Student/ Youth Ministry in the Context of the Local Church

The local church is a gateway to the new life that Jesus offers to His creation.

My idea of the local church is people from every age, race, social status, economic level, and vocation within a local community coming together to: worship the Lord Jesus Christ, grow in relationship with Him, build authentic, encouraging, and accountable relationships with each other, serve and meet the needs of the world around them, and share the faith, love, and hope that they have found in Jesus Christ in a tangible way with all who they come into contact with.

Within this local church, this community, everyone needs to be integrated in order for the community to progress and reach others with the same good news that they have been transformed by.

One way to integrate everyone is to break up into smaller communities- communities made up of: specific age groups (infants, children, youth, college, young adults, seniors, etc…), specific life stages (singles, married couples, parent, empty nesters, retirees, etc…), specific ministry passions (local missions, homeless ministries, global missions, etc…), or specific life situations (divorcees, addicts, grief, etc…); all while continuing to meet together as a large community in order to strengthen and encourage one another.

One such smaller community is youth ministry. Youth, or student ministry, consists of both Middle School and High School students. Middle School and High School students are not ‘the church of tomorrow’ as so many people like to label them, THEY ARE A VALUABLE AND INTEGRAL PART OF TODAY’S CHURCH.

Youth ministry, a community of Middle School and High School students within the larger community of the local church, is the greatest way for the local church to reach the lost youth of their community for Christ. Not only is youth ministry the greatest way for the local church to reach JUST the lost youth of their community, BUT one of the greatest ways to reach lost people OF ALL AGES for Christ- period.

In a poll conducted by The Barna Group in 2004, 43% of all Americans who have accepted Jesus Christ as their savior indicated that they did so before reaching the age of 13. The same poll also revealed that 64% of American born again Christians accepted Jesus Christ as their savior before their 18^th birthday. While only 13% of American born again Christians made their profession of faith between the ages of 18 and 21.

This means that approximately 77% of all Christians in America choose to follow Christ sometime between birth and the age of 21- with the chances to reach them declining dramatically each year. It is crucial that the local church put much of their outreach and ministry focus on children, teens, and young adults in order to reach the lost for Christ.

So, needless to say, youth ministry is extraordinarily important within the context of the local church. But what could it look like?

My idea of youth ministry within the context of the local church is similar to my view of the local church as a whole: Middle School and High School Students from every grade, school, race, social status, and recreational interest within a local community coming together to: worship the Lord Jesus Christ, grow in relationship with Him, build authentic, encouraging, and accountable relationships with each other, serve and meet the needs of the world around them, and share the faith, love, and hope that they have found in Jesus Christ in a tangible way with all who they come into contact with.

It is important for Middle School and High School Students to have a ministry targeted directly at them within the local church. The reasons for this are many, a few of those reasons are- because teens face issues unique to their age group (discovering their identity, deciding what they want to do with their life, learning how to build and keep relationships, struggling with the pressures of newfound sexuality, working to get good grades, etc…), teens respond more within a group of their peers more than they do within a group of adults (because their peers are going through the same issues as them, their peers tend to be less judgmental than adults, they enjoy recreating with their peers more so than adults, etc…), and teens tend to relate more with others who share or are aware of the same generational interests as them (music, television, movies, publications, video games, web sites, jokes, etc…).

This ministry would have a weekly worship gathering for Middle and High School Students- preferably during the middle of the week so that students could be encouraged from the events that have transpired previously in the week and for the ones to come. This weekly worship gathering would have a relaxed atmosphere, yet offer high energy corporate worship music, corporate prayer, Bible teaching, and group ice-breakers or games. The weekly worship gathering would be the GATEWAY to the local church’s youth ministry where students could confidently invite their ‘non-Christian’ friends because they themselves know that their friends will be accepted by their peers and their leaders, have a good time, hear a message relevant to their lives, and encounter Jesus in a non-judgmental, non-pressured way. Serving a meal before the weekly worship gathering would be optimal as to draw students in from the community and allow the rest of the church community an opportunity to serve their young people.

