Engaging the Soul of Youth Culture - 5

Continuing in chapter 2 with the "Three Crucial Steps for the Crosscultural missionary" we come to the 3rd and final step:

Taking the unchanging Word to young people growing up in a rapidly changing culture.

At first glance, this step surprised me. Did you catch what we are taking? THE BIBLE!

If we are going to reach into the soul of youth culture and make a difference for eternity it is going to be with the Word of God.

Herein lies what I believe to be the biggest challenge facing youth ministry in the next 10 years. To be sure this has always been the challenge throughout every rising generation, but it's a tad bit different today. Many students who dawn our door are literally unchurched. The only framework they have for the church is cable television and the "Christian students" in school and most of them aren't living step 3.

I know one reason our students don't live step 3, we don't model it as a youth ministry. Of course we teach on evangelism every fall (I challenge to look at their class schedule as an opportunity given to them by God to build relational and spiritual bridges to the students in those classes), have great outreach events and even stress the need for outreach in our small group ministry, but I don't think it's working. We see a few students whose lives are being changed as they find Jesus Christ as their Saving Lord each semester.

I am wrestling with the changes right now that I want to take place to make this step happen. Here's some of my thinking:

1. Prayer - Are the changes I am seeking of the Lord?
2. Taking - key word here, I want them to come to our building. I need to take it to theirs!
3. Know my context - Our context isn't "churchy"! We don't have mega youth ministries in Littleton because we don't have mega churches. Walt goes on to talk more about knowing your context in towards the end of this chapter.
4. What am I doing well right now?
5. How is the overall health of my adult leadership team?
6. How are the class dynamics going to change with the smallest freshmen class entering our ministry in 15 years?
7. I want prayer to be the catalyst that makes step 3 happen!
8. I want to start thinking about step 3 more proactively in stages - moving students through cultivating, planting and reaping model of evangelism more intentionally. For example, a shy student in our ministry might really be challenge to grow this fall by starting to cultivate friendships with spiritually lost students in their school. I want my to know where each student is at and encourage them to get to step 3 - reaping - taking the Word to their friends.

It looks like Walt is going to get to more of this...These are just some of the 30 points I have written down that I am processing as I try to make step 3 come more alive in our ministry.