Evangelism and Student Ministry

*This is a paper I wrote for my summer class over a book called Evangelism Remixed by Dave Rahn and Terry Linhart. It is about how to be an evangelistic student ministry. It's good stuff and information I want to share. I hope you enjoy!*

The responsibilities of an adult leader in an evangelistic youth ministry are numerous but the four I want to focus on are the adult as a mentor, a model of evangelism, a coach, and an influencer.

​The adult role as a mentor is a hard role to fill. To be a mentor to a teenager means a lot of time, emotional and spiritual investment, support, guidance, and a continuing out pour of love and godly wisdom. It is a personal commitment to show students the way to follow Christ and to live a godly life. The way this is done is by being an example and living what is taught. This means mentors have to be spiritually mature, continually in the Word for their own edification, and have a passion to see teenagers become mature Christians who love the Lord and are sharing the Gospel with their peers.

​Adults also need to be a model of evangelism to their students. If adults want to see teenagers evangelizing their peers at school and other social settings, then the adults need to be modeling that for them. Without a model, teenagers are less likely to evangelize because they do not know what that looks like or how it is done. Evangelism training can be helpful but without seeing it play out in real life teenagers may not be able to bridge that gap between theory and application on their own. Also, students can and may hold the mentality that if they do not see their adult leaders or parents evangelizing then why should they. It is vital that adults be a model and lead by example.

​Another responsibility of adults in a youth ministry is to be a coach or, in other words, a form of accountability. Not only should adults be a mentor and a model but they should also keep students accountable and be personally aware of what is going on in the teen’s life. Teens need adults who are actively involved in their life and are deeply invested in them. This should be primarily the parents’ place of involvement but not all parents are even in their kid’s life and even those who are need additional help and support from other adults.

​Adults also hold a great deal of influence over teenagers. The adults who have the greatest influence are parents but youth pastors, workers, small group leaders, and any adult who works with teenagers in some way influences their lives. Adults should pay close attention to each individual student and what is going on in their life so that they can challenge, encourage, and provoke students to a deeper relationship with God.

​As a youth leader, the way I would fulfill these areas is by gathering together a group of like minded adults and assigning each one of us a small group of three or less students to invest in through study of the Word, active involvement in the life of each student, prayer, and partnership with the parents or present guardian. I would meet with my students and get to know them on an appropriate level of intimacy and get involved in their lives. That means going to their sport games, seeing them play in the band, going to their award ceremonies, having lunch with them at school, and participating as much as I can in their life outside of the church.

​I would get them involved in mission opportunities where they can see me serving and evangelizing. I would teach them through example and then help them create their own method or style of evangelism that they can use with their peers.

​I would also do what I could to get to know the students’ parents. It is vital that the parents be the key influence and key source of discipleship in a teen’s life. I should only be there to assist, bridge the great generation gap, and help the parents do their part. In the beginning I would most likely spend most of my time getting to know the parents and assessing the parent-teen relationship so that I would better know my role.

​Chapter five focused on the importance of prayer in a youth ministry that wants to be evangelistic. Prayer should not be something that is done because it is expected but rather it should be intentional and at the center of what the youth ministry does. Teens and adults alike should be expecting to see people come to know Jesus because they have been praying for opportunities to lead people to Christ.
​The authors claim that prayer is the key practice that makes evangelistic students different from other students. Evangelistic students pray more and pray specifically for witnessing opportunities. The more students pray for these opportunities the more God will use them to reach their peers.

​The authors gave three prayer priorities that need to be evident in a youth ministry to help teens reach their friends with the Gospel. One is that adult leaders must put prayer at the top of their priority list. This goes back to being a model. Adults need to model prayer for their students. The second priority is that students must pray with ever-increasing frequency. Prayer should become a natural occurrence, not just a once-a-month thing in a student’s life. The third priority is that students must have opportunities more than once a month to pray with others. It is important to pray in a group for it brings the group’s focus back on God.

​In the youth groups I have observed, prayer should have been more of a priority. It should have had a greater group emphasis where the teens got together and prayed for one another and for their friends. Taking more time to pray and less time to play games would have strengthened the youth group as a whole and the student as an individual.  Breaking up into small groups and just spending time in prayer would have been a great way to minister to one another and beseech God on behalf of unbelieving friends.

​Chapter six was about inviting others to the youth ministry and creating an inviting environment. The authors discussed how important community is to the invitation aspect of youth ministry. If teens do not feel welcomed and comfortable to some degree, invitations will be turned down and they may never be seen again.

​The authors gave four group dynamics that they viewed as important factors to the success of evangelistic youth ministries when it came to inviting teens. First, the youth ministry needs to be socially safe. Teens should feel as if they can attend the youth ministry and know that they do not have to sacrifice their social comfort. Second, youth ministry needs to be emotionally safe. There needs to be such an environment where teens feel free to express their genuine emotions. Though teenage emotions can change within a second, the emotional part of adolescence should not be ignored. Third, youth ministry needs to exhibit a high level of consistency. The youth ministry needs to be dependable and consistent. Teens will not invite their friends if they do not know what is going on week to week. It can create social awkwardness and embarrassment that will not keep a teen for very long. Fourth, youth ministry should center on Christ. Youth ministry should not center on playing games, having fun, eating pizza, or being a social hangout. It should be centered on Christ. Christ should be the core of what the youth ministry is and does. Whether the leaders want to realize it or not, it is being centered on Christ that will bring people in on a deeper level.

​When I was in youth group, me and the other teens were always told to invite our friends. Over and over we were told, “invite your friends to youth group, invite your friends to this activity, come to this party but bring a friend!” I never had a friend to bring as all my friends already went to church and were involved in their own youth group. If I had had a friend to invite I do not know that I would have because I was not pleased with how our youth ministry was done. I had a lot of fun with the other teens and we were a pretty tight knit group but there was not a lot of spiritual growth happening. Our time together centered on talking about everything but the Word of God and playing games. The last ten minutes were used to squeeze in a hurried “Bible study” that neither challenged nor edified me.

​In the youth groups that I have been apart of and observed, I do not believe that it was hard for the teens to invite their friends. There was nothing that could be done to make it easier. What needed to be done was to give the teens a reason to invite their friends. There was no need to invite friends because the group was close and had fun together without the help of other people. Inviting friends was not about evangelism but about numbers and because of that the teens had nothing driving them.

​Chapter seven discusses the need for the youth ministry to prepare their student leaders to explain the Gospel well. This is done through adults being the model, frequent evangelism training, encouragement from the adult leaders, keeping the Bible a central part of life, and going away on retreats, camps, conferences, or serving on a short-term mission trip. These things will help mold student leaders into evangelists.

​Personally, my strategy for sharing the Gospel is to let it happen naturally in conversation. It seems more genuine then and less like a sales pitch. The more the Gospel is shared the more confident I become because not only do I learn how to be more effective in my sharing but the excitement over those conversations grow. Most people will talk about their beliefs and ask honest questions while seeking honest answers. If people can see that this is natural then it is a testament to my faith and to the way I live my life. They will see that my life revolves around the Lord and His truth and that sharing the Gospel is not forced, nor is it a rule to follow.

​My experiences as a camp counselor and the many mission trips that I have been on have given me opportunities to share the Gospel and create friendships (temporary though they may be) so that I can pour into the kids and impact them with a new way of living and thinking. My evangelistic experiences have been more than just sharing the key parts of the Gospel but rather the Gospel in its entirety with my life as a living testament.