Meeting the Needs of the Youth

Youth in my books would be delimit as Grade 8 Grade 12. What makes this a challenging ministry, is the ever so changing make-up of the juvenilityfulness. It look atms that every 6 months or so you scram an entirely new jejuneness group. It is not new in the normal aw atomic number 18ness as most of them call for been In the youth ministry for a while, It Is that they cast all changed and it seems like a new group. They speak of the generational surmise, stating that apiece 20 years or so we have a assorted generation.I however see a new generation every 2 3 years. The culture we live In Is changing at a pace never before experienced. Simply looking at the improve ment of technology over the last decade demonstrates for us the enormity of our new growth spurt. Although I fall in the same generation theory category as many of my youth, they ar vastly different to me. A change has definitely taken place. I am not sure when It was that I moved out of the cool to boring category however It seems that it has happened. As all this change takes place one can completely expect that the removes will also shift.What I wanted as a youth is most definitely not what the youth wants today. And it is herein that the difficulty lies, asses infractg the indispensabilitys of the day. Meeting this Need Now that the greatest need has been identified, how are we to meet this need. Let me suggest the following methodology 1. swooning concise exposition of the Word. There Is no other way to father a person to the point of repentance. capital of Minnesota while looking to an Idol riddle generation, did not soften the truth. No In Acts 17 we see that Paul does not shrink in declaring the whole counsel of God. Paul take down goes s far as telling the hostile audience that they need to repent.Too often today those ministering to youth do not want to apprize on so called hard truths found In scripture. We are beingness told by the experts that tenet too much( prenominal) doctrine is not good. At a recent youth deceaseshop we were told that teaching systematically through with(predicate) a book of the Bible is Just wrong. We were told that the youth wants merriment filled stories and entertaining challenges and nothing that actually breaks down their self esteem. In saying this however, I do acknowledge that some systematic teaching can be done incorrectly, so as to bore or put anyone off.The clear concise exposition that is require is one that requires much preparation. The preacher necessitate to know his audience and has to be diligent to mother the message to bear on that audience. Just as it is no economic consumption teaching speed reading to 4 year olds, it is no single-valued function teaching Supernaturalism to your youth group. It is my opinion that it takes much more work to teach the scriptures to youth and children than adults. More illustrations are needed, more ex planation is needed and bridging the gap requires mo re work. But at he end of the day Is that not what preaching Is all about? 2.Diligent discipleship 1 OFF to change the nations. The youth worker needs to work hard at discipline his youth. This takes the form of personal discipleship and the arranging of other discipleship relationships. It is not a dereliction of duties to ask some of the adults in the church to help with discipleship. One youth pastor cannot himself disciple the entire group. This is the primary reason I favor not to have the main youth clashing on sunlight nights when the adult church meets next door. No, the young people need to sit to now the church members and see how they live their Christian lives.This is not a new concept, only simply the Biblical example of having the older men and women training the younger members of the church. (Titus 21-8) Discipleship is hard work and time consuming, but also the most rewarding part of my ministry. What a Joy it is to see a young man growing in his walk with t he passkey and seeing the same young mans discernment consistently growing. Loving rebuke It is often difficult to admonish one of the people we love and enjoy. We discriminate that our admonishment will create barriers in our relationship.However faithful are the wounds of a friend. During my ministry I have seen that even though the initial reaction is not eer what we would desire, the long term affects are rewarding. The youth sees that you are willing to admonish so that they can grow in Christ. You are not simply standing by and condoning (sometimes nonverbally) their obvious wrong behavior. This should always be done in love though. Admonishing must be done carefully and lovingly always addressing a pattern of sin and not one isolated incident. As a parent I feel the tension of loving and disciplining daily.None of us parents or youth workers delights in admonishing, but we are commanded by God to admonish. While admonishing I always keep the following two Proverbs in min d Proverbs 1324 He who spares the rod hates his son, But he who loves him disciplines him promptly and Proverbs 89 Do not rebuke a scoffer, lest he hates you Rebuke a wise man and he will love you. 4. Purposeful ministry The maxim is true, if you aim at nothing you will be sure to pass on it every time. In order for the youth ministry to be successful it needs to have a defined purpose.A narrow repose, having a large youth group is not specific enough. Each youth ministry is going to have a different topical anesthetic purpose I say local as the ultimate purpose should be to bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord. Some local purposes will be to establish an initial vibrant youth ministry others will be to effectively reach the local High School, or even to establish religious growth in a core group. Whatever your purpose, it needs to be defined and a plan of action developed. It is important to know how you plan to achieve your purpose.What steps are you goi ng to take so as to assure (realizing it is God who builds His church) that your ministry meets the intended purpose? Conclusion While I agree that doing the same today as we did 10 years past is not going to cut it, I argue that at the gist the ministry is the same. The youth of today has the same fundamental need as the youth 30 years ago regeneration. If you are serious about meeting the needs of the youth this is where you must begin. Take the above begin to minister to the youth of today. Always keeping 1 Corinthians 10 31 as your guide.