next gen ministry – Essential Church

Episode 140: Equipping our Youth for the Mission of God

In this episode we chat with Greg Stier, the founder and CEO of Dare to Share, which equips youth leaders and students in relational evangelism. We chat with him about best practices for doing just that. You can learn more about Greg HERE. And also download a free copy of his e-book “Gospelize Your Youth Ministry” for Kindle HERE or iPad HERE.

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What I try to remind everyone of is that everyone’s story is a radical story of salvation…

We’ve forgotten the power of the gospel to change and decided to focus on politics and culture instead… we’re just hacking at the leaves of evil rather than striking at the root…

Too many people are putting the onus of evangelism on the pastor… it’s a come and see mentality… we need to combine come and see with “go and rescue…”

We read in Acts that the apostle Paul trained and equipped people in the School of Tyrannus so that everyone in the province of Asia heard the word of the Lord… we need to start flipping our churches so that they become like little “schools of Tyrannus…”

We teach youth pastors how to build gospel greenhouses, where evangelism is as normal as breathing and disciples are made and multiplied by the teenagers…

Intercessory prayer fuels everything… the youth groups that grow the fastest are those that pray for the lost by name…

Relational evangelism drives our efforts… we’re trying to teach kids not only the content of the gospel of giving them strategies for engaging with their unreached friends…

Leaders have to fully embrace and model this… the youth groups that grew the fastest had leaders who were living out these values of prayer and relational evangelism…

The changing cultural factors make youth ministry more difficult IF we’re stuck in an old approach… we’re stuck in the 80s…

We need to create gospel-advancing youth groups and make the Great Commission the greatest cause… teenagers have been suffering from depression, anxiety, and isolation and the gospel gives identity, belonging, and purpose… that’s the answer…

Episode 007: Spiritual Parenting

Episode 007 – SPIRITUAL PARENTING

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Show Notes

What you have now is millennials who really want to be involved in their children’s lives, but are ill-equipped because many of them weren’t parented spiritually themselves…

Churches need to give millennials practical resources that are not antiquated… We need to give them meaningful ways to find community… and we need to give them paths for mentorship…

I can’t tell you how many young moms and dads are asking me for mentors… for couples in their 40s and 50s who can help them…

Children’s ministry typically means a “program”; it tends to have a “child-centric” approach… in a family ministry we see the child as a byproduct of the family they are raised in… we want to look at the child in context…

When we start dealing with the broader issues and bring restoration and health to those, we bring greater ministry to that child than we could have during one hour per week…

We have to repackage how we message about the need for involvement in children’s ministry… inviting people into a journey is more compelling…

For senior leadership, we need to further the message of that journey and then make the call for people to participate in the raising of the next generation…

In Western society, we’ve become so individualistic that we only think about our own families and not our greater participation in the family of God…

To the empty-nesters: you are the most prepared you will ever be to serve in local children’s ministry, and lots of you are just sitting on the sidelines… we need to challenge them to re-engage in the life of the local church…

Questions for you and your team

1) How well is your church doing at equipping parents to minister to their children?

2) How would your ministry look if you began to shift from a child-centric to a family-centric approach?

3) What can you do to begin to create situations where organic mentorship can take place?

4) How well are you and your team doing at positioning children’s ministry participation as an invitation to be part of a compelling spiritual journey?

RESOURCES

Spiritual Parenting: An Awakening for Today’s Families by Michelle Anthony

Pursuing God’s Will Together by Ruth Haley Barton

Also, be sure to join us next year for The Gathering, a unique, 3 day event designed for you and your family ministries team!