Throughout the gospels, Jesus modeled an intentionally prayerful life. As a leader, I try to follow this path because I have found out that when I stray from this, not only do I begin to lose my footing, I begin to lose focus of who God is. Prayer is times spent with God, worshiping, praising, confessing, and petitioning.

As I was taught by my fathers and mothers in the faith who blazed a trail before me, I seek to pray regularly for myself, my family, my mentors, my fellow leaders and members of the ministry, families in our community, fellow disciples, the lost, and those in influential positions. My core desire is to become more like Jesus and continue to build on the movement he initiated thousands of years ago.

I often pray that God will send more supportive people into the lives of those in our ministry. I pray that God will continue to create a loving community of disciples who embrace newcomers and help guide me on how to better care for those in our ministry. I seek to pray for this ministry with others. I have a group of people I rely on for support and insight, a prayer team made up of those outside of the ministry context who resonate with what we are trying to accomplish.

My prayer life overflows into the ministry, since during all of our meetings there are opportunities to share how God has been directing each person. I discuss the importance of prayer often, touching on issues ranging from the challenges of finding time to being open to what God is saying. The meetings also provide an opportunity for me to pray for individuals, as well as be prayed for. I write down every prayer request that is stated during each meeting, which I seek to go over each night as I close out the day.

On another level, fasting is also a large part of how I pray for the ministry. More specifically, the first weekend of each January and July are set apart for prayer and fasting for direction for the ministry. This has proven to be extremely fruitful and a source of encouragement, especially when times get tough.

I hope this will encourage you wherever you are. Early in my life as a disciple, I sensed that the discipline to be intentional about prayer was one thing, but the ability to come to God, open to whatever took place during that time, was quite another. On my journey, I constantly have to challenge myself to truly listen to God and have faith that he will be watching over those he brings into my path.

My prayer is that my fellow youth leaders and I would be leaders and people who are deeply rooted in Christ. The simple truth is that if we expect to effectively and faithfully lead and guide our students, we need to be people who continually secure our roots in Christ. We secure this foundation through a continual coming before Christ and asking that our hearts, minds, and lives be guided and directed by the Spirit. My guess is that every single student leader or pastor out there (who is honest) can share about times they have tried to minister to students when they themselves have neglected their own relationship with Christ and how frustrating and difficult that can be.

As youth leaders, we pray for our students’ families. I am a firm believer that parents are the number one influencers and shapers of students’ faith. Unfortunately, as I reflect on my local church, most of our students come from homes that are familiar with brokenness (divorce, abuse, neglect, etc.). Many of our students have also been raised in homes that lack any sort of Christian education or Christlike examples. Therefore, I encourage my youth staff to pray regularly for their students and their families.

We strive to pray for our students by name. Just this past week, our student ministry had the opportunity to get away from Kansas City and head out to the thriving metropolis of Pomona, Kansas (population 940), to go on a retreat. While I thoroughly enjoyed the speaker, the constantly lit fireplace, and the abnormally warm winter weather, the highlight of the retreat for me was a prayer time we had together Saturday night. After our small group time was wrapping up, I asked the students if they would allow me to pray for them by name. Even though we make it a discipline to pray for the students corporately, there is something powerful and special about praying for students by name, especially when they hear and participate in the prayer.

When we pray for our students by name, we are able to recall and recount their individual and unique stories and pray accordingly. As I began praying for Malachi, here is a student who hasn’t even turned thirteen yet. He has two solid parents who are deeply committed to raising him in the faith. My prayer for Malachi is that, as he navigates the seventh grade and begins his first year of ice hockey, he would seek to put Christ at the forefront of his life and strive to love others as Christ calls him to do. When he is faced with the challenge to join in the locker room talk, I pray that God would help him to speak words of love.

Sitting next to Malachi was Daniel. Daniel is almost eighteen and has had no more than a half dozen conversations with his father in his lifetime. Daniel’s life has been marked by instability and constant abandonment. He somehow ended up coming to the youth group when his sister attended a VBS at our church last summer. When I pray for Daniel, I pray that he would seek to know, love, and serve Christ. I also pray that Daniel knows he has a heavenly Father who loves him and is proud to call him son. Lastly, I pray that God would remind him that he is a heavenly Father who promises never to leave or forsake his children.

As youth leaders and pastors, it is important that we adopt the discipline and practice of prayer for ourselves, our youth staff, and our students. May we all strive to be leaders and ministers who make prayer the foundation of our ministries.

