Want to know why your students don’t evangelize?
First, let’s acknowledge youth ministry has tried everything.
Teaching and training and more teaching and training.
Over-the-top crazy outreach events.
Free food, cash bribes and even iPad giveaways …
… and it hasn’t really worked.
There’s a bigger reason our students don’t evangelize, and we need to deal with it.
There’s a reason your students pray like you, and it’s not because of all the teaching you’ve done on prayer.
There’s a reason your students worship like you, and it’s not because of all the teaching you’ve done on worship.
Shoot, when you started using the word “stoked,” so did your entire youth group.
If you’re a spiritual leader—and you are—then your students will emulate the behaviors you model for them.
Students might not do the things we teach, but they will do the things they see us do.
The bottom line is we can teach on evangelism until we’re blue in the face, but there’s a more effective way.
Students learn from first-hand modeled behavior, so if they haven’t seen it happen in real life, it’s going to be tough for them to actually do it.
If our ministry to students only happens within the confines of our church buildings, then we won’t be able to show them what Christian living looks like in “real life.”
So the REAL reason our students aren’t engaging in evangelism outside of youth group?
They haven’t seen us engage in evangelism outside of youth group.
This is supposed to be the part of the post where I share three easy solutions to a big problem, but there are no easy solutions to this problem.
Certainly we can’t be in the business of asking students to do things we can’t or won’t do ourselves.
Instead, let’s start telling out own evangelism stories. Let’s involve students in our evangelism stories …
… at the mall, on the street and in the coffee shop.
Let’s model the kinds of behaviors we desire to teach and see if our students don’t catch on just a little bit quicker.
More is on the way, but if you’ve got a success story, I’d love to hear it.
