Last week we held, for the first time, The EVENT. Our students do not have a weekly Gathering, but they meet within community groups throughout the month. We decided that we wanted to provide an environment for middle school and high school students to invite their friends who may not want to come to a small group gathering. I loved the opportunity to lead the students in singing praise to Jesus and it got me thinking about my years as a student pastor.
So here are my top 5 lessons from Student Ministry (no particular order):
- Let Jesus be the DRAW. I am not against giveaways and t-shirts and things like that. In fact we gave away some of that stuff last night. The only problem that can come from trying to make the drawing for an i-Pod what gets a student to your event is that next time you have to give away an i-Pad. When Jesus is the draw then Jesus will be bring them back. My mentor always said, “What you win them with is what you have to keep them with.”
- Encourage and Empower Your Teenagers. There is enough stuff out there that is screaming about how bad teenagers are, but from my experience teens are an untapped resource of unbelievable passion and potential. My goal was to point them to Jesus and the Mission of God and then take the leash off. Do they mess up sometimes? Do they let you down? Yes, but so do adults who as church leaders we are supposed to be investing and empowering. Companies spend millions of dollars to understand them and the church tends to put them in a far corner so that they won’t be disruptive.
- Go Deep. A lot of schools are offering college courses and they take classes like Trigonometry and Advanced Chemistry. You don’t have to be shallow in your teaching of the Scripture. I’m not saying that they need to be fluent in Greek and Hebrew, but they can handle some of the tougher teachings found in the Scriptures.
- Build Community. Looking back the thing that I noticed the most during the highest points of my ministry was not the craziness of the events, but when the group was the tightest relationally. Unfortunately, technology has done more to destroy community than help build it. I tried to eliminate anything that would separate students from others on our trips (no cell phones, i-pods, video games, etc). Some of the greatest times came from those bus trips to go skiing or on a Fall Retreat. It is amazing the environment created when a group of teenagers like hanging out with each other.
- Teach Them to Be Missionaries. I did not view my job as the missionary headed to the schools to bring the Light. I enjoyed sitting with students at lunch, but more than anything I desired to pour into my students and send them into the schools as missionaries. Their influence in many ways was greater than mine could have ever been. An unstoppable force by administration released in the schools and empowered by Jesus and the local church.
