It's one of the best weeks of the year - the week of the Creation Festival! I've been going since 1991. Although I missed a few years in that time, I've taken/gone with groups for many of those years. I'm taking students there today and I can't wait! Why? Well, here's why -
1. Best Christian music in the country - Creation never fails to put great bands and artists on the main stage! The concerts each night are just plain awesome! And they always lift up the name of Jesus. 2. Best speakers in the country - The Word of God and people responding to the Gospel never gets old. Creation has found and shared incredible speakers each year, but one of my favorites is Bob Lenz. The first time I saw him I had never heard of him, but he was amazing! We've had him come to Pittsburgh several times since seeing him at Creation. I want my students to hear speakers like these. 3. Camping on the farm - okay, not everyone gets excited about camping, but coming back to the campfire after the evening sessions and sleeping under the stars is a great experience for students. Things can be said around a fire that won't be said anywhere else. And Creation lives up to it's name - it's a beautiful place to experience the outdoors! 4. Opportunities to make a difference in the world - through the exhibit area, students can find and be exposed to ministries that are doing amazing things to make a difference in the world. I love learning new ways to serve Jesus by serving people. 5. Worship with 70,000 people! This just can't be beat - to worship God together with that many voices, that many brothers and sisters in Christ, is a small taste of heaven. 6. Christians from every background - when you walk around the campgrounds you'll see church vans from congregations of every kind there. You get to rub elbows with parts of the Body of Christ that you don't normally - and that's a good thing. But no matter the differences, it's all about Jesus! 7. New bands that are coming up - I first saw Skillet on the Fringe Stage at Creation in 1997. They were brand new back then and, as we all know, have stood the test of time. It's very cool to go year after year and see bands grow and progess and to hear new ones that I've never heard before. I also remember hearing Lecrae on the Fringe Stage several years ago - not rapping, but preaching! And he was really good. 8. The Youth Leaders Hospitality Area - Creation knows how to treat Youth Pastors well! Their Youth Leader Hospitality Area sponsored by Interlinc is the best. Cold drinks, air conditioning, artist talk back sessions, workshops, a massage therapist, and more make this a great place to escape for a bit and to keep going strong. 9. Great memories - I love taking students for a selfish reason: I have so many great memories there and I love remembering those times. Like the time DC Talk rode down to the main stage on motorcycles or the first time our group had a hot dog cooking/eating contest which became an annual tradition. So many good times! 10. Future memories - And I love going for a second selfish reason. I have children now that I take to Creation and I want them to have great memories too! We took our first child, our daughter, when she was eight weeks old. Yes, we are that crazy. She's six now and ready to go again. So, you should seriously consider taking some students to Creation! If you can't go this year, check it out online at www.creationfest.com/livestream.
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This post was originally an article published in "Network" magazine published by the National Network of Youth Ministries
Back in the early 1990s, I was a youth ministry major at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. For one class, we read Mark Senter’s book The Coming Revolution in Youth Ministry. I thoroughly enjoyed Dr. Senter’s well researched history of youth ministry, but I remember being incredibly curious – what in the world could this coming revolution in youth ministry be? Ten years later, I suppose someone could easily argue that the postmodern/emerging church phenomenon is that revolution. Some might suggest that our 21st Century technology qualifies as revolutionizing youth ministry (iPods, blogging, video cell phones, etc…). However, as monumental as those recent changes are, I am totally captivated by something else – something that has been waiting 400 years (give or take a few) to come to fruition. I’m talking about communities all over the country where youth leaders in Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist, Assembly of God, Anglican, Free Methodist, and other churches are discovering a youth ministry resource that they never knew they had…each other! In the youth ministry training that I’ve had, I feel like there’s a huge void of teaching on how youth leaders in a community should relate to each other. Youth leaders are often taught to do youth ministry as if, for all practical purposes, their youth ministry is the only game in town. However, what I see out in the trenches of youth ministry is a hunger to get out of our separate ditches and find out who’s got what ammunition and how to make the best use of it. How should youth leaders