READ PART 1: Yesterday I shared 3 things I want my students to know before they graduate – part 1. This second part addresses how we try to accomplish those three things in our ministry.

Obviously, this is all a work of the Holy Spirit. I believe we are all depraved beings and that our natural desire is to peruse things that oppose God, so while I would love to see these three things take place in every graduating senior, I first have to be honest enough to say that these three things are not always present in my own life. My sin issues constantly derail me from being a perfect example for students.

However, without assuming too much responsibility for how each student chooses to respond to the Holy Spirit’s promptings, there are a couple things our ministry does to help push teenagers toward each of the three things.

1) 7th and 8th graders go through the entire Bible before high school. Our junior high small groups go through the entire Old Testament one year and the New Testmanet the next. By the time they enter high school, they have a basic understanding of the entire Word of God. Small group leaders do their best to help the junior highers not just fill their head with facts, but daily journaling, reflection, memorization, acts of service, and more help them apply it all practically to their daily life and practice.

2) Teach Bible study methods to high schoolers. This is a hard balance for me. Last year I did an 8 week series on hermeneutics and basically taught a crash course of my Intro to Bible Study Methods class from Dallas Theological Seminary. I whipped out all my old notes, gave them some of the same homework assignments I had in seminary, and provided books for further study. A few students stepped up to the challenge and really took the observation, interpretation and application process very seriously. For most, though, it was way over their head. I plan to revisit this series again next year, but it needs to be simplified and balanced so I don’t loose kids to day dreaming.

3) We youth leaders must model personal worship and evangelism. I do my best never to ask my kids to do something that I haven’t first tried in my own life. That means if I’m going to ask them to share about a time in the previous week when they brought God up in a conversation with an unsaved friend, I’d better have a story to share myself. If I’m challenging them to dig into God’s Word, I need to be doing it first and sharing that experience with the teens. They need to see how studying God’s Word practically plays out in my own life, how it affects my own decisions and values, and how it’s reflective in my personal worship and outreach. Otherwise I’m just another Christian hypocrite.

What it all really comes down to is our youth group’s vision to go Deep and Wide: deep into God’s Word and wide with His message to the people around us. That’s what drives everything we do, including the 3 things I want my students to know before they graduate.

Graduation is coming up in a couple months and it’s caused me to reflect a bit on our ministry overall, from 7th grade through 12th grade. By the time they graduate, what should they know? Where should they be spiritually? What should their lives look like?

This is obviously a very subjective list, but here’s what I’d like to see for our youth group’s graduates before they leave our ministry.

1) An overview understanding of the entire Bible. I’m not saying they need to know everything in it, but at least be able to track through Genesis to Revelation at a 35,000 foot level. Biblical literacy is key because you cannot fall in love with someone if you don’t know much about them. But the more you know, the more there is to fall in love with, and the more you fall in love, the more you want to know about that person. Knowing God’s Word is foundational to knowing and loving God.

2) Know how to study scripture for themselves. I don’t want our youth group kids to graduate and always be dependent on someone else to chew on God’s Word, digest it, and spit it out in bite size pieces for them each week at church. I want them to learn how to feed on the Word of God for their own and not just swallow the assumptions that I, or any other pastor or teacher, throws at them. They should be equipped to dig into God’s Word on their own, study it for themselves, and feed on it’s life-sustaining power, not being content with spiritual milk.

3) Worship and evangelism should be a natural part of their daily lives. 1 Corinthians 8:1 says, “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.” And 1 Corinthians 4:20 says, “For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power.” Learning God’s Word and being able to study it on your own is great, but if that knowledge is just a lot of talk and never turns to love for God and for people (i.e. the Great Commandment), then it’s a waste. The outpouring of their knowledge of God should turn into a passionate love that is exemplified in their lifestyle of worship and a burden for lost people.

Tomorrow I’ll share how we address these things practically in our ministry. UPDATE: Part 2 is now published here.

What 3 things do you want your students to know, do, and/or experience before they graduate? Share in the comments below.

Matt Brown joined us last Monday to talk about mobilizing students to share their faith. Matt, formerly with the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, shared with us from his experience and passion for sharing the gospel. His upcoming book, Revolutionaries: Men & Women in Every Century Who Advanced Christianity, also discusses people who spread the gospel and set the example for us to follow.

