents perspective.
In fact, as I was trained, discipleship predicates evangelism. To state the lie more clearly, most youth ministries training programs teach that in order to reach more people we have to focus on training those you have. And some of the training I’ve received suggest 2-3 years of discipleship before you try to reach a single person.
Two quick theological points for this lie.
#1 Check out the parable of the lost sheep. When you do ministry in a community with “lost sheep” (meaning students who haven’t heard the gospel) do you think you should focus your attention on “the 99?” I think youth ministry should be focused primarily on evangelism and reaching the lost and secondarily mentoring the found. A lot of my fellow youth workers like to mention that Jesus only had a small discipleship group of 12. But let’s not forget that he had 12 disciples while reaching, feeding, and performing miracles to the multitudes.
#2 In a single sitting, read Acts 2-4. Go ahead. I’ll wait. So what did you see? I saw that the leaders didn’t wait for 2-3 years while new believers were being discipled. They were compelled by the urgency of the gospel! In fact, they discipled while reaching multitudes. The more institutional the church gets the less people they reach. So while many youth workers build programs, they miss thousands of opportunities to be on the front lines at their schools reaching lost kids day-by-day.
You see, if youth ministry is all about discipleship, it never would have gotten started in the first place! The reason parachurch youth ministry got rolling in the 40s-60s was because the “church” thought Jesus’s salvation was for the church kids.
Youth workers (paid, volunteer, expert, rookies) don’t get caught in the lie of reaching the found and being satisfied with the lost finding you. Coddling the apathetic, baysitting the saved, and entertaining the church’s youth is not why we do youth ministry. We do youth ministry to reach the lost!
And we disciple our church kids best by being Christ-like in our walk with Jesus. Read Acts 2-4 again... it’s a two-fold plan for discipleship, isn’t it?
Church leaders: Wanna see your church grow? Try reaching people without a program. Get out of the office and start serving IN your community instead of serving OUTSIDE of your community.
Part one: The 10% Rule
Part two: It’s about discipleship
Part three: You have to have a youth pastor
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