Part Two: The Biblical Imperative
In Part 1, we looked at the societal shift taking place especially among teens today. The principle is: Students are no longer satisfied being media consumers; they now want to become media producers.
With this in mind, I suggested that churches should begin adapting our ministry focus to give students key roles in the ministry process itself, rather than being content with the students being the "consumers" of ministry that we youth pastors are "producing."
In Part 2, we need to look briefly at the biblical implications of this shift. Is it biblical for students to be involved in all aspects of the ministry: planning, preaching, leading worship, announcements, conducting small groups, etc.?
This should be a no-brainer, if you ask me. Ephesians 4:12 describes the role of the minister as follows: "Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ." Ephesians 4:12 (NLT) One of the primary responsibilities of ministers is to equip God's people - including teenagers - to do God's work of building up the church.
It's not my job to preach, plan events, etc... it's my job to train others how to do those things. Naturally, that means I do those things, but I do them in cooperation with others while I am preparing them to train still others.
The problem is that a lot of times training someone else is harder than doing it myself. For example, planning a Middle School Night (as Nick and I are doing right now) is easy for me. I've planned dozens in the past, and I know the right order to go through the steps, what will work and what won't, and I can plan one in hardly any time at all. Next month, we're bringing students into the process. I'll have to explain what needs to be done at each step. It will be more work and take longer. But it is more biblical.
Another problem is that when I release a student or someone else to minister, they may not do it the same way or with the same degree of excellence that I do. I've preached several hundred sermons to teenagers over the last 13 years, but a student who is preaching his or her first sermon ever will not be as good (probably!), because it takes practice to become good at preaching. But unless I release my standards for excellence to allow for student sermons, then they'll never get the practice they need to become better. The same is true for worship ministry, small group ministry, or anything else we release students to do.
And this is where our focus needs to shift to Jesus' model. John 4:2 reminds us, "though Jesus himself didn’t baptize them—his disciples did." Jesus turned the ministry of baptism over to his disciples. In Matthew 10, Jesus sends his disciples out to do ministry without him. They had watched him and helped him, now it was their turn to take over. Jesus tells them, "Go and announce to them that the Kingdom of Heaven is near. Heal the sick, raise the dead, cure those with leprosy, and cast out demons. Give as freely as you have received!" Matthew 10:7-8.
At what point in our ministries are we turning the reigns over to the students? Where are we intentionally saying to them, "Okay, you've seen me plan these events, lead the worship, preach the sermons.... Now go for it!"?
The You Tube model of ministry is clearly biblical, and is certainly necessary to connect with students in our culture. In Part 3, we'll take a look at ways to make turning ministry over to students a practical reality in our ministries. We'll focus on how take students off the church bench and get them in the game, making them producers of ministry and not merely consumers.
No comments:
Post a Comment