Professional Documents
Culture Documents
- Implications?
o Less telling, more teaching through showing
Teaching through lifestyle, which requires more from us
Need to spend more time with fewer students
Incarnational modeling
o How important is it to have them “pray the prayer?”
Rethink the process of inviting students to salvation?
Importance of one-time decision for Christ?
Not presenting the Gospel to get kids’ butts into heaven
Ultimate goal is to have them following Christ 10 years from
now…
Some students are ready for the ask, others need someone to
ride out the journey with them.
People we report to are in old school
What is the salvation decision?
• When you ask, “have you thought about what this
means?” what are we saying?
• Kingdom is all around us mentality vs. one-time personal
savior going into sin management to inherit heaven
mentality
• Theological difference vs. semantics
• Discipleship before salvation? (Nate R.)
o Jesus called disciples then they became life-long
followers
• We’ve boiled down the story to fall and redemption
o We leave out creation and new creation
o Need to start with Genesis
o They are redemptive agents in God’s story
• What about when it comes down to checking the box?
o Can we rewrite the boxes?
o We don’t know what really happened behind the
decision, the attitude
• Can we do it without “the prayer?”
o Confessing with your mouth?
o Isn’t it about the presentation of it?
o It solidifies it in their mind, it becomes a thank-you
process.
o Savior vs. Lord
• For Marko, not an issue at own church, but when
speaking at a one-time event outside of community when
he’s asked to do a response time because he believes
those decisions are important.
o Have students go talk to leaders if they want to
discuss
o When graduate, flip the tassel…are you graduated
if you don’t? yes.
o Need spiritual markers…
o Rethink what it means to have a relational ministry
If they’re in faith crisis and experience trumps information,
then we can’t solve their crisis with info.
They are impressionable and information can help
They are asking questions they can’t answer, so they need
someone to help them wrestle with those issues
o Quality vs. quantity time
Adults want quality time
Students want quantity time
o Really create a safe place to ask questions
Do they think we will be open to a discussion?
“I know what _____ is going to say.”
Sometimes there are students who just don’t (John W.)
Nate R – chat rooms (with HS students) that give students
opportunities to realize that they can have conversations with
adults
How do we know when to tell them? When are we wrong in
withholding that answer?
Eric – ran small groups where leaders were facilitators and
building up capital so their answers meant something more.
Sometimes a students would arrive at the answer before the
leader needed to…
How do you train your volunteers (esp. young ones) when to
know and read the situation about giving the answer?
Heather – Forums with 9th graders where students have 13
minutes to discuss a topic and leaders can’t talk. Leaders have
last 2 minutes to give input as they want.
Students will talk about stuff that is concerning them. (Eric)
• We need to balance having structure and an agenda with
letting them pick the topic
If you were going to totally dive after this in your ministry, especially communally,
so that in 2 years the volunteers would say, “Yes we’re doing this,” what would need
to change in your ministry to make that a reality?
- Steve: Make things more personal – press and train our leaders to know
students better; give them language to understand that concept.
- Jason: do more life-on-life ministry – earn trust with senior leaders to show
them that this needs to happen.
- Jeff: pull back programs to allow leaders to hang out with students more
- Judy: pull energy from large-group ministry to small group (large group has
lot of momentum) – not intentional about relationships in breakouts from
large group
- Nate R.: implement them at camp AND support youth groups to do these
things; want the partnership to be more than once a year – FH to pay for
youth pastors to meet and discuss these issues.
- Ken: looking for more ways for students to experience community outside
of small groups – interact with the larger church.
- Nate S: Work with children’s pastor about what this would look like in 5th
and 6th grade to have a greater understanding of these things;
accountability to make sure ministry is still moving forward.
- Trae: community – change happens in the 10 weeks off during ALPHA and
convincing his boss MS isn’t a silo; re-communicating to leaders the
expectations.
- Kurt J: get away from an exact program with exact goal to reach exact
person; look at 3 arenas and talk about the same thing in all arenas – large
group, small group, individual – instead of particular program for particular
arena.
- Alan M: start with staff – can’t do with kids if not doing with staff; need
better community and investing in staff.
- Joe: listening to help others in YM context back in KC
- John: starts with volunteers; changing small groups; more life-on-life
incarnational opportunities – service, loving others, adult and student(s);
get rid of mid-week program or change significantly.
- Scott: avoid creating a bar that lands in behavioralism; ministry to
individual students;
- Alex: YS training stuff; context of role of body of the church in students’
lives; training leaders to know this is where we’re going.
- Marko: training of leaders; this bar is really hard and far away for the
students at church; intrigued by talking to YW’s about lowering the bar.
- Eric: bringing better training and understanding to staff they hire at camps
and to other youth guys in area. (Marko: what about choosing one of these
as theme for the week of camp)
- Mark J: need to have leaders know their students’ stories better; let
students have tangible examples of feeling loved by the church;
opportunities not just programs; better connections with children’s and HS.
- Heather: really good at teaching on behavior, so it needs to start with her
and change that; have huge expectations for summer camp and 9th grade
trip, but these ideas don’t necessarily have tangible results.
- Alan R.: training with leaders; be willing to let some students go (Christ had
12, not multiple services); ask leaders for 3 deeper years of commitment.
- Curt G: got to build from the ground up in this context; meet with staff and
mentors and call out what they do well; training of leaders/mentors – take
it one step further to tutors and tutoring program; find symbols to
communicate the story - adventures; use symbols in the room;
confirmation option in moving from junior to senior mentor program; know
the Shema; camp in the context of racial reconciliation.
- Cristin: train volunteers; reevaluate placement of 5th grade; look at budget
and get more experiences away from the norm with the JH students and
volunteers.
- Jim: need someone to check in with him once a week to help him be a
better boss and smooth the chain of command and flow of information;
rally the church to YM – get the whole church to read Hurt & bring Chap in.
- Johnny: not be arrogant enough to accomplish whole list in a weekend;
work with staff that is coming out of ministries – communicate it’s a
journey and community; create content that affirms this list.
- April: hard because still getting to know her context; not be an island and
silo from 5/6 and HS; help staff understand where their story intersects
God’s story; priority of individual student over the ministry.