I have been in youth ministry for over 13 years. I have witnessed many shifts and changes in the culture of youth ministry. From being a relational-focused ministry, a missional-based ministry, a program-driven ministry and many more. Each focus based on the generation of young believers at hand.
In youth ministry there were also time when I would compare my youth ministry to other growing ministries to see what I was lacking (e.g. a pool table, a PlayStation, strobing lights etc.). Then I read a quote by Pastor Craig Groeschel which says:
‘The fastest way to kill something special is to compare it to something else’
This quote really resounded in my spirit. I then stopped looking outward to grow the youth ministry and started looking inward—spending time with my youth and being led by God. This is the conclusion I came to: ‘Give the youth spiritual meat’
In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.
– Hebrews 5:12-14
The youth (yes, the teens) are capable of so much more than we give them credit for! What I have discovered through all this is that the youth want spiritual truth! They want to dive deep into the Word and have deep and intimate experiences with God. This drastically changed the way we run our youth programs.
We no longer focus on having the “Hypiest” (Yes, I just made up that word) and most fun youth group in the area.
Although these things are important, we focus more on praise and worship experiences, teaching deep Biblical truths, small group discussions after teaching, and building strong, meaningful relationships with the youth.
This includes inviting the difficult questions and debating the truths of the Bible vs. the truth of the world! We have now also recently started a Bible study group for our youth, where I, as the youth pastor, am keeping my youth accountable each day to read their Bible and spend time with Jesus.
My ministry motto is to point youth to Jesus and not to myself.
Yes, we don’t have a pool table, a PlayStation every Friday, the strobing lights etc. However,
we do have a youth attendance reaching over 100 on a Friday, many coming on a Sunday, youth serving at the same level of adults, and teens excited about things like prayer and fasting!
We also have many youth coming to salvation and being baptised and, most importantly, a generation on fire for God!
Amplified Youth runs every Friday from 18:30 - 20:30 (season dependant).
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