Jason is an associate pastor in Independence, Missouri, where he primarily works with youth and young adults. He thoroughly enjoys speaking and teaching God's Word and has done so at a handful of camps and retreats over the years. Jason always keeps his disc golf discs in the trunk of his car just in case the opportunity to play should suddenly arise. He occasionally jots down some of his thoughts at www.JayMcPherson.blogspot.com. Jason is married to Rachel, and they are expecting their first child in June 2012.

Inside this discipline, there are times for me to pray prayers of praise, proclamation, and petition. It is here that I pray for the people of the ministry I serve. These prayers, however, are never on behalf of the ministry itself (organization, programs, structure, budgets, etc.); they are only on behalf of the people in the scope of the ministry.

I suppose someone could say this question implies people rather than programs. However, too often I have heard prayers spoken that have more to do with the success of the person praying than with hope for and healing of people within the ministry.

Just last week I heard this prayer from a youth pastor: “…and God, help this ministry to grow in numbers so that the world may see our love for them.” What? The numerical growth of your ministry is directly related to how the world sees your love for them? Really? I think just maybe the “world” may know how much we love them by our faithfulness to serving them.

Too many people concern themselves with prayers that are, in the end, for them. So when a question like, How do you pray for your ministry? arises, it makes me want to strongly differentiate between prayers we pray for ourselves and prayers we pray for the people around us.

Most often, I find myself moved the most by praying prayers of confession as it relates to the people I serve. Here is an example of one of those prayers:

Heavenly Father, look upon our community of faith, which is the church of your Son, Jesus. Help us to proclaim his love by loving all our fellow creatures without exception. Under the kingdom reign of God, keep us faithful to Jesus’s mission. Forgive us for not always choosing to preach the gospel to the poor, blind, oppressed and brokenhearted. Amen.

Telling God the truth about my unfaithfulness in taking gospel action awakens one of the greatest gifts of Christian spirituality: forgiveness. It is within this forgiveness that I experience God’s mercy. It is God’s mercy that inspires me want to be more generous with others.

Do I pray for my ministry? No. Do I pray for those whom the ministry in which I serve touches? Yes. Does the question How do you pray for your ministry? really imply the people within? Perhaps. But perhaps we still could progress in our prayer practices with a strong distinction made between prayers we pray for ourselves and prayers we pray for the sake of others.

While there are many spontaneous moments in youth ministry, much of the design of our program is based on a detailed outline of what we’ve deemed important for each of our kids to get before they graduate out of the youth group. I learned a long time ago that knowing why you do something is as important as, if not more important than, what it is you actually do. Begin with the mission and let it inform the program. Programming not rooted in mission is like chaperoning recess. There might be benefits to it, but it’s really just a break from the regular class, and heaven forbid we let the place our kids learn how to navigate life be anywhere other than one that teaches kingdom principles.

Of course, to carry out any mission there need to be regular, all-community events like weekly Bible studies, camps, mission trips, informal and formal outings and conferences, but I’ve learned that it is the smaller, less magnified activities that allow the real-life application to happen. Things like, we require the youth to keep the youth room clean, give offerings to help fund special projects, cook their own contributions to the missions dinners, find scriptures in the Bible rather than depending on the screen projections, practice conflict resolution, and discuss current events in light of scripture. Why? 1. Because they can. 2. Because we have to provide them with ample opportunities to do and become what they are being taught.

Throughout the years, I’ve had run-ins with young adults who were part of the ministry, and they enthusiastically recall episodes and occasions when we did this or that. Some of the remembrances are around Bible study and high spiritual moments, but just as many are not. Inevitably, these funny and reflective moments turn the corner, and former students standing before me start to tell how it was in one of those moments that they truly discovered something that impacted and shaped their faith foundation. Something organic and in the moment that made all the difference despite all the programs set in place to accomplish that same resolve. Little did they know that things like “develop faith in community” and “create opportunities for life application” are written in the program’s mission.

As a young woman in ministry, I asked veteran youth pastors if I could see their ministry outlines. For whatever reason, many treated it like it was some highly guarded secret. Maybe it is, but I don’t mind sharing. Here’s the Roadside short outline.
Purpose/Mission: To nurture and release righteous, respectable, and responsible citizens of the kingdom into the world.
Projects & Programs: Weekly group, campus outreach, special events, service and mission works, cross-generational mentoring.
Points of Focus: Salvation, discipleship, worship, service, and community.
Plan: Consistent and transformingly good programs, activities, relationships, and teaching.
If you have more questions, I’d love to discuss it with you.

