Editor

Small Group Based Student Ministry

April 27, 2010 by Editor

By Zachary Bradley

Editor’s Note: Zach Bradley has been the Assistant Pastor and Director of Student Ministries at Evergreen Presbyterian Church in Sevierville, TN for 5 years. Zach is originally from Virginia Beach, VA and went to Wake Forest University and Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. Zach has a passion for relational and mercy ministry, gardening, and the ocean.

For decades now churches of all stripes have re-organized their ministries around small groups. Many new churches organize their churches around the growing and splitting of small groups until the corporate whole becomes large enough to gather for a larger worship service. As they grow, many of these churches maintain a philosophy of ministry rooted in small groups. Similarly, many established churches have shifted the primary means of ministry to small groups. While not eschewing other ministries, the hub of the wheel from which ministry goes forth has moved from the Sunday morning gathering to the small group, which has become the primary place for fellowship, discipleship, evangelism, and/or service.

The one place where this fundamental shift has not taken root is in youth ministry. While most youth groups have a small group program of some kind (usually exclusively or nearly exclusively for the purpose of discipleship), most have not fundamentally restructured the ministry so that small groups, rather than a large group gathering are the primary means for ministry. I would like to suggest that many student ministries can find increased efficiency, spiritual and numerical growth, and ultimately more impact for the Kingdom of God by shifting away from the large group as the primary means for ministry and recasting small groups as the primary means for ministry.

Large Group Centered Student Ministry

The flagship program of most student ministries is the large group corporate gathering, a model that has largely held in youth ministry since its beginning. This meeting traditionally is a time for students to gather together, engage in games, sing Christian (or secular) songs, and listen to teaching. The meeting typically functions as the focal point of outreach, as it is a place to which students and leaders can invite non-Christian friends. One advantage of the large group is that it enables one youth pastor to speak directly to a large number of students. However, there are a number of drawbacks to the large corporate group as the central focus of youth ministry, three of which will be discussed here. Your ministry may have none, some, or all of the following problems.

1) It is Difficult to Judge the Effectiveness of the Message

A corporate setting provides the opportunity to share the same message with many students at once, but while this approach is efficient, it can be ineffective in producing spiritual growth. Students’ attentiveness may also be lessened in a large group setting. It is easier for students to zone out in a large group setting, even when it looks like many may be paying attention. Also, students in a large group likely range in spiritual maturity from one end of the spectrum to the other. While a challenging talk on deep theological truths may greatly influence one student, it may leave several utterly confused. A simple presentation of the gospel may enlighten several students to the work of Christ on our behalf, but more mature students may be left wanting something more. Some students may grasp a truth that is being taught intellectually but not be given the chance to chew on it and digest it. She may understand the message, but unless she has a chance to wrestle with it a little, it may not set up shop in her hearts. Many students listen intently, but forget what was said as soon as they walk out the door.

Additionally, it is difficult for leadership to gauge whether or not a message at a large group meeting is effective. Even if all the above contingencies were false and most students were paying attention, understood the message, and applied it, most youth pastors would not know it. Unless a youth pastor or leader takes the time each week to debrief with each student, nobody would know if he listened to, understood, and appropriated the message. Such an approach would require a tedious amount of work and an inordinate amount of time and intentionality. There is not enough time or human resources to have so many one-on-one discussions with students after the youth night. As a result, for many youth pastors the default indicator for knowing if messages have impacts on students’ lives becomes the number of students dedicating or rededicating their lives to Christ. While this is an important indicator of spiritual growth, it is by no means the only one. In any event, it is useless in judging whether or not students were able to digest any message that was not solely evangelistic.

2) First-time Visitors Can Easily Slip Through the Cracks

In a large group setting, it is not difficult for a newcomer to go unnoticed. Unless there is a particularly effective strategy for volunteers meeting new students, it is easy for students to blend in and avoid contact. Try as they may, adult leaders may not get around to meeting new people in the often short time before the program starts or before new students head for the exits at the end of the night. This is especially true if there is a particularly large influx of visitors on one particular night. One visitor may be greeted by several leaders while another is greeted by none. Despite their best intentions, only the best leaders are adept at learning new names and remembering them. Difficulty remembering names is compounded if a new student visits one week, skips the next week, then comes again, with no other contact between her and a leader.