relate to the other youth leaders and churches in their communities? A good friend of mine suggested using a diagram from the Harvard Business Review on Managing People1 to help us picture four ways that churches can relate to each other: competing against each other, communicating to each other, cooperating with each other, or completing each other. Competing against each other Many of us have experienced this scenario: you’re at a gathering of youth leaders and the inevitable question comes up, “How many kids are in your youth ministry?” Expressions of competition can run the gamut from that mild question to a comment I heard recently from a church secretary to a couple as they left the church: “Don’t go to such-and-such church. It’s of the devil.” The bottom left hand corner of our chart represents churches with a low level of relationship and a low level of shared objectives and strategy. These are churches competing against each other, whether they admit it or not. Recently, a couple told my wife that their pastor would not let the church’s members attend events at other churches because he did not want his people to leave his church. At that same moment, in the same room, a youth pastor told me that the churches in his community have such a terrible spirit of competition that they don’t do anything together. The problem with churches competing against each other is that no matter who wins, they all lose. It’s the enemy’s successful “divide and conquer” strategy. If Christ’s church is a body, then it must be a hacked-up body (flash back to all the horror movies you’ve ever seen). We have pieces of the body that think they are the whole body, and other pieces who think they have no need for the rest of the body. The point is this: a hacked-up body (human or the church) cannot get much done. Having said that, there is such a thing as healthy competition. In the business world, competition keeps companies doing their best – producing the best products with the least amount of waste and with the best treatment of customers. Could it be true that healthy competition could prevent churches from becoming lazy, mediocre, and tame? I think some churches are growing because they are doing their best – and some aren’t because they just aren’t willing to invest adequate resources in their own students. David Murrow, author of Why Men Hate Going to Church, points out that the church by and large has jettisoned the masculine qualities of competition, achievement, and risk-taking2 – and it’s not a good thing. What if youth leaders in a community decided to spur each other on to be more effective? What would happen if youth leaders in a community got together to sharpen each other? Sparks might fly, but we would each emerge better for it, and our communities would have better youth leaders serving them. If we ignore the other youth leaders in our community, who is going to sharpen us and keep us on our toes? Communicating to each other Going back to our chart, in the upper left quadrant are youth leaders who want to reach out to others in their community, but unless they have some shared objectives or goals, they end up merely communicating to other churches. Here’s another classic situation: you are together with a bunch of youth leaders and someone starts passing out flyers for their church’s upcoming event. The problem with merely “communicating to” is that churches tend to look at other churches’ events with suspicion: “If my kids go to their activity, they might like it better over there.” Many times youth leaders have told me about great events that they had planned and invited others churches to, but were frustrated because other youth leaders wouldn’t bring their students. When we ignore the principle that “people support what they help create,” there’s no ownership, no sense of personal stake in the event, and no feeling of “I really need to be there.” However, it is true that God has blessed some youth ministries in our cities with more resources to bring in Christian artists, speakers, and conferences. What if those churches saw it as part of their ministry to be a blessing to the many other churches in their area? What if larger churches planned events by asking the smaller churches, “What would you like to see come to our area?” In the book, Primary Purpose: “It also helps us realize that other people’s successes are not a threat because as the water level (the Holy Spirit’s activity in your city) increases in the region, our own ministries will increase as well. It’s obviously a win-win situation.”3 The truth is, if we ignore the other youth leaders in our community, we deprive ourselves and our students of God’s blessings, even if those blessings come through another church. Cooperating with each other A lot more is being done these days in the third quadrant, as churches cooperate with each other (bottom right). The National Network of Youth Ministries has over 750 youth ministry Networks listed on their web site (www.youthworkers.net). That’s over 750 groups of youth leaders gathering on the local level for prayer, fellowship, and working together to reach students in their communities for Christ. These youth Networks