3) Our programming is about people. Programs are only as effective as they are devoted to the people they involve. Programs are merely portals into the hearts of students. Sunday school, small group, retreats, special events, etc., are about nothing more than connecting with people and guiding them into spiritual formation for the sake of the world.

So, to our question, how do mission statements and programs inform each other? First, your mission is the purpose for your programming and the kind of programing you shepherd. Therefore, the mission informs why you would program anything in the first place.

Second, your mission is what keeps your programs from drifting off into irrelevance and insignificance. It keeps you on track and informs your programs with measurable tools.

Third, your mission provides your team, whether volunteer or paid, with a reason to engage through the hard and challenging times of working with teens. When volunteers ask, “Why am I doing this” or, “Am I even making a difference?” or, “Why do I do this to myself?” they’ll have a reason that brings them back to sanity and courage.

Fourth, mission statements allow you to recruit fellow ministers to a purpose or vision rather than a glaring hole or gap in your ministry. Many youth workers recruit by making people feel guilty for not helping to meet the needs of the church. This does not last. Mission informs vision, and vision informs programming.

Finally, mission statements—to be frank—keep your boss off your back. Seriously, committing to a shared mission with your supervisor provides an opportunity for you and your team of ministers to keep your conversations on the things that really matter—people. Also, mission informs the budget for your programs, which can also be a reason for conflict at times, as I am sure you are already well aware of.

Mission statements are critical but only if they emerge out of God’s mission. God’s mission, to say it one way, is to make the world whole again. God invites us into God’s mission as agents of God’s love and restoration. As youth workers, one way we do this is through meaningful and relevant programs that are concerned with people. Programs embedded with God’s mission give us a reason to gather and guide students into spiritual formation for the sake of the world.

That church was similar to many out there: We had a mission statement and a vision statement, and while they both looked great on paper, that was about it. If you asked any of our church members, they probably wouldn't have been able to tell you much about the content of either statements, and our ministries were not necessarily connected to them.

Then we went through another process to come up with a core values statement. Not surprisingly, some folks were a bit skeptical of all the time and effort going into the process because they assumed we would end up with another well-crafted statement that didn't have any impact on our ministries. However, we kept trusting the process, and after a few months, came up with our core values statement: Centered in Jesus Christ, we grow in faith, celebrate community, and serve others with love. Pretty simple. Pretty straightforward. And to be honest, it wasn't a lot different from one of the other statements we already had. But this time, almost all the congregation had been involved, and there was a great sense of ownership.

Then we decided to make it count, to really live into the values. We publicized it extensively. We repeated it over and over and over again. We incorporated it into our sermons. We also met with everyone who led the various groups and ministries of our church and decided that, from this point forward, any new events, any big projects that seemed like great ideas, would have to be filtered through the core values statement. If the idea didn't help us grow in faith, celebrate community, or serve others with love, it didn't make the cut.

And the difference with this approach was that every ministry began to own these core values. The youth ministry didn't need to come up with its own mission statement; we now had one because we were part of the greater church. This meant that we always found ways to incorporate the core values statement into our program and into the activities we did. When we met together prior to going on a mission trip, we were able to not only talk about how important it is to serve others but to connect the trip to all the specific elements of our statement.

This also helped communicate that what we were doing on mission trips wasn't just part of our youth ministry but was really a part of the ministry of the greater church. This aspect was really important to me because, after the youth graduate from our program, they know they can be a part of a faith community because they have that connection. Part of the problem of so many youth ministries is that they tend to be disconnected from the larger church, and the youth don't exactly know where to go after graduating from high school.

There are many ways that your programming can be directly connected to your mission statement, and it's important that the connection is made. It also makes you think a lot harder about the different events and activities that might get added to your program and helps give you a framework for deciding what's important, what's worth investing in, and what will contribute most to the spiritual formation of your youth.

on the other side of that is a great mentor of mine in youth ministry who, every spring break, essentially invited the youth ministry to travel with his family on their spring break vacation. Obviously there are great ways to engage your youth ministry and your family, and there are some bad ways too.

My opinion is that it’s healthy when it’s done right. This last year we hosted dinners at our house every other week for our senior class. It was my way of engaging them as they went through a difficult season of college applications and anxiety. My family was always there. My daughter used to ask me on Sundays if it was an “other” Sunday. For her, it was always a highlight of the week to have the big kids come over.