The youth pastor is usually the person best equipped to know who is visiting and who has come, even once before. However, on a large group program-driven night, he is frequently rushing to make sure everything is in place and ready, taking him away from the valuable opportunity to engage, assimilate, and have significant conversations with visitors. Because a large group meeting is not conducive to building substantial relationships, it creates an environment in which it is easy for visitors to slip through the cracks.

3) Youth Worship Becomes a Substitute for Church-wide Corporate Worship

Many churches have already instituted a separate youth worship service on Sunday mornings to take the place of the adult corporate worship. This practice is hard to reconcile with the picture the New Testament gives us of a diverse church that cuts across social boundaries (Ephesians 2:11-22). It also seems to further feed the current problem of students graduating from church when they graduate from high school. Many students find it difficult to assimilate into a church that is unlike their youth service upon graduation. The attachment to the youth service is not limited to the ones occurring concurrently with the church’s worship service. The large group centered youth ministry can essentially become a substitute for Sunday worship, even when it occurs on another night of the week. It looks similar. It happens at church. Many students count their participation at church youth group as their church for the week. Youth pastors are often more concerned with getting students to youth group than to church itself; most are quick to invite students to the youth service, but few place high priority on inviting students to the corporate worship service. However, nothing in Scripture calls us to segregate worship experiences, and doing so seems to be counterproductive to long-term spiritual health. As Mark DeVries writes, “Teenagers’ involvement in the worship of the church yields more significant long-term results than does even the most active involvement in the youth program or Sunday School.”^{^[1]} Yet we have seen fit to create a separate, albeit less effective church-within-a-church for adolescents. This youth-group-for-church substitution is partly why “contemporary churches have often been much more effective in providing young people with meaningful connections to the orphaning structure of the youth group than to the lifelong structure of the church.”^{^[2]}

Small Group Based Youth Ministry

It takes a fundamental shift in philosophy to re-structure youth ministry with small groups as the primary method of ministry. While this could be a difficult transition, it can also greatly increase effectiveness and efficiency in ministry and address some of the problems mentioned above. Some of the reasons for transitioning to small groups as the primary means of ministry could include the following.

1) Greater Effectiveness in Teaching through More Personalized Attention and Ministry

Because each leader knows her students better than any other leader (including the youth pastor), she is the most knowledgeable about what they ought to be discovering in Scripture and learning in their time together. She can then tailor her lessons to her specific group in a way that is at least somewhat more specific than the entire group hearing the same talk. If her students are completely clueless about the gospel, she can discuss the basic truths of the faith. If her students are mature Christians, she can teach accordingly. Even if students are at different spiritual levels, a good lesson can both share the gospel with those who do not know it and challenge the committed. The difference is that because the group is smaller and (hopefully) more interactive, students are less able to disengage and forced to interact more with the material. This increases the chances that they will comprehend the material rather than merely hear it. If something is unclear, a good leader can stop the lesson and explain.

A small group also has great value in that it models a personal relationship with God to students. It does this in two ways. First, time in a small group can encourage personal devotional time by mirroring a quiet time or devotional. Many students are hesitant to engage in devotional time or prayer because they do not know how. In a small group, however, they are practicing a devotional time with God at least once a week, praying, reading Scripture, engaging in inductive bible study, and praying again. This breaks down confusion and frustration in introducing students to personal devotional time. Second, a small group leader can more effectively teach students how to pray, both by encouraging them to pray for each other, but also by modeling rich, robust prayer. This also has the added benefit of students being able to hear their leader spiritually care for them through specific personal prayer.

