Join my group...DIE for His Kingdom

I am becoming more convinced every day that we need to change some of our thinking as we lead our student ministries. One of the things I think we need to change is the "join my group" mentality. It's easy to default and program your ministry with the mentality that the end goal is to get students to join our groups. We have visitor cards, follow up phone calls, emails, a message on Facebook, calling their friend who is already a part of our group and checking in to see how it went, calling the visitors parents and introducing ourselves, introducing them to new students who have similar interests or go to the same school, put them in a small group, take them to play laser quest and teach them the Bible, etc... I believe all of this is necessary, but it can't be where we stop. I know we need to help students find a place to belong, but I think the "join my group" attitude puts the focus in the wrong place.

It's not about joining my group, it's about dying for His Kingdom. While I believe belonging is a huge piece of a healthy youth ministry we have to start finding ways of helping students belong to the Kingdom of God. It's not about us, it's about Jesus Christ. Belonging to the Kingdom of God starts with us saying "NO" to ourselves, the sacrifice of carrying a cross, and a decision to follow Jesus. Jesus said, "If anyone wants to come after me he must DENY himself, take up his cross and follow me." We need to start asking ourselves, "What am I doing in my ministry that is calling our students to die for the Kingdom of God?"