I think Paul models this kind of ministry in 2 Thessalonians when he talks about “sharing his life” with the community. The only way I know how to do ministry is the same way. The families many of our students are growing up in aren’t healthy. They are busy, disengaged, and frantic. Often Dad (or Mom) works long hours and is unavailable to them. What I’m trying to do with students in my youth ministry is show them my real life and expose them to how I actually am and not just the way I want them to think I am. So I show them how I interact with my wife and how I parent my kids. I think it’s one of my greatest offerings to them as they see what it means to be a Christian and a husband and father.

To my younger friends in youth ministries, I simply ask the question: What are you modeling to students? Many of you are close in age and are more like peers to the students. Your life shows them one side of being a Christian in the world but not a full picture. You will likely eventually have kids and have to make these types of decisions. One way you can be strategic now is by inviting parents of students to come on trips and have them model what you can’t.

Last summer was busy. It started out with a five-day, guys-only houseboat trip. Then in July we did an eight-day high school trip to Seattle and followed that with a thirteen-day trip to Israel. I took my boys (ages eleven and eight) on the houseboat trip. They had a great time hanging out with the older boys. My oldest learned how to play poker (maybe I’m not a good parent), and he told me he loved listening to the talks each evening. I was busy running the trip and also being a dad. It wasn’t ideal in that there were times I couldn’t engage with the youth group kids, but I still think it was great. But I had a bunch of leaders on the trip, so I wasn’t the focal point.

The reality, though, is that I was gone three out of four weeks in July. This is typically the busiest month in my youth ministry world. But, as a dad who loves his family, and as someone who has seen the negative side of youth ministry when parents are always gone from their own kids, I say involve your kids in everything you can. I’m pretty sure Doug Fields wrote somewhere at some point that there has to be some sort of benefit for your kids when their parent is a youth worker. I embrace that statement and the belief behind it.

My kids will always be involved because I think it models health to students. It is healthy for me, and it shows that youth ministry doesn’t operate in a vacuum that is only accessible to twenty-year-olds without kids.

As we attempt to steward the gifts God has given us in our children, showing them what humility and service looks like is important. Having your child watch you be obedient as you move chairs, orchestrate midweek service, patiently listen to others, and encourage young folks is the best teaching tool you could have in your bag of tricks. You gain credibility with them as you encourage them to serve others with their lives, and respect as someone who makes humility cool.

Explaining what youth workers do is often difficult, so involving your children in ministry when they are young is important because it allows them to see it. When they see you in action, it helps them understand better what we really do. If for nothing else, knowing what we do for work can help justify why we are gone and not with them.

It is also important for them to see you working so you can model responsibility for them. Seeing that doing your job is more than planning games or going to breakfast with someone else’s kid; it is part of you following through on commitments and being responsible for leadership in a ministry of the church.

Volunteers who serve alongside most of you are young themselves. They are often looking for models who demonstrate godly parenting. If they are single, they look for examples of what to be looking for in a spouse, and how you engage with your children could be one of the most positive peeks into marriage and parenting they get. We often overlook our discipleship of volunteers, but you are discipling them whether you know it or not, and showing them how to parent is a wonderful tool of Christian discipleship.

Lastly, if your students are like me or many young people I know today, they have poor examples of faithful, consistent Christian parenting at home. You might be the best example of what good parenting looks like. As young people develop their own identities and determine trajectories for their own lives, seeing positive parenting in action can help them set the bar high for who they want to become and whom they want to parent with when that time comes. This is especially critical for you men who serve as youth workers.

We all have great examples of women who can parent their butts off, but unfortunately these shining lights are often lacking when it comes to dads. If you’re a guy, I strongly encourage you to think about your example to your students; not just how you interact with them but how you model a loving and faithful commitment to your own children. In fact, your parenting and marriage might be the most important lessons you share with your youth group while they are under your influence.

Now, having said all of this, I have to caution you to use common sense when involving our own children when they are young. Keep your child safe. Don’t ever assume that teens know how to handle, hold, or interact with young children. I wouldn’t trust most teens to be alone with my children. Don’t use your kids like puppies. Puppies are cute and cuddly and can bring a lot of attention to the owner. Your child is not a student magnet. If your child is going to interfere with or distract you from teaching God’s Word, leave the tyke at home.