Also check out my video with Matt where we discussed 5 ideas to help teenagers share their faith.

Some of the things we talked about:

• The current state of evangelism in our youth groups
• Why it’s important that we model it first
• Ideas to implement into your youth meetings
• Handling “persecution” for sharing our faith
• And a lot more…

You can listen to the whole conversation below or grab it in iTunes.

Play this episode

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Next Monday’s discussion

October 26: Next week’s guest is Dennis Poulette, a youth ministry professor at a seminary in Mexico, who will lead us in a discussion about, “Working with cross-cultural students and minorities at youth group.” At 2:00 PM eastern time, call (724) 444-7444 and enter ID 19105#, or use the link on the LIVE YM Talk page to listen online and join the chat room.

Join our next LIVE Youth Ministry Conversation!

Last week my sr. high youth group finished up a 5 week series on evangelism that was loosely based on Brett Heatherington’s free Evangelism For My Life series. A good friend of mine, Greg Stier of Dare 2 Share Ministries, agreed to do a live evangelism Q&A with my youth group via a video feed, but our Sunday night didn’t quite work out for him, so the teens wrote down their questions ahead of time and I did the Q&A video with Greg during the week instead. Here’s a list of the questions they asked:

1. What are some icebreakers to start the conversation?
2. What are a couple of passages that shows God’s love toward us?
3. What would you say to someone if they ask a question like, “How do you know the Bible is right?” or “How do you know God exists?” or “What if you’re wrong?”
4. How do you prepare for an “encounter?”
5. What are some resources that you would recommend for someone who is going along with what you are saying?
6. Give me an example of bringing Christ up through music? Sports? Recent events? School?
7. What is a good way to explain the trinity to unbelievers?
8. How can you explain that having faith is different than religion? Like, a relationship with God?
9. How do we share our faith with people who don’t care about God and don’t want to learn more?
10. How do we approach people with a different religion?
11. How can we know when to be more persistent with someone and when to back off?
12. How do I share my faith with someone who wants nothing to do with me?
13. How do you go about pursuing someone who you and others may presume is “fine” but there is something that may lead you to be uncertain about their faith and if they know Jesus?
14. How do you help a Christian come back to Jesus after an emotional crises/breakdown?
15. How do you share your faith with a close friend?
16. What do you say when an unbeliever asks you to prove what you’re saying?
17. How do you prove the Bible using the Bible? How do you prove the Bible NOT using the Bible?
18. What’s the way of evangelism that seems to be received best by unbelievers?

You’re welcome to download this 41 minute video conversation between me and Greg Stier and use it with your youth groups, too. However, since it’s just shy of 700 MB, I’m going to let you guys download it directly from Vimeo. Use the link below to view the video. In the bottom-right corner of the page you can download the original source file (requires site registration).

View the Evangelism Q&A video with Greg Stier and Tim Schmoyer

Download the small group discussion questions

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Remember, there is no LIVE YM Talk today or any other Friday in the future. LIVE YM Talks have switched to Mondays. Our next LIVE YM Talk is this Monday, October 26, with featured guest, Dennis Poulette, who will lead us in a discussion on working with cross-cultural students and minorities at youth group.

Someone recently emailed me with some good questions about my youth group’s vision to go Deep and Wide. Thought I’d share them with you here, along with my responses.

1. What difference has the deep and wide program made to your youth ministry on the ground compared to any program you used before?

Going “deep and wide” is not a program. Taking kids “deep and wide” is our mission statement, purpose statement, core values, strategy, and our philosophy all in one simple vision for teenagers. It directs and determines our programs, the content we teach, the relationships
we build, and every other aspect of our ministry, but it is not a program.

2. What are the positive (and negative) you could share with me about it?

There’s really nothing negative about it. It follows Jesus’ commission to “go into all the world” (go wide) and “teach them to obey everything I have commanded” (grow deep). It’s also the great commandment to “love the Lord your God” (grow deep) and “love your neighbor as yourself” (go wide). Everything is wrapped up in those two inseparable aspects of Christianity: worship, fellowship, discipleship, evangelism, missions, everything.

If you want to read more about it, Greg Stier (of Dare 2 Share Ministries) wrote a thesis on it that goes into more detail.

