Thanks to Chad Swanzy who came to the Orange Tour in Dallas and took these notes from the afternoon breakout on Student Ministry. The main communicator was Reggie Joiner and he also interviewed Greg and Bubba, from Lakepointe Church in Texas for their thoughts.
1. Create a ministry that outlasts your tenure in the church.
You can connect to 12 students at the most. Recruit leaders to connect beyond your capacity.
2. Rethink the relationship between students and their families.
Find leaders who have influence with parents and leverage their credibility.
As kids get older parents have the temptation to hand their kids off to the student ministry. For a season I try to parent him the way I parented my son as a child. I needed to reengage and redefine my relationship to him.
Your relationship, students, between you and your parents is as important as it was when you were a child. Even if they don’t reciprocate it’s still important so that you can break the cycles.
Myth: Parents think their teen doesn’t want a relationship with them. Not true.
–The Good Fight Series- Resource from XP3
Give students more responsibility so that they learn what it means to be the church.
Students are capable to lead their own peers as well as adults.
Empower them to serve and lead.
Move into a position and facilitator as coach.
How do you transition away from programming into a serving only model?
– Don’t be afraid of change or losing control.
– Recruit high capacity leaders not guilt-ed in leaders.
– Student ministry requires a different kind of leader to get involved than children’s. The commitment level increases as the age increases. Kids seldom choose students do.
How do you measure your style of ministry based on serving?
Help students discover their spiritual gift and know how to use it before they graduate.
Theology issue…
Explain how you allow a non-believing teenager to serve in a believer based serving environment?
The Holy Spirit is the same in your student’s lives as it is in adults.
There is no strategy for this– it’s relationally based.