Lastly, if you’re feeling guilty about not spending enough time with your kids and are involving them in ministry to kill two birds with one stone, learn to set some boundaries and say no more often. If you need help prioritizing between your children and the children of others in your ministry, your children are more important.

Then, as she grew older, it became more difficult. As soon as my daughter was old enough to observe, repeat words, and mimic certain behaviors, my wife and I had to have a conversation again about whether it was wise to allow our children to be part of our youth ministry events. We mutually decided we would still make sure our children could be part of our youth ministry as much as was feasible. We concluded it was important for the following reasons.

We thought it was important that our children had a healthy view of me, as their father. My father was a pastor, and aside from his Sunday morning sermon, seldom did I see him in action, so to speak. Every time I heard my mom and him discussing a church-related issue or subject, I could only imagine my father as a pastor. All I knew of my father was what he was like in our home. I would have loved to see my father live out his calling as a pastor as well as my father. My wife and I thought it was important for our children to see their dad outside the home to give them a bigger view of life and a holistic view of my life.

We thought it was important that our children had a healthy view of relationships and how people interact with one another. We wanted our kids to see the two of us related not only to teens but to the parents of teens and to other youth workers. Not all the interactions my kids have seen me participate in have been positive. One thing is certain, however. The interactions were real, and our kids have seen me in a more holistic way.

We thought it was important that our children have a healthy view of the church. I desire for my kids to love the church. I long for them to discover what took me more than two decades to learn, and that is that the church is not a building; it is a people. Our youth ministry events were a microcosm of the church in action—that is, the people of God actively engaging God’s mission to restore the world to its intended wholeness. I’m sure that through all the years of participating in the mission of God with teens, parents, and volunteers, they have at the very least a glimpse of the holistic nature of God and God’s people.

We thought it was important that our children have a healthy view of our calling. My wife and I are both called, in a general sense, to be growing disciples. Our intent was that our kids would see us actively live into our calling to serve others and that to be a growing disciple, one must love others as much as one loves God.

We thought that it was important that our children have a healthy view of formation. My wife and I wanted our kids to see a holistic view of spiritual formation and dimensions of formation, such as the disciplines and practices. Both my wife and I grew up in churches where formation was viewed as a program, not a process, and we desired that our children see both of us being formed spiritually through life with others.

Now that I have answered the question, let me make this statement. Whatever you decide to do about your children or any others participating in youth ministry events and activities, know that it is even wiser to find ways to let your kids know that the ministry is never more important than them and that your love for and calling to them as a dad or mom far exceeds your calling as a youth minister.

We all have relational currency with everyone we encounter. I choose to spend a large amount of the available currency in each individual relationship with my youth focused essentially on helping them articulate their faith. That’s what we’re all here for, right? To help the young saints of our communities grow in their faith. One mark of growth in faith is the ability to articulate that faith.

In my opinion, articulation is a product of conviction and practice. My kids like to joke with me about what happens when I start asking questions. “Oh, here she goes again!” they’ll say. We laugh about it, but those questions are how I help them grow. Those questions provide them with the opportunity to articulate in a safe place what they believe. Sometimes those questions are directed at the group, and sometimes the question is more appropriate for an individual. It can be healthy to wrestle with issues of faith as a group and individually with proper support and encouragement.

I’m not referring to the equivalent of a firing squad that has them leaving their time with you feeling as if they aren’t Christian. I’m referring to challenging them in a healthy way to say what they know in their hearts or what they are learning as a part of their personal growth. They will say things that even surprise themselves; things that create more questions and things that spark strong convictions.

In addition to these opportunities to state what they believe within the community of the group and individually with me, corporate opportunities within the community of the church are powerful moments for the youth and the church body. Some of them have testimonies of faith that rival the lives and testimonies of our own faith stories. When they have come to a place where they are comfortable to approach this opportunity with even an air of confidence, our support, advocacy, and encouragement will be invaluable. We might even end up as their bulletproof vests, but that’s okay too.

The greatest gift of youth (and young adult) ministry in my life is to have the opportunity to advocate, encourage, and support my kids as they grow in their love for Christ and articulate their faith. I’ll take a hit and sacrifice a win for them any day, and I’m sure you’d do the same for yours.

