“Our approach to ministry is to view it relationally rather than programmatically,” says Greg Paul, who has directed Sanctuary, a street ministry, for more than 13 years. “So our approach is not to develop a bunch of programs to put people through and they come out the other end and there’s some change in them. Our approach is to say that we are fundamentally a community.”
I recently read an article on Relevant Magazines website, (If you are interested in reading about progressive Christian culture I highly recommend you purchase a subscription to their magazine. To me it’s the best $15 I spend every year.) “The Gospel on the Street”, and it got me thinking about my approach to youth ministry.
I’ve served as the youth pastor at my church for two years and during this time we have struggled to effectively reach the young people in our community. We have planned large concert events, given away game stations and ipods, and passed out flyers to our weekly services. I have dug deep into my ministry bag-o-tricks several times and now I’m beginning to clean out the lint. (Side note: nothing we do has gone without much prayer so please don’t get overly spiritual and miss the point because there is a point here, I promise!)
While reading this article something that Greg Paul said struck a cord with me, he said, “Our approach to ministry is to view it relationally rather than programmatically.” I’ve been in youth ministry for almost 8 years now and relational ministry is nothing new to me but when he said it; a light went off. We are missing the most important ingredient to any effective ministry and that is authentic relationships. How could we have been so blind!
However, the issue is not with our vision it’s our complacency and this is a dangerous place to be in ministry. Now that I think about it, it does make sense. Our leaders and their youth pastor, that’s me, have found themselves being drawn to the students that seem to have it all together. They are easily motivated, dependable, loyal, hard-working, and know all the words to the songs we sing. All the while there are students in our ministry and in our community that don’t fit into our comfort zone that we are failing to reach.
The article stated, “Statistics show that of youth who end up on the street, 84 percent of them will admit to having experienced physical and/or sexual abuse in the home. The vast majority come from broken homes. The vast majority come from homes where one or both parents have a drug or alcohol problem.” Greg Paul explains the danger to our ministries complacency when he says, “It’s important to remember that these issues are as present in church communities as they are anywhere else. So, in a church of several hundred people it’s entirely likely that there are a few kids being sexually abused. It’s entirely likely that there are a number of families where one or both parents have an alcohol or drug problem. So, the first thing churches need to do is get their heads out of the sand and recognize that this is probably taking place in our own congregation. And look around the church for the people who exist at the margins.”
We have young people and families within our church and community that desperately need us to bring the love of Christ to them. Up to this point our youth ministry has failed to effectively extend our hands to reach into the margins. We are guilty of making our ministry more about the programs and less about the relationships and I know this has drastically stunted our growth. I believe our ministry and the church as whole will not see the exponential growth it desires until we begin to focus on authentic relationships.
In about 2 weeks our youth ministry will host a Back to School Bash and we are expecting to have around 50 students on our campus that have never engaged our ministry before. On that day I will challenge myself and our staff to view this event and all future events as “tangible expressions of relationship, or an invitation to a relationship, rather than an end in themselves.”
In relationships we display how much we care so others can hear how much God cares. When we fail to build relationships with the people we are ministering to we are limiting what God can do in us, and more importantly, through us. I hope you will join with us as we pursue the “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” James 1:27
I recently read an article on Relevant Magazines website, (If you are interested in reading about progressive Christian culture I highly recommend you purchase a subscription to their magazine. To me it’s the best $15 I spend every year.) “The Gospel on the Street”, and it got me thinking about my approach to youth ministry.
I’ve served as the youth pastor at my church for two years and during this time we have struggled to effectively reach the young people in our community. We have planned large concert events, given away game stations and ipods, and passed out flyers to our weekly services. I have dug deep into my ministry bag-o-tricks several times and now I’m beginning to clean out the lint. (Side note: nothing we do has gone without much prayer so please don’t get overly spiritual and miss the point because there is a point here, I promise!)While reading this article something that Greg Paul said struck a cord with me, he said, “Our approach to ministry is to view it relationally rather than programmatically.” I’ve been in youth ministry for almost 8 years now and relational ministry is nothing new to me but when he said it; a light went off. We are missing the most important ingredient to any effective ministry and that is authentic relationships. How could we have been so blind!
However, the issue is not with our vision it’s our complacency and this is a dangerous place to be in ministry. Now that I think about it, it does make sense. Our leaders and their youth pastor, that’s me, have found themselves being drawn to the students that seem to have it all together. They are easily motivated, dependable, loyal, hard-working, and know all the words to the songs we sing. All the while there are students in our ministry and in our community that don’t fit into our comfort zone that we are failing to reach.
The article stated, “Statistics show that of youth who end up on the street, 84 percent of them will admit to having experienced physical and/or sexual abuse in the home. The vast majority come from broken homes. The vast majority come from homes where one or both parents have a drug or alcohol problem.” Greg Paul explains the danger to our ministries complacency when he says, “It’s important to remember that these issues are as present in church communities as they are anywhere else. So, in a church of several hundred people it’s entirely likely that there are a few kids being sexually abused. It’s entirely likely that there are a number of families where one or both parents have an alcohol or drug problem. So, the first thing churches need to do is get their heads out of the sand and recognize that this is probably taking place in our own congregation. And look around the church for the people who exist at the margins.”
We have young people and families within our church and community that desperately need us to bring the love of Christ to them. Up to this point our youth ministry has failed to effectively extend our hands to reach into the margins. We are guilty of making our ministry more about the programs and less about the relationships and I know this has drastically stunted our growth. I believe our ministry and the church as whole will not see the exponential growth it desires until we begin to focus on authentic relationships.
In about 2 weeks our youth ministry will host a Back to School Bash and we are expecting to have around 50 students on our campus that have never engaged our ministry before. On that day I will challenge myself and our staff to view this event and all future events as “tangible expressions of relationship, or an invitation to a relationship, rather than an end in themselves.”
In relationships we display how much we care so others can hear how much God cares. When we fail to build relationships with the people we are ministering to we are limiting what God can do in us, and more importantly, through us. I hope you will join with us as we pursue the “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” James 1:27
1 comment:
we have been focusing alot on what event we should have next...and on the students who are serving the lord already....we have students that go to youth service who are scared to leave their own comfort zone...so we have to start reaching out to them...Like that story in the bible that talks about the lost sheep...we already have the 99 who are having that relationship with GOD...Now lets look for the one(s) who are lost...and help them find their way back home.....
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