Fun fact about me, March 11th is my birthday. This year it also marks the last day our youth ministry met in normal fashion. If you were to have told me that in February my birthday would have been the last “normal” night of youth ministry we would have with class of 2020, I would have thought you were crazy. Could I have imagined shutting down for a couple of weeks? Sure, but nothing like what we are experiencing.
Can I be honest? I hated lockdown youth ministry! I went from being in one of my favorite youth ministry seasons to my least favorite season by far. I get it, the church isn’t a building (and some of you bought the church left the building shirt) but there is still something special about the people of god gathering to corporately worship Him. Plus, I know for our ministry, many of our kids suffered both spiritually and emotionally. Students were struggling with sin issues, loneliness, and the motivation to keep moving forward in their faith. Our engagement was low, and I mean low (normally we would have around 15% of our ministry actively engaged and never had more than 35%). On top of that my passion for youth ministry was zapped.
Now as cases of COVID-19 are swelling again and (as I found out tonight) that our local schools will begin the year with virtual-only instruction, so many questions begin to swirl in my head. Is another lock-down coming? Is virtual ministry the way we will have to function moving forward? How will our kids emotionally handle this? Have we prepared them to spiritually to keep moving forward?
I fully believe that this is meant to be a time of reflection for all our youth ministries and to ask the question, “are our students ready?” Stats would scream probably not, as upwards to 60% of students who grew up in Christian churches end up leaving their faith. This stat is an issue and one that I know you and I don’t want to define our ministries. To combat this, we must be willing to ask ourselves the tough questions and to lay down anything that isn’t helping us towards the ultimate goal of youth ministry (not to be cool but to make disciples). I feel for most of us, if we are to continue doing ministry the same way we have always done it, we will have missed hearing the voice of the Lord.
So if haven’t done a self-reflection on your entire ministry during quarantine, SET SOME TIME TO DO THIS. This will be the most important thing can take away from this blog. If you are not hearing from Him nothing else matters. Yes, it’s fine to pull ideas from other ministries and other leaders but first pull from Him. You will never regret doing this.
As I have done this the Lord has highlighted several different things for our ministry(if you want to talk about more of this reach out would love to hear your thoughts as well) but a theme that I feel is universal for all youth ministries that wish to be successful moving forward is DEEP RELATIONSHIPS ARE THE KEY! If we are to change the stat line of young people leaving the faith, we must put the priority on forming deeper discipling relationships with our students.
HERE’S WHY
Deep Relationships are what we all crave.
As Proverbs 27:9 says, “Sweet friendship refreshes the soul.” We are designed for relationships. It was God who said it is not good for man to be alone. When we are without quality relationships our mental and emotional health both decline. We need one another for our own well-being and spiritual stamina. Life is going to get hard at times (hello 2020) and it’s in these moments when we are struggling that we need others to come alongside us. To live out Galatians 6:2 which calls us to carry one another’s burdens.
Deep Relationships push us past involvement to discipleship.
Since discipleship is the goal, relationships need to be a priority. It is impossible to be in a true discipleship without deep relationship. Part of the discipleship process is going down deep into our personal lives and developing both our strengths and weaknesses. This is essential especially for students who are still developing what their beliefs are because deep relationships also allow deep questions. One of the leading reasons why students are leaving the faith is because they are not having their questions answered. If students are not connected to strong mature Christians who will they be able to bring their questions too? How will they work through their doubts? We need to do whatever we can to help our students foster relationships with their peers and leaders.
Deep Relationships help to close the back door of our ministries.
How many students have slipped through the cracks of our ministry because we have simply lost touch with them? By forging deep relationship with every student in our ministry, peers and leaders will be more apt to notice who is present and more importantly who is missing. By being in deeper relationships even the smallest voices are heard. Often our students, especially introverts, struggle with finding their place in youth ministry. By creating environments geared toward connecting instead of entertaining we allow even our timid students to have a place to use their voice and be heard.
HERE’S HOW
Cast the vision to both your adult leadership and student leadership teams.
Our leaders are our culture carriers. If we want to see something happen in our ministries as a whole it has to first begin in our leadership. Have them own the value of deep relationships by casting the vision to them. Without vision people perish and our ministries will as well. One of the strategies we have begun to implement is challenging our adult and student leaders to have one meaningful conversation with another student where they either encourage, challenge, or pray for them. We do this because only 53% of Americans have a meaningful conversation every day. By putting a priority on meaningful conversations and holding one another accountable with this (they check in at the end of every night) it has helped to foster deeper relationships.
Increase relational activities as much as possible while you can physically meet.
I am not trying to be a Debbie downer, but I am planning for another lockdown. I live by the philosophy “hope for the best and plan for the worst”. So that’s why, if it’s not already obvious, I think one of the most important things we can do is create spaces for deeper relationships. I believe this because the only way our students are going to survive and thrive another quarantine is if these relationships are already strong. For theSOURCE, our highest engaged zoom calls in quarantine were when we broke down by our small group system. The kids were more prone to be involved because they had already developed relationships with the people in their groups.
We are creating space by meeting in small groups every week we can meet in person. This is not a part of our normal youth service. We are doing this for the sole purpose of creating deeper relationships. I also believe we need to do whatever we can to extend this as long as possible. So we are also already in conversations with parents and leaders to have houses where small groups can meet if large gatherings are once again restricted. The longer we can have physical small groups the deeper the relationships will become because realtionships need consistency.
Empower your leaders to view themselves as pastors and not as peons.
theSOURCE has been at its healthiest when I am not the one all our students are looking to. At first, this was hard for me when I entered youth ministry because I valued being needed. This, however, hindered the growth of many of my students and wasted the potential of my leaders. If Jesus focused on twelve, why do we feel we can do more? We must empower our leaders. As Ephesians 4:11-12 shares the goal of church leaders is to, “equip God’s people for works of service” not us do it all. The more you can empower your leaders to view themselves as pastors who are discipling a group of students the healthier your youth ministry will be. Your leaders will show up more because they will have a deeper sense of responsibility. They will take the time to check in on each student in their small group because it is their responsibility. They will sense how it is their responsibility to fight for the health of the students.
This has been a journey for us, but I do hope some of these thoughts might be helpful to you in establishing deeper relationships in your ministries! Be blessed!
TJ Denman| Youth Pastor
Chapel Springs Church