Questions are better than answers. Most youth leaders fear the socially awkward silence that follows a question in a meeting. That pause is a golden moment. In that absence of aural noise, thoughts happen. Too often, we don’t give time for students to think through the truths we teach. It’s impossible for teens to internalize new ideas without time to process them. I began using the Socratic method in my teaching. This teaching style focuses more on processing questions than on finding answers. Questions need to be open ended, provoking the stillness needed to develop a response. Binary questions (those that can be answered yes or no) shut down thoughts and conversation. So I learned to shape my questions into those that couldn’t devolve into a one-word answer.

How you think is more important than what you know. At the same time I began developing my questioning technique, I saw a flaw in the educational system. This flaw focused teaching around memorizing and regurgitating facts. Teens weren’t being taught to think. Realizing the need, I began to organize logical trains of thought, much like the Pauline epistles. When considering a topic, I tried to consider what questions students would have from their perspective. Progressing logically through a subject helped model a way for students to reason through questions away from our time together. I began seeing youth using these skills outside of church.
The process is more important than the outcomes. Here’s the real kicker for this way of teaching. If you use this method, there will be uncomfortable moments. As you wrestle through some tough thoughts and allow your students to ask difficult questions, it will challenge both you and them. Those who look for an easy answer will be frustrated. I constantly remind my group that life doesn’t always resolve itself. Faith believes even when we don’t see the outcomes. We are called to work out our faith even into discomfort.

Warning: This way of leading discussions isn’t for everyone. It pulls teens from a pre-adolescent, concrete mindset into the abstract perspective of adulthood. As you introduce this method, the potential for frustration will be high. Acknowledge that what you are asking of your young adults is hard. Thank them for participating and encourage them for growing into a new way of thinking.

So, why would you do this if it has the potential to frustrate students? I get that question often from new parents. If today’s adolescents are going to be able to stand firm in their faith, they will eventually have to own it. All discipline causes discomfort at the time, but then it produces amazing results. If teenagers are going to be able to articulate their faith, they will have to face the discomfort of working through it for themselves.

As a result of their collective traits, with the fun and joy of working with these young men comes significant thought about intentional ways I can help them develop an articulated faith. Each and every week (and the communication/community touch points in between) I absolutely must be purposeful about my passing on of the faith.

Below are eight intentional ways I am helping students develop an articulated faith.

1. Putting myself in situations where my life of faith and their inquiries about faith converge.
2. Allowing my group to ask any question at any time about anything in order to re-narrate their questions around faith in God.
3. Send them various resources they can read and interact with in order to stretch their thinking and come into their own understanding of life and faith.
4. Help them develop a communal hermeneutic—a way to read the Bible as a community that gives them a framework for interpretation and application.
5. Be a visible presence at our church’s gatherings so they can see how important developing an articulated faith is to me.
6. Help them (by modeling it) with an ability to lean all of their past, current, and future understandings about the Christian faith up against what Scripture says about any given theme (if it does), what the church has believed through its growth over time, what their own abilities to reason help them conclude, and what the personal and practical experiences of their own faith help them understand.
7. Inspire them to see how their faith development and the ability to articulate that in both word and deed impact the world and participate with God’s mission in the world. In other words, help them try to finish any sentence about their own lives with the phrase, “for the sake of the world.” For example, I play football, for the sake of the world. I am going to study education in college, for the sake of the world. I am engaging acts of mercy for the sake of the world. You get the point.
8. Provide situational ways in which students can engage the narratives of this world. Every time we plan a day of serving in our community, we’ll spend time reflecting on that experience, and I’ll help them navigate through conversation as to what meaning they are making for themselves but in the context of the entire community/small group.

If we aren’t being intentional about helping students developing an articulated faith, then we are shaping and guiding students into spiritual formation for the mission of God. If we aren’t shaping students into spiritual formation for the mission of God, then we are most likely running a babysitting/recreation/daycare/etc. organization. Isn’t that the most offensive, unfair perception placed on a youth worker?

Context, in the crudest sense, is simply the situation one finds oneself in. There are dimensions to context that play together to help a teacher or facilitator know not only what to teach but also in what ways to teach. Teachers must wrestle with the following three dimensions of context.

First, there is the immediate situation. The immediate situation reveals matters like setting (Is this large-group or small-group learning?) and people involved (What age level/learning style am I teaching? What is the time frame that I have to teach? What is the setup of the room?).

Second, there is the intermediate situation. The intermediate situation provides the teacher with information about the normal environment in which the students learn on an ongoing basis. (Is this the students’ only subject-related formal learning situation? Or is what I am about to teach a supplement to their learning? Are other factors involved in the students’ learning that should shape what I teach? Is there a certain scope and sequence to the students’ learning?)