are demonstrating that churches can accomplish much more when they work together than they can alone. Recently, our own local Network of youth pastors brought in “The Seven Project” school assemblies, which featured a former Harlem Globetrotter and a professional skateboarder. Over 800 students came out for the evening outreach (unprecedented in this community) and over 600 students responded to the presentation of the gospel! We were totally unprepared for that! An additional benefit of this outreach is that we have developed great relationships with the school administrators in our area. One of our local principals even mentioned our school assembly program from last year in his graduation address to the seniors. The weakness of churches cooperating with each other, especially when they have a low level of relationship, is that the partnership lasts only as long as the event – resulting in a temporary impact on the community. The Harvard Business Review on Managing People points out another problem. When someone is high on shared strategy, but low on relationship, they are a mercenary: in it only for what they can get out it. The bottom line is that something more is needed, but clearly one of the dangers of ignoring the other youth leaders in your community is that you miss out on seeing God work in some really amazing ways. Completing each other The final quadrant (upper right) involves a high level of relationship and a high level of shared goals and objectives. This is the one I’m passionate to see happen in our communities. Imagine the churches in your community developing long-term relationships that acknowledge their fellow churches as needed, not optional, partners in fulfi lling Christ’s purposes in our communities. Ed Silvoso says “When God looks at a city He doesn’t see many churches. He sees one church in many congregations.”4 When you read the New Testament, churches are primarily identified by their city, such as the church of Ephesus, the church of Philippi, etc… There was one church in each of these cities. Every time I’ve heard messages on that great passage of Scripture which talks about the church being the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12), I usually hear it talked about in terms of our local congregations. But doesn’t that Scripture apply beyond our four walls to other churches in our local communities? My church recently did Purpose Driven’s 40 Days of Community, the theme of which is “we’re better together.” I couldn’t help but think: if it’s true that the believers within a church are better together, isn’t it just as true that the believers within a community are better together? I was really excited when I recently learned that there are churches doing the 40 Days campaigns together. In Charlestown, South Carolina, 30 churches are doing the campaign together, and in Orlando churches have made it a goal to have 10,000 host homes in their city. Now that excites me! What if we began to identify other churches, not by denominational affiliation, or by worship style, but by the unique ways in which God uses them to reach our communities? I love the mission statement of the Mission America Coalition – “The whole Church taking the whole Gospel to the whole Nation - and to the World.”5 What if we acknowledged that our individual churches cannot reach our entire communities alone? More than that, what if we realized that we can’t be the church that God wants us to be without being connected with other churches around us? Why don’t the churches in our communities seek to complete each other? Just as in a marriage relationship, becoming one as the body of Christ is extremely hard work. It takes a lot of time and effort, and it might even include fighting with each other. When it comes down to it, there’s a big price to pay to see the church function as one. However, the result of youth leaders ignoring each other is the same as that of an amputated limb. It shrivels up and dies! There is life in being connected, not just to the head, but to the rest of the body! Conclusion Looking again at the chart, a church could mark a spot in one of the four quadrants indicating where they see themselves, but I think we need to integrate the best of each quadrant in our attitude toward other churches. I am suggesting that youth leaders need to move from competing with each other to completing each other, but I am also suggesting that completing each other must encompass all the rest – spurring each other on, blessing each other by communicating resources we can off er, and doing things together, and needing each other. I would like to propose a revolution in youth ministry in which youth leaders: • Challenge each other to be better and better. • Seek to be a blessing to other youth leaders in their communities. • Accomplish more for God’s kingdom together than we ever could alone. • Experience the richness of completing each other as the whole and healthy body of Christ in our communities. And my prayer is that this kind of thinking would spread from our youth ministries into the rest of our churches. I recently came across this quote that I read 16 years ago, but I think it still is true today...
