Tag: new heights project

  • Front-loading ministry in the discipleship process

    A couple weeks ago I shared a post about discipleship that raised some questions about how we do things in our student ministry. Most of the comments were affirmative. Some of the more critical questions which arose required some follow-up.

    With that in mind, I grabbed a few moments with Chris and Kathy, our staff members who run the New Heights Project to drill down into some of the questions that came up.

    • What is the New Heights Project internship all about?
    • Who we are and who we partner with?
    • Why intentionally hire non-Christian students to do children’s ministry?
    • What has been the effect of this method in students lives?

    One additional thought. The thing that freaked most people out was the concept of intentionally hiring a mix of Christian and non-Christian students as interns. Every church I’ve ever done ministry with had students help in ministry areas who weren’t Christians. Any ministry leader is fully aware of that same fact. The only thing that is different here is that we’ve made it part of our strategy. Typically, ministry leaders know it but don’t acknowledge it because we’re talking about children of church members.

  • Go and Do Discipleship Model


    [video link]

    My view of discipleship has radically changed in the last two years. I’m increasingly convinced that my role as a shepherd to high schoolers is about putting them in moments of spiritual crisis so that they recognize that they need to learn more from God’s Word.

    This is in stark contrast to my previous model. Before I spent way too much time preparing them to do ministry and giving them information that just didn’t seem relevant to their walk with Jesus yet. The more I turn that upside down, putting them in situations where they know they need to learn more, the faster they grow up. When you couple that with my desire to see students take greater responsibility for themselves earlier in life… you start to see a new view of what we used to call a “description of a discipled person.”

    As more time goes on I see my role in disciple-making less as a manager of a program and more as a curator of the spiritual life. (see Richard Dunn’s pacing concept in Shaping the Spiritual Life of Students for that concept.)

    Here are the three links mentioned in the video:

  • Dedication and Leadership by Douglas Hyde
  • Teens 2.0 by Dr. Robert Epstein
  • Inward, Outward, and Beyond’s “New Heights Project“

    • I’d love your feedback and thoughts as I work this out in my life and ministry.