This ministry would have weekly small-group meetings split up into age-specific and gender-specific groups. In these weekly small-group meetings students will develop close-authentic-accountable relationships with a small group of their peers and a mentoring relationship with their small-group adult leader. Within these groups students will eat together, share their struggles with one another, pray for each other, read and discuss the Word of God together, and hold each other accountable. Different small groups could meet at different times, but having this group meet on Sunday nights would be optimal as to encourage each other to live for Christ throughout the coming week and to discuss the topic from the previous week’s worship gathering.

This Youth Ministry would have consistent monthly events planned for students to recreate, serve, and evangelize together. These events would enable the group to grow closer together, invite their friends, and have life experiences that they may have never experienced without attending. These events could transpire both locally and in distant locations.

The Youth Ministry would have at least one retreat or camp scheduled per calendar year for Middle and High School Students to attend. These retreats or camps would give the students a rare opportunity to be ministered to outside of their local context- lowering their inhibitions to what the Lord can do in their life and opening their eyes to new life experiences.

This Youth Ministry would be led by a God-loving youth pastor who would build and oversee a team of adult volunteers within the local church and student leaders within the youth ministry. The youth pastor’s duties would be (but not limited to) to schedule and oversee all events as well as spend quality time loving, serving, and mentoring his students, volunteers, church community, and surrounding community. The adult volunteers’ duties would be (but not limited to) to run and work within certain departments of the ministry (leading individual weekly small group meetings, preparing meals before the weekly worship gathering, engaging and mentoring students at the weekly worship gathering and at Sunday services, ‘shepherding’-chaperoning- youth events and retreats/camps, etc…). The student leaders’ duties would also be (but not limited to) to run and work within certain departments of the ministry (running specific events at the weekly worship gathering like sound, video, projector, greeting, games, etc…mentor younger students, lead worship music, etc…).

A healthy youth ministry will have its leaders and volunteers visiting its student’s campuses for lunch and extracurricular activities. It will also have its leaders and volunteers developing relationships with students’ families by participating in home visits.

I believe that both the Middle School and High School Students should have the opportunity to attend ’Big Church’ with their adult family and friends so they can- learn from the senior pastor’s teachings; worship with their adult family and friends; be mentored by the adults within the church community; feel, hear, and see that THEY ARE A VALIABLE AND INTEGRAL PART OF THE GREATER CHURCH BODY; have more opportunities to serve their church community; be involved with ministry at Sunday services (on the worship team, ushering, greeting, etc…); and so that the adults within their church community can see that the youth ministry needs their support- prayerfully, relationally, financially, and by volunteering. Some churches have their ‘youth services’ during Sunday morning ‘Big Church’ services, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but I feel that it robs students of awesome opportunities that they can experience with the adults of their church community. This is one of the reasons why I advocate for youth ministries to have their weekly worship gatherings during the middle of the week.

I believe that if some of the above ideas were followed and if the local church as a whole was committed to similar philosophies, that the natural result would be growth within the local church’s youth ministry. Once the number of Middle Schoolers and High Schoolers within the local church’s youth ministry exceeded approximately 30 students, respectively, it would be wise to separate the weekly worship gathering up between the Middle Schoolers and High Schoolers. This is because just as Middle Schoolers and High Schoolers face different issues and relate to culture differently than their adult community members do, the same division translates on a smaller scale between Middle Schoolers and High Schoolers. So having separate weekly worship gatherings, and possibly even events, would allow the youth pastor and adult volunteers to tailor meet the ministry needs of the two student groups.

All this being said, there is not necessarily a wrong or a right way to do youth ministry. You have to do what works for the students unique to your community. And the only way to do what works, in any ministry, is to let GOD LEAD YOU- by His Word, through prayer, by His Holy Spirit, and under the direction of an elder that God has placed with you.