3. One concern I have about the material is [your] use of the word “push” which could potentially have negative connotations in terms of “pushing” young people to make a commitment. Maybe this is a difference in our theologies but there have been several ministries…over the years (of which I was involved in one as a young person) that have “pushed” young people and for many this has had long term negative fallout. I agree that we ought to be hastily encouraging young people to have relationship with Jesus and to share it, but I am keen for that relationship to be long term. Do you have any thoughts?

I understand your hesitation with the word “push” and I agree with what you’re saying. Too many churches are very passive when it comes to encouraging teens in their faith. We think that if we talk with them once a week at church for an hour about it, then that’s sufficient to help them grow. But in comparison to everything else in their life — academics, athletics, band, family, relationships, whatever — they are definitely pushed. There are expectations and boundaries for each of those things that are much more rigorous than what we expect of teens spiritually. Mormons, for example, expect their kids to go to seminary for classes every day early in the morning before school and the Mormon drop-out rate is almost 0! We barely expect that they show up at youth group.

So, when I use the word “push” I mean we need to raise the standards and expectations of spiritual growth in kids lives. According to my theology, we are all naturally sinful and rebel against the things of God. Pursuing Him does not come natural for any of us. That’s why it requires some gentle, sometimes forceful, pushing. In my experience, never has a kid rebelled against that. In fact, they always rise to the challenge and start seeing Christianity as something more than just a wussy thing on Sunday mornings.

The kids who are spiritually apathetic need to be challenged the most. Jesus said, “teaching them to OBEY everything I have commanded.” Sometimes we have to challenge kids to just try what Jesus commands in an area of their life, and as they see that it really works, that this
is real and not just old Bible stuff, they start to become more interested. As they continue to obey and follow the Lord and see Him at work in their lives, then they move to becoming more excited about their faith and then passionate. That doesn’t mean teens (and even myself) don’t fluctuate spiritually, just that we are striving to obey the Lord in every area of our life.

Ultimately, you’ll have to be sensitive to how much you “push” a kid. It’s different for every teenager. Some need a lot of accountability, challenges, and follow-up. Some only need to be “pushed” once.

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The poor guy below wrote me a while back asking a pretty simple question, but I ended up going on a rant. Sorry! lol I would love to hear input from all you guys in the comments below.

My pastor asked me to look around at some other youth ministries and see what they set and use to evaluate their ministries. He suggested that I set up some “Key Result Areas” to use for our ministry here. I realize that some of this is dependent on personal context, but I would be interested to hear if any others, including you, have done work with KRAs. What are the KRAs of youth ministry that exist in almost any context?

I haven’t formally done anything like this before, but I do meet with the youth pastors in my community every Tuesday morning and talk. We did an informal discussion once about the percentage of students who are connected to our church in some way versus the percentage of students who are actually involved in the ministry. My ministry is at about 50-60% involvement, which I thought was horrible until the other guys said they were closer to 25-35% involvement. Now I don’t feel so bad.

But that’s the problem — we should never use other ministries for the standard of evaluating our own ministry. It’s not “how they’re doing” versus “how we’re doing.” And I know you’re not asking in a competitive sense, but for all practical purposes, that’s exactly where the focus goes. There’s nothing wrong with taking your community’s demographics into consideration as part of your strategy, but don’t use the success or failure of other ministries as a basis for evaluation. The danger is, if you happen to be on the top of the totem pole, you start to feel the same way I did: content. As long as there are still unsaved people in this world, I should never be content with my ministry’s “performance.”

Instead, I use scripture for the basis of our evaluation. 1 Timothy 2:3-4 says, “…God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.” And the Great Commission in Matthew 28, of course, along with 1 Peter and Hebrews challenging believers to grow into full maturity, not stuck on spiritual milk. God wants 1,000,000% growth, not numbers who are involved versus not involved, as if that could somehow determine spirituality.

What I care about most, and I’m sure you do, too, is that I’ll hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” My ministry will never meet up to His standards, I know. As long as there are lost people in my community and believers who need to grow deeper in the Word, I’ll never feel like my ministry is “doing okay” or “meeting expectations.” It’s all about Him and what scripture indicates a ministry should do and what it should look like. So I’d encourage you to start there. Besides, no life-change or spiritual growth happens apart from the Holy Spirit’s prompting and conviction anyway. Whatever the Key Area Results are for my community, the Holy Spirit can (and wants to!) radically change that. Sometimes I think we approach ministry from a business perspective instead of a spiritual perspective.

