A complete discipleship system for leading intentional preteen and youth ministry
The church uses the word discipleship for everything, but not everything is discipleship. A disciple is someone who walks in obedience to what Christ has commanded, and discipleship is multiplication through relationship.
To be transparent, I often hear teaching at church that I think is really good but doesn’t lead to any change in behavior on my part. Also, there have been times when I get together with my Christian brothers and sisters and we just have fun together. Youth ministries tend to call both of these activities discipleship but they do not meet the requirement of the definition.
If we want discipleship to happen in our ministries we first have to be honest about what activities are discipleship and what activities or not. So to help us I made a list of misconceptions about discipleship.
When I ask youth workers what discipleship strategy they’re using, nine out of ten tell me, “Small groups.” And I love that we’ve devoted much of our attention to small group ministry, but allow me to share a piece of hard truth: small groups are not a strategy. They may be a vehicle for discipleship, but small groups do not inherently yield the results of discipleship. A discipleship strategy is a plan in which a mature believer walks with an immature believer through biblical truth, challenging the immature believer to live a new way. Because we’ve equated small groups with discipleship, many of us have fallen short of actually growing and developing disciples.
In the same way, we can’t look to programming alone to disciple students. People—not programs—disciple students. It’s time to shift our thinking away from a one-size fits all mentality and create time and space for adult volunteers to enter into deep and meaningful relationships with students. Only then will we begin to see discipleship take place.
You’ve heard this before, but it bears repeating: going to church doesn’t equate life change. We can’t assume that a student is being discipled just because they are regularly attending youth group. We’ve all seen how many of our students act at church. In many cases, they don’t seem to have any idea of why they are there. The truth is you can’t be a disciple without wanting to be a disciple, and we must take steps to inspire this desire in the hearts of our students.
Home is another area where we must be careful of assumptions. It’s possible that students are being discipled at home, but it’s also likely that they are not. Some parents have not been discipled themselves, and, as a result, they don’t know how to disciple their children. Others may have no interest in the church or in their children’s spiritual development. These are facts that we cannot take for granted, and it’s part of our role as youth workers to help parents become their children’s primary faith influencers.
Admittedly in my early days as a youth pastor, I wanted to create an atmosphere of fun and excitement in our youth ministry. I did this through games, worship bands, crazy stunts, and events that seemed risky even though they were not. But looking back, I’m not sure I achieved the goal I was shooting for. I was good at hanging out with students, but I saw very little return on my investment. Perhaps, like me, you’ve also been focused on creating a culture of fun and you’re ready to begin creating a culture of transformation where discipleship can flourish.
Sometimes we are under the impression that students won’t attend youth group if we go too deep. We take a look at students’ lifestyle choices and assume that they are uninterested in growing as disciples and followers of Christ. While it’s certainly not true of every student, I’ve found that many students are more engaged than we give them credit for. It’s important that we don’t rob students of a major growth opportunity just because we feel somewhat hesitant or wary about their reactions.
Let’s be honest, even after hearing our best-crafted sermon, most students will walk away and forget the majority of what we’ve talked about. We can’t look to sermons as the sole source of discipleship in a student’s life. Speakers don’t change lives, but change can occur when a mature believer chooses to invest in a younger believer by the power and guidance of the Holy Spirit.
Discipleship is one of the highest callings in youth ministry, and it’s important that we own up to not always knowing what it is that we’re talking about. The more we’ve bought into these misconceptions, the less likely we are to move forward in discipleship.
Deep Discipleship Students is a complete curriculum and system with everything you need for ministry to junior high and high school students.
