Priority Objectives for a Youth Director

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We live in challenging times to be a youth director but more than ever teens need a positive influence in their lives as they face difficult moral choices, mental and emotional turmoil, shattered trust in authority, and attacks on a biblical worldview. They need hope, a sense of belonging, and an identity securely rooted in truth.

Top Priority for a Youth Director

Love the Top Priority for a Youth DIrector
First and foremost, youth leaders need a love for the Lord that spills over into a heart for the teens (Matt. 22:37-40). If one or both of these are missing, teens will soon notice and ministry will be less effective.

Love for the Lord keeps Him first and in the center of what we do.

Love for the teens gives us the motivation to invest into them and the youth ministry with the intent of helping them learn to love the Lord too. As He becomes their all in all, they’ll find Him to be enough even in their most difficult days.

Out of love for the Lord comes an authenticity that speaks volumes to youth, probably more than all the actual words we could speak. Out of love for teens comes an atmosphere of acceptance, respect, and security which appeals to deep-rooted needs within them and opens them to further ministry.

Three Objectives for Those Leading Youth Ministry

With love as our primary driving force, we’re ready for ministry.

  1. Understand youth and their culture and meet them there.

We need to meet teens where they are to take them to where they should be, to go deeper in their walk with the Lord. If we don’t understand how they view life, the messages we send might not get through the way we intend. They might hear something different than what we think we’re communicating. Find help at: Youth Ministry Resources

  1. Build community within the youth group, making the emphasis about relationships — first with God and then with us and the other teens.

Take time to read the blog post, The Focus of Youth Ministry. From this focus, we then strategize or plan out our youth program and meetings. What can we do to help them “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Pet. 3:18), to love Him more? What can we do to help them know one another better, not to be cliquish, but to engage in true body life to help each other grow? What can we do to let them know we care?

  1. Disciple, or mentor, them in their love relationship with the Lord.

Youth ministry needs to be about more than fun activities or hanging out. It even needs to be about more than simply learning “about” God or gaining head knowledge from the Bible. Teens need help navigating through life with Christ at the helm. Some of that can happen in a large group setting, but it will take more. They need to see an example. They need to be nurtured. They need feedback and debriefing. This best happens one-on-one and/or in small groups. Some can take place through texting, social media, and the like, but we must never let that replace face to face ministry. Check out the Shepherding Ministry section on the MinTools.com site. Start by reading through all the general pages and then under venues, hone in on the discipleship posts. Though these pages don’t specifically target youth ministry, the principles apply.

Sure, there’s more a youth director must do like planning and scheduling activities, service projects, group dynamic, parent relations, dealing with conflict and discipline issues, staffing, working with a budget, etc. However, with priorities and main objectives as suggested above, we’re headed in a good direction with lots of ministry potential.

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The Focus of Youth Ministry

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Focus of Youth Ministry to Reach Teens
If we want to truly reach today’s teenagers, we must get beyond programs and activities. More than ever, today’s young people need real connections — community. With that in mind, let’s keep the focus of youth ministry on relationships that build into their lives.

Reach Teens by Keeping the Focus of Youth Ministry on These Relationships

  1. Relationship with God: Make youth ministry about knowing God personally and intimately, not just learning about Him. Get beyond religion or a bunch of rules to presenting a God who cares about them and has their best interests at heart. — to grow to love the Lord with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength (Matt. 22:37)
  1. Relationship with One Another: Face it. Most teens initially attend youth group because of their peer, unless a parent forces them to go. Purposely incorporate activities to build them into a community of believers, not just friends. Give them a taste of Body Life, what God intends the Church to be. — to be able to “encourage one another and build each other up” (1 Thess. 5:11)
  1. Relationship with the Youth Leader(s): Trust and respect grow out of relationship, not control or superiority. Be affirming and encouraging. Truly listen to them, actively, with your heart, to their feelings and body language, not just their words. Be available. Be a friend … an adult friend, not an overgrown teenager. Be real. Be genuine. — to care for them so much that we delight in sharing our very lives with them, not just the message(1 Thess. 2:8)
  1. Relationship with the Total Church Body: This is often overlooked in youth ministry. Students need to realize that they are part of something bigger than themselves. If you don’t incorporate them into the total church body while they are still teens, why should they stay in the church when they can no longer attend youth group? Treat them like they are the church of today, not just the church of tomorrow. — to sense they belong as members of the whole Body (Rom. 12:4-5)

Everything we do in youth ministry should be seen as a tool to building these kinds of relationships.

For More: Youth Ministry Resources

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Young People’s Perception of the Bible

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Perception of BibleI read a Barna report about how young people today take a different approach to the Bible than previous generations and I have to admit that as I look at the overall landscape, I do see it.  Of course, not all young people hold these perspectives but enough do that it should raise some questions.

The report is not saying that young people do not value the Bible or that they never read it.  Rather, it refers to the perceptions of young people toward the Bible, which would, in turn, affect the way they approach Bible study.  The report notes the following changes in young people from older generations.  For descriptions of the following perceptions, go to the Barna Report.

  1. less sacred
  2. less accurate
  3. more universalism
  4. skepticism of origins
  5. less engagement
  6. Bible appetite

How Did People’s Perception of the Bible Change in These Ways?

The first question we might ask ourselves is, “How did it get this way?”  Once we figure that out, answers to how to change the tide will become more evident.

Surely it did not get this way overnight.  And, change will not come by throwing on a few bandaids.  The seeds were undoubtedly planted over the course of time and the roots go deep.  If that is true, it means change must begin with the older generations as obviously we have been the ones who planted the seeds.  What have we done, or not done, that led young people to view the Bible in these ways?

We must also factor in the influence of the world with all of its relativistic and universal thinking.  In light of Romans 12:1-2, any change of perspective is going to be a transformation “by the renewing of the mind.”  What must that look like in discipleship efforts with young people?

We can be encouraged by the last point on Barna’s list.  Young people do have an appetite for the Bible, an “interest in gaining additional Bible knowledge” that scores higher than other generations.  That’s encouraging.  That gives hope that the tide can change.  But it also brings us back to those of us in older generations.  If we don’t have as much of an appetite for the Word, perhaps then we haven’t been modeling an approach to the Bible that communicates its worth and sufficiency.  Have we forsaken our first love?  If so, let’s be reminded of Jesus’ words to the church of Ephesus in Revelation 2:5

Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.

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After Graduation, Then What?

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Many young people will soon be graduating from high school or college.  The church can give them a nice certificate to recognize this accomplishment or some other keepsake gift.  We can wish them well in their adult lives. But, can we keep them in the church? After graduation, then what?

Actual figures of how many drop out of church vary.  One of the lower figures I’ve seen is from a 2006 Barna study.  Here is a quote from that report:

In fact, the most potent data regarding disengagement is that a majority of twentysomethings – 61% of today’s young adults – had been churched at one point during their teen years but they are now spiritually disengaged (i.e., not actively attending church, reading the Bible, or praying). Only one-fifth of twentysomethings (20%) have maintained a level of spiritual activity consistent with their high school experiences. Another one-fifth of teens (19%) were never significantly reached by a Christian community of faith during their teens and have remained disconnected from the Christian faith.

After Graduation, Then What Do We Do to Keep Young People in the Church?

I think the question we must ask first is why they aren’t staying.

  • Is it a matter of intellectual disengagement?  Have we not done a good job apologetically with them?
  • Is it a heart issue?  Do they want to be in control of their own lives more than they want God?  Are we praying for them as we should?
  • Or is it something else?

Once we figure out why young people are leaving the Church after graduation, then perhaps we’ll be in a better place to know how to stem the tide of their exodus.

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