Content and Context

In offering some alternatives to the state of american youth ministry, I think it might be most helpful to get very basic so that we can focus on what is important.

Several years ago, in trying to simplify the teaching I was doing on youth ministry in a few different places, I boiled it down to two dimensions. Content and Context. So, I ran it past the excellent group of youth ministers that I work with and found agreement on the idea that this was a helpful way to think about youth ministry. I later ran across a book called Total Church in which the authors suggest that all ministry boils down to content and context. Wow! Was I on to something big? I loved how they unpacked these two dimensions from within scripture. The book goes on to detail their particular church model (house church), but I could see the application of content and context in a very different setting to my own, which was helpful.

Content is without a doubt most important. Our content is the gospel but I qualify that by saying - the gospel as we see it from Genesis to Revelation. The reason for that is to emphasize that our content is the entire word of God. This is what we teach and proclaim the gospel from. We ought to engage students in scripture, teach them how to interpret and apply it to their lives, and encounter Christ within those pages. Youth ministry with solid content should be really exciting! However, I have seen groups that do nothing but focus on content. They have no fun, no social gatherings, they miss opportunities to build deep and lasting relationships and evangelism is less common. I would describe such a ministry as one dimensional.

Context is the other dimension to ministry. Our context is community. By this I am specifically referring to the qualities of relationships built within a group. Community became something of a buzzword at one point and then took on a variety of meanings. So, I would define this context as relational, creating a sense of belonging, pursuing unity in the body (Ps 133), and helping people to learn to be the body of Christ. It must be outwardly focused to be consistent with being gospel people (rather than being a holy huddle). It should also be diverse, reflecting the local population. We are not looking for uniformity here. In this context we learn to love one another deeply. Not all students are going to become best friends but they can learn to love one another as brothers and sisters in Christ.

If these are our two dimensions of ministry, then all that we plan and do should fit into one or the other. Our time at weekly meetings should be guided by building our content and context. This means we set aside time each week to get to know each other more deeply and learn to trust one another, work together, etc. We pray together, discuss together, and generally grow together in Christ. We are no longer thinking as much about an individual faith but a community of believers, the body of Christ.

Our teaching and bible study should be helping students engage with scripture. Long ago I moved away from the traditional youth talk that consisted of my ideas supported by a few verses. I started teaching from passages, allowing God’s word to speak more directly to students. If you have not experienced the difference, you might not get what I mean here. Expounding scripture can be done in a variety of ways yet the end result is the same - people getting a clear sense of the meaning and figuring out how it applies to our lives.

So, where does “chubby bunnies” and messy games come into play? Well, I don’t think it has a place in our regular youth group meetings when we are centered around content and context. That sort of silliness gets relegated to camps, retreats, and times when we have already done a lot of teaching in the day and just want to have fun for a bit. Our weekly meetings are too precious, meaning we have such limited weekly time with students, to give away to silliness. Some of my youth ministry friends would argue that we need humor to help students drop their guard or to break the ice. I would suggest that lively interaction where students are getting to really know each other does this. If our teaching and discussions are lively and we are not inhibiting our own sense of humor, then even our content is fun and their guard is dropping.

Think about content and context next time you plan a youth group meeting or plan your calendar. If you run everything through those dimensions I believe your ministry will take on new depths. If we look at the early church in Acts 2, we can easily see they gathered around content in a context of community and the Lord added daily to their number. A group where truth is being proclaimed, lives are being changed, and people love one another deeply is the most attractive youth group we could imagine!

Dave Wright is the Coordinator for Youth Ministries in the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina.  This article is cross-posted with permission from Fusion Musing, where Dave regularly blogs.

Teaching Teenagers

Teaching teenagers is different from teaching any other age group because of the unique developmental paradigm they find themselves in – adolescence, the apex of the “already but not yet” of cognitive, spiritual, and emotional development, adults in many ways but without the wisdom of life lived. So youth ministers find themselves in a tricky spot, having students who desire depth and insight and who are bored with the fluff of weak Bible teaching, but who may or may not be ready to handle the implications of those deep doctrinal issues. These principles are helpful to guide your pursuit of biblically faithful teaching to your students.

1) Don’t take for granted what they know

The majority of our students in our youth ministry are “church kids” who grew up regularly attending church. Maybe that’s your group too. But one thing that I’ve learned that I can’t take for granted anymore is how much of the Bible they know. Here’s a website with some common Bible misquotes. It’s always a working assumption for me when I teach to assume nothing and build up from the ground floor. For a few weeks we went through a children’s story Bible to illustrate the continuous thread of Scripture and because many of them didn’t know the basics of the biblical metanarrative. When doing a series through a book/theme, always come back to the basics to reinforce the content.

2) Don’t lowball them – they’re capable of far more than the church gives them credit for.

This sounds antithetical to the previous point, but it’s really not. So many youth studies I’ve seen from a variety of publishers look and sound more like they’re designed for 3rd graders than high schoolers. Just because many Christian teenagers don’t have a broad biblical base doesn’t mean they’re not capable of handling significant issues and doctrines; they just need to be brought along with wisdom and care. The corollary to this is to expect more of students than most churches admit. I joke with our group that most adults are happy if they’re “coming to church, staying off meth, and not getting pregnant.” Don’t low-ball your students. Take them on mission trips, encourage them to invest in their schools and community, expect more than showing up for church on time and bringing their Bible. Churches, your teenagers are young adults, give them opportunity to serve and give them a big vision. Expect more from your teenagers, you would be surprised what they can do.