What do you think? I’d love to dialog about this a bit because I’ve never really thought through a KRA before, so I’d love to hear your thoughts.

NOTE: Obviously I know that careful ministry evaluations are important and very necessary — this post is not questioning that. Rather, it’s challenging the yard stick we sometimes use to measure our ministries and the conclusions we draw from it.

I don’t do alter calls or invitations to come forward or anything, but I do make sure that I point every youth group lesson back to the gospel for several reasons.

1. It’s the foundation of everything else in scripture. In fact, we wouldn’t even have scripture in the first place if it wasn’t for the gospel. It’s the core, the hub, the center of everything we teach. Everything is dependent on the gospel. No matter what subject, issue, or passage you’re teaching, it all ties back to the gospel message. Don’t believe me? Watch Craig Groeschel of LifeChurch.tv do it with almost every message he preaches.

2. I’m not naive enough to think that all my youth group kids have made a decision to trust Christ. Actually, often the very opposite is often true. The church kids are the ones who are the most immune to the gospel. They mentally check out thinking, “Yeah, yeah, I know. I’ve heard this part before.” That’s why it’s important to always tie every lesson back to the gospel! I’ve found that some teens listen to my lesson just to try to figure out how I’m going to make the connection at the end. When I get there I explain the gospel in a way that’s relevant to the lesson we just discussed. In this way it doesn’t become redundant for them, but instead they get the gospel from a new angle every week.

3. The more my kids hear the Gospel, the more clear it is for them, the easier it is for them to share it with someone else, and the more confident they feel when doing so. When I do one-on-one discipleship with teen guys, one of the questions I always ask is, “If you had 30 seconds to share the gospel with someone right before they died, what would you say?” It’s surprising to me how many good, solid church kids have a perspective of soteriology that is totally confused. They often miss key elements such as sin, or the fact that Jesus was God. They know all the elements in their head, but they’ve never been asked to put all the pieces together. That’s why it’s so helpful for them to hear the gospel every week from me because it makes it more clear each time they hear it. Coincidentally, that helps them share it more clearly with others, which in turn boosts their confidence. Of course, that means I must first have a firm grasp on the gospel myself. Do you? Can you clearly answer my question?

4. Scripture expects that both me and my youth group kids share the gospel with others regularly. There are some things scripture expects from us whether we’re gifted in that area or not. For example, some people have the gift of serving, but every believer is still expected to serve others. Some people have the gift of giving, but every believer is expected to tithe. Some people have the gift of evangelism, but every believer is expected to share Christ with the lost people around them in one capacity or another. When we keep the gospel in front of our teens at youth group, it moves it to the forefront of their theological grid, and thus they are more apt to follow the Lord’s command in obedience to share Him with others.

Ultimately, it helps both the youth group teens and myself go deep and wide at the same time.

What kind of role does the gospel play in your youth ministry?

The media is has really latched on to the Online Missions Trip over the past two weeks and given it more publicity than I ever imagined. In fact, last week I did 2-4 radio interviews per day, plus several magazine and written interviews. What started as a 2-week outreach campaign for my own youth group has really spread into something huge. Over 3,000 teenagers representing almost every continent will be actively sharing their faith using social media from February 1-14, 2009. Crazy! Sounds like the Lord is doing something here.

I’m continually adding resources to OnlineMissionsTrip.com, the most recent being a link to a free book download called, “Welcome to the Family,” by Youth for Christ. It’s 6 chapters long and would work perfectly for helping a new believer start the life-long journey of discipleship. It probably works best in a one-on-one format, but it could also be used in a small group setting. Thanks to Jonathan McKee for making this book freely available at TheSource4YM.com!

Download “Welcome to the Family” book

There are several other good options for new believer follow-up at OnlineMissionsTrip.com.

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Join us at 2:00 PM EST this afternoon in our LIVE YM Talk! Jason Lamb of Dare 2 Share Ministries will lead our discussion about Deep & Wide Ministry. Info on the LIVE YM Talk page.

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Been in youth ministry for 2 years or fewer? Apply for a FREE 10 week one-on-one Life In Student Ministry Mentorship with one of our 13 youth ministry veterans. Application closes on January 24, 2009. Mentorship is made available for free thanks to Lifeway Students, who are supplying all the resources and materials to each mentee. Thanks, Lifeway Students!