2) Greater Effectiveness in Retention through Deeper Relationships

In a small group based youth ministry it is extremely difficult for visitors to slip through the cracks because every visitor necessarily engages in a relationship with a specific adult. As newcomers come to the group and are split off into small groups with other leaders, each visitor is necessarily assigned to one particular adult who is responsible for follow up. At one time this eliminates the inconsistency of ministry toward one particular student, ensures that each new student will be greeted, and sets into place a natural and systematic strategy of follow-up.

Also, a small group that sets apart a significant amount of time for sharing ensures that the beginning of a strong relationship is built between the leader and the student (and the other students). The leader then knows much more about the student than through a superficial conversation that is completed in 2 minutes before the youth program. Leaders remember students much more easily if they have heard about their lives, and there is a stronger foundation for relationship in a follow-up phone call or text message.

Students who are given the opportunity to share their lives have a better understanding that they are loved than those who are merely talked at for 30 minutes. Students desire to be known and accepted, especially by adults. As DeVries says, “The most important priority a church can have in its work with teenagers is providing them with opportunities for significant dialogue and relationships with mature Christian adults.”^{^[3]} A small group based youth ministry makes sure this happens with all students in a youth ministry, not just the ones with the time, resources, and inclination to seek it out on their own.

3) Greater Efficiency in Ministry through Streamlining

It has long been the unstated rule that a good large group program is essential to outreach youth ministries, and youth ministries in general. However, a simple cost-benefit analysis shows that the time we spend on programs are probably not the most efficient way to do ministry. While some estimate that youth pastors spend 90% of their time on preparing the week’s program, only 21% of students say that a “fast-paced, high-tech, entertaining ministry approach” is important to them, the lowest rate of any other factor.^{^[4]} Many of us feel tremendous pressure to put on a cutting-edge, state-of-the-art weekly program, but this extraordinary amount of time, effort, and resources may have a disproportionate ministry effect. Some students, particularly those already in the church, may be willing to attend a few different functions per week. But the vast majority of those who are unchurched are available once per week. If I know I have 1.5 hours a week with a student, I would much rather sit down and talk with him and have him talk at length about his life and Jesus than have him play several games and sit through a message he may not appropriate.

Continued…

^{^[1]} Mark DeVries, Family-Based Youth Ministry (Downers Grove, IL; InterVarsity Press, 2004), 198.

^{^[2]} Ibid, 88.

^{^[3]} Ibid, 56.

^{^[4]} Mark DeVries, Sustainable Youth Ministry (Downers Grove, InterVarsity Press: 2008), 164, 161.

50 Days of Prayer Begins May 6th…

April 15, 2010 by Editor

Thursday, May 6^th begins the 50 Days of Prayer leading up to the General Assembly, which has become an annual event in the PCA. Mike Ross, pastor at Christ Covenant in Charlotte, authors the devotional/prayer booklet every year. This year he will be speaking at Covenant PCA in Fayetteville on Wednesday evening, May 5^th, to kick off this time of prayer for our churches.

Covenant would like to invite all the area churches to attend this special event. You are invited to dinner hosted by the church at 6pm and the Kick-off to 50 Days of Prayer service will begin at 7pm.

Click here to download this year’s 50 Days of Prayer (Acrobat Reader required).

Warrior PresWIC: Building a Strong Ministry of Honoring, Supporting and Encouraging Pastor’s Wives in Their Presbytery

April 13, 2010 by Editor

Warrior Presbytery covers West Central Alabama and consists of 24 churches, many of them with small congregations and most of which are not geographically close to any other sister PCA church. However, distance does not hinder the service and fellowship of the Warrior PresWIC women. (See the “WICK” section of this issue to get an idea of the many things they do). One anticipated annual event is a day planned to focus on and honor the pastors’ wives of the presbytery. The main planning is done by the PresWIC council, but the execution of the event (cooking, decorating, serving, etc.) takes many willing hands.

