Wake up, wake up, wake up, it’s the first of the month, get up, get up, get up, it’s the first of the month. And, that will be our goal, to share thought provoking blogs at the beginning of each month that will specifically focus on the church and on our involvement in the life of the church.
This month, we want to look at the idea of “whole church integrated ministries”. Ok, so those are just trendy church terms if we don’t explain it. We could also call it – the church being the church. Acts 2 seems to indicate that the church was together, united and connected in their purpose of Loving God, Loving Others and Making Disciples! For many years, and certainly with WONDERFUL intentions, churches have done an incredible job of developing phenomenal children’s and youth ministries that have served the birth through 17 population. We’ve also provided ministries for singles, college students, parents with kids, parents with no kids, people who collect light houses, men who eat breakfast at Waffle House, fans of Fixer Upper, first-time home buyers and people who are left-handed. Confession: some of these are made up. But, what this has done is unintentionally created ministry “silos”. These silos have served and fed well the people in their ministries, but the moment that person steps out of the ministry, there is no place for them, no relationships, minimal connection to the greater church and often very few on-ramps to other ministries as they move into a new phase of life.
Before I go any further, one of these “silos” is youth ministry, so is it weird that a youth pastor is saying this? Yes? Ok. Let’s keep going.
Your question – is it wrong to have student ministry? Children’s ministry? Singles ministry? No!! I AM A STUDENT PASTOR!! I’m NOT calling for a church that has no age-appropriate or life-stage appropriate ministries. In my mind, that’s an unnecessary pendulum swing and one that creates a whole new set of issues that I won’t have time to deal with here. Uh-uh-NAW!!
I think what we are missing is integrating these ministries into the rest of the church, connecting the members of these ministries with church members from different generations, teaching them to serve others instead of learning to only be served and developing relationships that will endure when they graduate or move on from their current ministry. To put it simply, we are missing discipleship! One youth pastor can’t disciple 65 students. One men’s ministry leader can’t disciple 35 men. We need the church family to step into the lives of those younger than them and walk them through what it means to follow in the footsteps of Christ.
Josh, you say, I need an example. This, I can do. For 6 million years, the apex event of student ministries has been the summer missions trip, right? 40 teenagers, 6 horrified youth leaders, one youth pastor who desperately wants to get home to his family and everyone wearing bright yellow YOUTH ALIVE t-shirts travel somewhere for a week, right?! I’m currently twitching from the flashbacks! We said, ummm, no! So, this summer, we are doing a mission trip that is hosted by the student ministry. This means that this is the trip that the high school students can attend without their parents if they choose. But, we also invited families and adults to attend, because it’s a CHURCH trip, we are on mission as a church!!! And, guess what? It worked! We have 20 students and 19 adults! And, we have 2 families! Amazing!! Another fun fact – we have students who have chosen to instead attend one of the traditionally “adult” mission trips. And, guess what, my feelins’ ain’t hurt! I love it!! We have students going on trips with their moms and dads, traveling to foreign countries for the first time, working with a female missionary who is modeling her life well for the girls in our church. How could I possibly object!?!
This is just a glimpse of what we are working on. We are doing a Fairview Family Month in June where every Wednesday is going to combine all the ministries for all kinds of different opportunities – worship night, movie night, mission night, it’s going to be great!
We want our middle and high school students to begin to learn how to disciple others by maybe just starting with learning a memory verse with an elementary student (later blog post). We are trying to connect our middle and high school students with our men’s and women’s ministries so that they have people that they know and that care for them in the church when they graduate from high school.
But, here's the deal – all of this is messy! When you have people crossing over ministries, it’s not always easy to track or follow. It means that the pastors, staff, and ministry leaders have to be willing to lay down egos and be willing to work together to equip the saints for the work of the ministry. And we all must remember that our goal isn’t to have big numbers in our ministries, but that each number is a person, and our goal is to see that person become a disciple of Jesus Christ! And we want to do whatever it takes to help that person use their talents and gifts for God’s glory as they grow in Christ. I like to call it organized commotion. In student ministry, we’ve created a very structured environment that is primarily behind the scenes. But, when you walk into an event or gathering, it shouldn’t feel overly structured or restricted, it should feel like the family of Christ gathering to worship God, study the Bible and grow together. And, even on Wednesday night, all ages are welcome!
Until next time….
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