How many students are in your group?

I love getting this question from other youth pastors. It's probably the most asked question in youth ministry circles. Why is the question asked? There are many reasons, but one of the primary ones is they want to know how successful you are based on the number of students you have. You say your number, then they start evaluating your effectiveness, their effectiveness, etc... I want to suggest we stop talking about our whole group numbers and start talking about the number of students in our group that have an adult fighting for their soul. I think we'll stop think so much of ourselves and start depending more on prayer and the recruitment of men and women in our church to fight for our student's souls!

Here's the answer I'd like to start being shared,

"That's a great question. It's one that I am praying over every single day. Currently in our ministry we have 22 (?) students who have an adult fighting for their soul. We have a long way to go. Sure we have X number of students, but were not even close to making disciples of every student God has blessed us with. Would you be willing to pray that God would grab the hearts of the adults in our church to fight for the soul of two teenagers? How about you? How many students have an adult fighting for their soul?"