The original purpose of the event was to provide a venue for pastors’ wives to be able to gather, visit, fellowship, pray together, and to share the joys, sorrows, triumphs and trials of ministry. Even though the women still do those things, the purpose has been changed a bit over the years. The guest list has expanded to include the local WIC presidents so that pastors’ wives do not have to travel alone when the event is in a town other than their own. Presently the event is more of a “retreat” for the pastors’ wives (and local presidents) where the purpose is to encourage them, lift them up, and honor them as they are treated to a morning of being served. It is a “thank you” for the many personal sacrifices that are made for the sake of the kingdom.

We asked several honorees how they viewed the event. The responses speak for themselves:

“This is the first time (in many years) that I have been honored as a pastor’s wife. It is a welcome gift.”

“The luncheon has sometimes given me the opportunity to bear the burdens of a sister who has had personal or ministry difficulties through prayer, advice, and just loving on her through emails, letters and cards. (I’ve been able to) rejoice with those who have had major blessings in their lives. I look forward to this time with my sisters in ministry each and every year. It’s a great time of fellowship!”

“The luncheon has been a wonderful source of encouragement, fellowship, and fun. It’s wonderful to be remembered and treated so specially.”

“It does strengthen the pastors’ wives’ relationship with each other. We know that we are being prayed for, and for our husbands and ministry.”

The Warrior PresWIC is a very important part of its churches’ ministries. “Our elders are very supportive of the PresWIC’s ministry,” one pastor’s wife told us. The PresWIC provides quality programs and speakers and probably serves as the greatest connector for the churches in the area apart from Presbytery.

Great Expectations and Gospel Realities – Part 2

April 13, 2010 by Editor

By Ashley Hall

Click here to read Part 1 of this article

In the last Resource Quarterly, you began setting the stage for us, as to why the conversation about intergenerational relationships is important. In this issue, we would like to continue the conversation with a few more specific questions about those relationships and their importance in women’s ministry.

Why does it seem especially hard to establish intergenerational relationships? What are the challenges?

Boomers value resolution; Generation Me values the dialogue. For example, Boomers, when asked their opinion on something, will state what they believe to be true and that is exactly what they mean. Generation Me, does not want to know the “final answer” first but wants, rather, for you to talk with them through all of the options. There is a tendency for both sides to shut down when their way of relating is not valued or received or understood. But we need both perspectives and both need to be more willing to engage the other.

Boomers are more likely to plan a program; Generation Me is more likely to plan a service project-both need help learning how to relate to one another in those venues. The venues don’t need to change. You need both, but you need true fellowship centered on Christ to be happening at both of those venues. The end goal is not the service project or the program, the goal is growth in Christlikeness, which most often happens when two sinners bump up against and relate to one another.

Generation Me values relationships. Boomers see the reality of how painfully introspective those relationships can be and Generation Me sees the reality that the Boomers do not easily engage on topics of personal intimacy and spiritual growth, as perhaps they would like. The reality is that Generation Me does need to learn that introspection is not the highest of all virtues and quite often creates self-centeredness. Equally the case, Boomers need to see that the younger generation does have a right longing for conversations of depth, where lives are shared, and more than the news of the day is discussed – that’s how Biblical world and life views are formed. Yet, the younger need the older to understand how to have those conversations without making the sharing of your deepest darkest sins the goal.

Boomers are more likely to want to mentor; Generation Me is trying to find out how to be mentored but how to also have friendships with their mentors. Perhaps one of the most challenging elements of intergenerational relationships is for both sides to relinquish their roles. It is easier for the older ladies to understand their role of “mentoring” a young person as opposed to befriending them without a role or agenda. While mentoring is good and necessary, not every older lady can relate to every younger lady as a mentor. That expectation is unrealistic. Yet, Scripture calls us to love and be in relationship with those in our church body. So yes, there will likely be one or two along the way that you develop a strong and good mentoring relationship, but this cannot be the goal for every young lady you meet. What does it look like to be a friend to the younger or the older…without any view of what you can give or receive from the relationship? What does that love look like? What would those conversations contain?

Why do we long for relationships with those outside of our stage of life? And biblically speaking, why do we need those relationships?