"Nothing has contributed as greatly to the pursuit of the Great Commission over the past 300 than youth ministry. The reason is simple: youth ministry is effective. An overwhelming majority of those who enter into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ do so before they leave their teen years. Couple this well-established fact with this trend: the youthfulness of the world’s population is ever increasing. These factors alone should cause every church and youth group to prioritize and expand their efforts to reach youth with the Good News of Jesus Christ." -- Mike King, Millenial Leap: Launching a Strategic Citywide Youth Ministry Model for the 21st Century In the past, when I've gotten discouraged about working this students, this quote has encouraged me and I'm thankful I came across it again. For all of us in youth ministry, what we do matters in the plan of God for reaching the world! I'm also grateful that Mark Matlock and Greg Stier have also recently reaffirmed that value of youth ministry to the church and the kingdom of God (see here and here). YOUTH WORKERS, keep going, keep serving, keep teaching, keep loving teenagers and helping them love God! Yesterday I had the privilege of doing a workshop about sharing the Gospel with teenagers for a group of summer camp counselors at Pine Springs Camp in Jennerstown. Here are the cliff notes of what I shared with them -
SHARING THE GOSPEL WITH TEENGAGERS The What and How of the Gospel are critical – but the WHY of the Gospel has become just as important. People today are thinking, “Why would anyone want to become a Christian? Christians hate people, they are bigots, disregard science, etc.” To help teenagers follow Jesus, we are going to need to help them know why as well as what and how. Bottom line: we need a more complete apologetic. 1. The Rational Apologetic – does the Gospel reach my mind? There really are rational, intelligent reasons to believe in God, to believe Jesus rose from the dead, and to believe that the Bible is the Word of God. We are used to hearing that faith and science are opposites of each other when in fact modern science supports our faith now more than ever. See a couple examples here and here. In the past we have usually stopped at this point, believing that if we won the argument we would win the person. We may need to start here, or we may not have to go here at all depending on the person, but we can't end the conversation here. Resources: The Case for Christ by Strobel, More Than a Carpenter by McDowell, etc. 2. The Aesthetic Apologetic – does the Gospel reach my heart? The thing about Christianity is that it not only addresses the mind, but it is compelling and magnetic to the heart as well! As author John Eldredge points out, all of the elements of the great stories that we love are found in Christianity. We love great villians, we love great heroes, we love great rescues and stories of redemption. And we love a great ending. Why? Because all of those stories borrow their beauty and power from THE Great Story, the story that God is telling. Christianity is not a list of do's an don'ts - it's a story that we are all living in. Furthermore, Christianity addresses the great desires of our hearts - the desire for justice, for beauty, for love, for life, for joy, for family, and more! Something that speaks to my heart as well as my mind are good reasons to believe. Resources: Epic by John Eldredge, Simply Christian by NT Wright, Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller 3. The Relational Apologetic – does the Gospel impact my relationships? Part of living in the postmodern era is that people don’t care as much if something is true – for many people, “Does it work?” is the more important question. We might be able to “prove” Christianity to be true but if it doesn’t change how we treat people especially those in our closest relationships what good is it? Fortunately, the heart of the Christian faith is love, forgiveness, and reconciliation. It’s all about relationships, first with God and then with others. The fruit of the Spirit, for example, has direct implications for our relationships with other people. When others can see supernatural love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self control in our relationships, that’s a powerful argument for the Christian faith. But as Paul says, if we don’t have love we’re clanging gongs and clashing cymbals. Teenagers desperately need to see this supernatural transformation in our lives and it will speak powerfully to them. Resources: What’s so amazing about Grace by Yancy, The Grace Awakening by Swindoll 4. The Practical Apologetic – does the Gospel make the world a better place? Finally, does Christianity make any difference in the big issues the world is facing? It’s great if my Christian faith helps me to be a better person, but what about the rest of the world? Does it help address the major crises that people all over the planet face, because if it doesn’t what good is it? In is book, “What if Jesus Had Never Been Born?” the late D. James Kennedy shares the impact that Christianity has had on the world over the past 2000 years in the areas of helping the poor, valuing life, education, government, civil liberties, science, economics, sex and family, health and medicine, arts and music, and more. Christian have done and are doing great good in the world in the name of Jesus. Teenagers need to see this and, more importantly, need equipped to participate in making the world better motivated by the love of Christ. That’s a powerful reason to follow Jesus. Resources: What If Jesus Had Never Been Born by D. James Kennedy, The Hole in Our Gospel by Richard Stern I believe that, taken altogether, these four apologetics provide compelling answers for the question “Why would I want to become a Christian?” In the end, we still must choose to put our faith and trust in God. But it's possible for us to help teenagers see that God has given us great confidence for doing so. |
WHO I AM
I'm a follower of Jesus, husband to my lovely wife Judy, father of Evangelina, Micah, Josiah, and Jeremiah, missionary to the northeast United States and advocate for all things youth ministry. WHAT I DO
I am the northeast regional coordinator for the National Network of Youth Ministries. I've worked for the last 24 years as the co-executive director of Teens For Christ, a ministry that equips teenagers to share their faith in their schools. I also served on staff at Cherry Tree Alliance Church for 15 years as youth pastor and family life pastor. My Websites
Youth Ministry Consultations Youth Ministry Networking 9 Month Mission Trip Speaking at camps, retreats, youth groups, etc. Archives
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