Third, there is the principal situation. The principal situation is the foremost dimension of context by which both the immediate and intermediate situations are influenced. (What is the common framework in which the students I will be teaching are learning? What is my best understanding of the students’ life perspective coming into this classroom? Are the students predisposed to think any particular way? What are the social and relational dynamics of the students?)

NOTE: You may only need to use the above outline once. For example, I have a small group of senior guys whom I teach each week. The situation outline above was helpful to determine what I would teach each week. I merely go back to it as a reminder since I teach the same twelve guys each week. However, one night I was invited teach at a friend’s church. I taught some high school seniors on the Eucharist. Before I decided to teach on the Eucharist, I used the situational outline above to help me determine that particular topic.

So, to get to the question, I use the simple framework above. I ask questions about the situations (all three dimensions) that help me get the best understanding of what I should teach. I do not start with a topic or theme or subject and then decide how I am going to disseminate information. Rather, I do my best to understand the persons involved in the learning in order that whatever I teach has more of a long-term formational impression. At least, that is my hope.

The reason I start with the context is that, in my opinion, it doesn’t matter what I teach if I can’t take a subject and teach it in a way that my students learn. Then it isn’t teaching; it is merely talking. Talking is about the teacher. Teaching is about the learner.

After determining the unique context I will teach within, I dig even deeper into the immediate situation and ask questions such as the ones below in order to determine what I will teach:

• What would interest the learners in this situation? How can I hold their attention?
• What do I think is important to teach that might enhance or even change the predisposed thinking of the students?
• What expertise do I have that I can most fully inspire others to learn from?
• What do I feel like the students are missing that I think would help shape their lives?
• What are they already learning about that I might be able to go further and deeper with? (For example, is the senior pastor in a series that I could base my teaching times on?
• What can I teach from my own experience that will help them into their future?


How do you determine what you will teach?

Pray for God to reveal the needs of your students. Sermon and series preparation has to start with prayer. My prayer is that God will show me clearly some of the topics I need to cover in the course of the year. Sometimes it will show up in your counseling, sometimes in a conversation, sometimes in the quietness of your own time with Jesus. Either way, be listening for direction in the normal routines of ministry.

Ask them! One time not too long ago, we created a card that listed fifteen topics we could teach on in the coming year. We called it Choose Your Own Adventure and then tackled the most popular topics students wanted to learn/be challenged about.

Create a focus group and run your ideas by them. Every Tuesday during the school year at 4pm, you’ll find me in my office surrounded by a select group of high school student leaders who are my focus group. I run everything by them: rough drafts of sermons, object lessons, ideas, icebreakers, series ideas. They give invaluable insight into what they and their fellow students need to hear and how the message can best be shaped to meet them where they are living. And yes, they have veto power. It kills me when they use it, but I know it is for the greater good.

Be inspired by others. I love nothing more than devouring sermon and series ideas from other people! Youth pastors are creative, so if your idea well is running dry, find some people out there who are killing it. Stolen ideas I’ve had recently: a series on Facebook and a question/answer message where students text in questions to be answered live in the service.

Hit the majors. There are certain topics we are going to cover every year in our youth group. The majors for us would be things like friendship and purity. We make sure that specific perennial topics are being covered, though we might change the number of weeks or the voice speaking so it always feels fresh.

Try to cover a whole book of the Bible sometime in the year. This summer we did a study on a specific book of the Bible (Philippians), and last summer we took five weeks and went chapter by chapter through James. Both ended up being unique and gave us clear teaching topics for over a month. I love the dream that when someone graduates from our ministry, they have a survey of much of the Bible and a command of some specific parts of it.

Take a risk. A few years ago, a student came to me with the idea that we do completely student-run weekends divided up by the five major high schools in our area. I loved the idea, but we had never done anything like it before. A new, risky series called You Own the Weekend was born. It was huge. Students owned the services like never before, they were eager to bring their friends, and it gave me a much-needed break from teaching. Take a risk and try something out of the box; you might stumble onto something incredible.

Follow the adult service’s lead. Once a year or so, we link up with big church and match them week to week for a series they are doing. Pastor Rick did a series on being great parents, so we did How to Raise Your Parents. This January we’ll be going through 40 Days of the Word in adult services as a church-wide campaign, so we’ll create a student-friendly version of that topic as well.

Blessings to you as you pray and search for inspiration on what topics to teach your students this week in youth group.