From the very opening chapters of Scripture, we learn that we are hard-wired for relationship – relationship with God and relationship with each other. First, there is a longing within all of us to know and be known. We understand intuitively that we have a likeness with other people that could be shared and we desire to learn and grow from their differences. We treasure relationships because we have so few that endure; we want to be heard because so few ever listen to us, we want to connect because we are so lonely; and we think that we are superior to every preceding generation. These and many other such attitudes, we are likely to bring into the church. But each of these reasons, though understandable and though true, are based largely in our own sin, insecurity, instability, and weakness. Genesis 3 speaks to these realities, reminding us of a significant problem that we can never overcome with finality in this lifetime. Because of sin, our desire to know and be known now competes with the desires of the flesh that seek to gratify ourselves and build up our own pride. Knowing is no longer about sacrificial love. Knowing now has a selfish, self-serving component that competes with you each time you try to love someone as better than yourself. Sin alters relationships from the way that they were intended so that they become all about “me.” You see it in your relationship with God. How many times daily do you catch yourself wrestling through sin because you want it your way, not God’s way? Obedience becomes about you rather than obeying a Holy God. This is not the way it is supposed to be.

So then, our great expectations that go unmet in all relationships – intergenerational, same generation, with spouse, and with children – is that we expect others to meet our needs rather than seeking to serve them and lay our lives down for them. We make idols out of ourselves and to some degree, we know this to be true, we know that it does not provide satisfaction, and we want to change…and we don’t know how. So, we turn to those outside of our own generation, thinking, “surely this is something that can be figured out…surely they have ‘arrived at the answer.'” But these great expectations must meet the Gospel reality that we need a Savior, not an intergenerational relationship, to deal with our sin problem and with the idols we have created and are now serving and worshipping. Unless Christ be central in our lives, our relationships will be all about us. Each generation is going to struggle with this reality differently and will need help from the others – Scripture continually tells us that each generation has its own particular sins. It’s not a question of whether we will have them, but rather, what they are and whether we will choose this day to serve God. That’s why we need intergenerational relationships.

Secondly, we need someone outside of our perspective to shed light on our need for a Savior, the centrality of the cross, the depth of our sins, the weakness of the flesh, and encouragement to grow in the fruits of the spirit. The longing for relationship is foundational to being made in the image of God. The realities of those relationships are a long and continual fight against sin, a running to Christ, and a willingness to serve and lay our lives down for others so that we can learn from them. Unless this be our perspective, our great expectations for Gospel friendships will be only frustrations.

What do healthy intergenerational relationships look like?

For the Older: Begin by doing a lot of listening and asking a lot of questions. Let the younger generation know that you want to hear, want to talk, want a relationship, and that you want to know where they are, how to get them involved, and what ideas they might have on life and ministry, marriage and family, free time and work, gardening and sewing. Make it a small goal to listen and give wisdom and feedback that is not always and only in the form of answers and resolutions. Leave the conversation at a point that makes you both look forward to talking more, rather than having everything nicely resolved.

For the Younger: When you are sought out and in conversation with ladies older than you, continually seek to take steps toward them in love, affirmation, and encouragement of the ways they are reaching out to you. Also, it is just as much in your court to initiate conversations and relationships with those who are older. When so doing, seek to lay aside your agenda and expectations and ways of communicating and instead, love her better than yourself. Ask questions and show interest. Defensiveness and self-centered conversation are not the best motivators for developing friendships.

In Ministry: As you plan programs, think about the people that you want to attend who are not already doing so and contextualize your plans around those people. You do not want to be reactive, but rather, proactive. If you would like to see more young ladies involved in your programs, find ways to include them in the planning and be ready to listen to and act on some of their ideas – if you want them there, contextualize your planning around them. The goal is to go and seek them out – this is being proactive, as opposed to tossing a program out there and expecting them to come. In contrast, being reactive would mean that you wait until the younger ones voice discontent that nothing is available for them in ministry before thinking through a different approach – this is not the goal.

