Youth Group - Outreach or Discipleship

Wow...lots of questions.

MRC, would you turn away large numbers if they come? Every week, I see about 150 students. Many of them are unsaved. What should I do? What I do...is tell them what God says. I spend as much time crafting a sermon as our pastor does (15 hours or so per week). I make no apologies for the Word...yet I don't tell them to leave.

I read the other thread...and some of the junk that one person mentioned...that was because someone in leadership seriously dropped the ball. I have a security team (3 men, 2 women) that make sure folks are where they should be, when they should be. We don't let that junk get started.

However, I am EXTREMELY intentional in my process. Our goal is to see kids turn to Christ, and mature into passionate followers of God. We have people all over the map in that process. There's a girl who came a couple of weeks ago who is gay. She's welcome here. Now...she's not going to be a member, she's not going to be leading...but she's coming, coming back, and she's hearing the gospel. God's gonna reach her. I know it.

I have "front door events" such as Wednesday night Live for us, in which we know large numbers of unsaved kids will come. We also have "kitchen table" events for our core students (such as indepth, tough-hitting Bible study and inner-city ministry) and "living room" events (such as student choir, drama teams, our powerpoint team, etc) that allows the new Christian and immature believer to grow in his or her walk.

I welcome anyone to our church. I don't care what they did Friday night, insofar as their being welcome to hear what God has to say.

But, when it comes to leading (and we push our kids to become involved in a MINISTRY here), they're gonna have to take certain steps, and Salvation, of course, is the primary one.

 

If we disciple them, they will win others to Christ.. it is a natural, (no supernatural) progression.

Teach them to reach others.. and then be there for support. Also teach by example... show them how to witness.

 

Tim,

I agree.

Mr. Coon,

If we are to be obedient to the Word of God, then we will spend some time preaching the Word of God to the lost and going into the world and making disciples of all men. On the other hand, no we should not be consulting the world as to how to do that. We consult God and his Word.

One question: What do you find to be compromising about AWANA?

Joseph Botwinick

 

People who are strong leaders were led by strong leaders. So are you making strong leaders or strong followers? Strong followrs are dependent. Strong leaders lead the way. Strong leaders learn to be dependent on Christ and not others.

 

MRCoon,

one thing Ive seen is that the teen's reactions to worldly influences are different when they are exposed to them in an outreach setting. What I mean is, when the teens are involved in ministering to the lost they see the worldly influences in a different light. What I think you are objecting to is just bringing in unsaved kids and letting them have free rein together. This is very different than what rbell talks about, which is a core group of active teens going out and ministering to other lost teenagers.

My one other example of a youth group I was involved in was the exact opposite of the one I mentioned in the other thread. We were not allowed to have any contact with unsaved kids because the parents were afraid of the influences. The youth group there was a clique, hardly anyone else could get "in". I don't think this is what you are like, MRCoon, Im just thinking a happy medium is the best.

 

I'm the youth minister at our church. Here's what we do: Our focus this year has been on discipleship. We're training our students to become like Christ. A strange thing has happened, though. We've had more people come to know Christ than ever before. In this school year, we're up to about 20, I believe. How has this happened? Our students have been inviting people and sharing their faith with others. Do I give evangelistic messages? Of course. But our focus is on making disciples. We've seen some cool things happen - we've lost some people who would rather be places where there were more games and less discipleship, but we've gained twice what we've lost, both in new converts and other students.

And I don't like AWANA's for middle school or high schoolers. Yuck.

 

We have small groups on sunday evenings. We have a wednesday evening youth service w/ games, praise & worship time, and a sermon. We have about 300 people that come. I'd say about 20% of the people dont go to any church on a typical sunday. Its good that they come because they keep coming back and eventually start getting involved in other church activities. Our numbers keep growing.