3) If you challenge them, they’ll rise to it

Last year we went through Ephesians with our group, and I challenged them to memorize 3:14-21. I had no idea what the response would be, and as an incentive I offered our next trip covered as part of it. After a couple weeks, several students had memorized that passage. I had told them no mistakes could be in their quote, and I only had one who had to re-do it (which he did, he wanted to nail it!). Maybe the motivation was to get a free trip, and I ended up having to find money in our budget to cover the response. But the great thing is, every one of them is still memorizing Scripture and living on mission. Later that year we took a big mission trip, and the students who went raised or worked for every penny of their trip. What are you challenging your students to accomplish? In the words of William Carey, attempt great things for God, expect great things from God.

4) Keep one theme central

You put the time in to study and prepare your message, and then you see it: the blank stare of 30 teenagers that a black hole would fear. I noticed that my messages were too much, I had several main points and couldn’t bring everything under one thesis. My goal when writing a message is to be able to sum it up with the “sermon in a sentence,” which is the distillation of the message. If I can’t, it’s too much and needs cutting.

5) Don’t be afraid to talk theology

Sometimes in student ministry we look at theology like we would a cobra, something to keep a close eye on and never get close to. But I contend that we should include but ground our ministries in theology. Not to the point where we argue over minutia and create unnecessary division, but we should seek to introduce students to the language of theology. Sadly, often we water down the content to a lowest common denominator in an attempt to attract and retain students. Then, in college a religion professor uses enough theological language to sound like an unparalleled expert, and many times the student questions the milk he was given in his church to the point they walk away from Jesus. Dig their roots deep, and equip them well: this is an eternity issue.

What other ways have you found to engage youth in learning Scripture?

Scott Douglas serves as the Minister to Youth at Westside Baptist Church in Murray, KY. Scott has a Masters in Divinity and is presently pursuing a Doctorate degree from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY.

We Can Do Better Than "God Loves You"

Several years ago, I noticed a student who had been consistent in Sunday school attendance had abruptly stopped coming to class. With the encouragement of his mother, the student calmly confessed his beef with Sunday school: “I’m tired of hearing ‘God loves you’ over and over again. We get the picture.”

My initial response was to liken my experience to that of Luther (obviously I was living in fantasy land) who was criticized for preaching the same message- the Gospel of grace- over and over again. His defense was that he would stop preaching the Gospel when his people actually believed it. In this same manner, we effectively have a rule in our ministry that we always mention the basic Gospel- the depth of our sin and the abundance of God’s mercy through the Cross- in every lesson of every Bible study, talk, and class. 

Upon further review, though, I started to understand and agree with the student’s critique. In a world where we love sushi, love our pet, love our newest app, love Katie Perry, love winter, love Frappuccino’s, love the Clippers, and love the smell of fallen leaves, well, love just doesn’t mean anything. To say “God loves you” parallels our feelings for the new Dorito’s shell at Taco Bell or John Mayer’s Twitter humor. 

The word love has been bastardized and marginalized to the point of meaninglessness. While admitting that no language or word can represent the bountiful, passionate love which God has for his people, one must ask which terms rescue the reality from utter banality.

Here’s a start, drawing from scripture and from terms I would rather have a person tell me than “I love you”:

God rejoices over you:  As Zephaniah says, “The LORD your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness.”

God notices you: This truth, leaning on God’s omniscient and personal nature, particularly lands with many students who experience estrangement from their parents.

God adores you: Well, it’s true.

  

God is crazy about you: An Anglican priest, Don Richardson, closes services by saying, “God isn’t mad at you; in fact, he’s crazy about you.”

God longs for you: This phrase may sound too romantically or sexually oriented, but the Song of Songs presents God’s love for His people as a passionate adoration likened to the longing of two people first in love.

God carries your picture in his wallet: Jerry Leachman, Washington Redskins chaplain and former YoungLife director, regularly uses this metaphorical phrase to capture the sentimental, parental love, which God maintains for his children.

God is fully pleased with you: Through the imputed righteousness of Jesus, God remains pleased with us. This blessing strikes a chord with teenagers who seem to attract the displeasure of parents, teachers, coaches, cops, friends, etc.

This catalogue is just a starting point for thinking more critically about capturing the wild love which God has for His people in a fresher, more meaningful way.

What are some terms that you use which powerfully illustrate God’s love?

Cameron Cole is the chairman of Rooted: A Theology Conference for Student Ministry and the Director of Student Ministries at the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, AL. He is a candidate for a Masters in Religion from Reformed Theological Seminary.

A Preacher's Decalogue

Have you ever noticed that, although student ministers typically lack any formal training in theology or schooling, they are often required to preach and teach more than the head pastors of their church?  

A large part of Rooted's mission being to equip student pastors for grace-driven ministry, we see a huge need for education and training among student ministers in the skills of theologically informed, cross-centered preaching and teaching.

Along those lines, we'd like to point you to Sinclair Ferguson's "Ten Commandments" of preaching over at The Gospel Coalition.  We found #3 ("Don't Lose Sight of Christ") and #6 ("Speak Much of Sin and Grace") particularly helpful!