To Both: Be approachable in your humility and pray that your life would be attractive for Christ.
To Both: The Goal is NOT Best and Right…that’s not the Gospel; instead, the goal is Christlikeness. The goal is that we would count ourselves less. The goal is that we would grow in our humility, and that we would grow in our ability to love those who are different than us.
To Both: The Goal is NOT deepest, darkest sins and struggles, though at times that will be a component-but it is not the goal. We are all sinners coming together; the goal must not be to “uncover” the sins because that immediately makes her (older or younger) the project and you the solution. The goal is esteeming her as better than you; it’s a posture of assuming that you have more to learn from her than she does from you. As you grow in your friendship, you will uncover those sins, but there will be a deeper relational context that allows those sins to be dealt with “normally” rather than as a crisis.
To Both: The Goal IS Christ in every conversation – blessing, struggle, ordinary, extraordinary…every conversation affords the opportunity to make that topic sweeter and better by infusing Christ. From laundry to CEO jobs, every part of our lives is lived under the Lordship of Christ. Can we talk about those realities with one another?
The Goal IS Gospel friendship – commitment (you belong to each other) to bear one another’s burdens and sins, commitment to spur one another on to love and good works, commitment to living a life of holiness with one another. The goal is friendship, not purely mentoring. This means that you make fun, ordinary, and non-programmed life on life situations possible. For example, intergenerational relationships need to include at times, trips to the grocery store, watching a movie, a cup of tea on the porch without an agenda to talk about anything, a spontaneous phone call invitation to come over – effectively showing an interest in all parts of her life, not just for the serious and intentional conversations.
The Goal IS 1, 12, and 4,000 … both/and, not either/or…our challenge is understanding what it looks like to put Christ in the midst of each setting with its own particularities. Jesus ministered effectively to the crowds of 4,000, to the group of twelve disciples, and at times, to one person at a time (woman at the well). Do our lives reflect His incredible willingness to meet the needs and minister to whomever and how ever many the Father gives to us?

continued on page 2…

Equip to Disciple Archives

March 29, 2010 by Editor

Click on the links below to read the past and current issues of CEP’s quarterly publication, Equip to Disciple. You can view and download the entire publication, which are in PDF format and require Adobe Acrobat Reader.

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

Manuscript Submission Instructions

March 25, 2010 by Editor

Every publisher has a set of standards by which a manuscript will be examined or accepted for publication. Here are some of the things we at CEP look for.

CONTENT:

CEP is the education and publications arm of the PCA, so we MUST be very careful about the content of everything on which we put our name. This is especially true of the doctrinal content. We will scrutinize this most closely.

TRANSLATION:

CEP is publishing everything in the English Standard Version of the Bible. Please make sure that this is the primary version used.

STUDY QUESTIONS:

There are several ways of evaluating these questions. From an educational viewpoint, we want to make sure that these question are not lower level questions, but rather move the learner up the scale towards higher critical thinking. This pyramid will help you understand what we are looking for, and the following pages will give you ideas about what “actions verbs” go with each level. Keep in mind that the lowest level of memorization is necessary as a foundation, but it is not adequate for real learning beyond basics.

Keep in mind that the goal of all Christian education is changed lives and not just learning of facts!

Asking the right questions begins with having a Covenantal Understanding of the Bible. This means we do not begin asking questions about us. For example: we don’t begin by asking the three questions many of us were taught to ask: What does the text say?; What does the text mean?; and What does it mean to me? This is what we must ask:

The Bible is God’s self-revelation; therefore, what does this passage teach me/us about God?
God reveals Himself through His Son, the Mediator of the covenant; therefore, what do I/we learn about Christ?
God reveals Himself as the covenant making and keeping God; therefore, what does God teach about Himself in His covenant with His people, including their/my privileges and responsibilities related to the covenant?
How does this specific passage of Scripture fit into God’s self-revelation through His covenantal story of redemption and restoration?
As a result of what I have discovered, what will I do with this information in my life today? This week? This month?

The Bible is a revelation of God to us about HIM. We must always start with Him.

The following pages will explain each of the levels of learning mentioned above.

Click here to download the complete article in PDF format (Acrobat Reader required).