Monthly youth leaders column

It seems that the current fad in the world of work is outcome and the process we have to go through to achieve that outcome. There are some aspects of management theory that I have encountered recently which seem to talk more of man’s almost superhuman ability to achieve while the idea of dependence on a holy God for wisdom and guidance gets shoved into the background.

It prompted me to ask what kind of people should be the end product of Christian youth ministry? Any youth group I have led has contained a rich variety of personalities; so we need to look at the characteristics of those young people who have been through our youth ministries and think about the aspects of their character which we have tried, with God’s help, to fashion. Much of the world young people live in is a world of self-sufficiency where achievement of performance is everything. There is nothing wrong with being proud of achievements — a beautiful painting or scoring a brilliant goal. But if that is seen as something which makes us look good and about which we boast we’ve missed the point.

Who to value?

Sometimes youth groups seem to value those young people who are obviously gifted and talented. A group full of extroverts can sometimes swamp the quieter people who feel inferior to their more noisy peers. It is easy to give more attention to the very gifted and, by doing so, encourage that behaviour as being distinctly Christian. We are to ‘seek first the Kingdom of God’, so we must encourage devotion to Jesus as being the highest aim in the lives of our young people.

In my experience that does not always come from the most gifted or the most extrovert members of the youth group. We need to look for signs of godly devotion in the lives of our young people and encourage that in the group. That is our ‘end product’.

Signs of growth

If we stand back a little from the week by week delivery of a programme, we need to see signs of growth in maturity in the lives of our young people. Have they ‘plateaued’, showing no signs of growing? They may have ceased to ask questions and seem to want to live in a kind of tick over mode. This is why our teaching and ministry needs to continually challenge our young people to grow in maturity — we should long for this to be happening.

Service

When a young person’s commitment to following Jesus is growing, there is often a desire to serve God in some way. They are so grateful for what God has done in their lives, service does not have to be dragged out of them, it is there in their own hearts. This means that we must provide service outlets for our young people — we need to know their spiritual gifts if they are to be effective and they must be given opportunity both in the group context and the wider church context.

I would also hope to see a growing desire to see others become Christians in the life of the maturing young person. These are the things we should be striving for in our ministry to young people and the characteristics we should value and encourage in the life of the group — our end product should be maturity in Christ.

Dave Fenton

© Evangelicals Now - July 2010
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