1. Youth ministry is the ministry of students to their world
Church paradigms must change; churches with ministries to students must transform and become student-led ministries to their world.

2. Youth workers are leaders
God has called us to youth ministry and placed us in his church. He has also given us everything we need to finish his mission in that church. I believe each youth worker can have confidence that God is by his or her side. With that confidence we should lead students, adult volunteers, parents and church leaders in the completion of God’s work.

3. Adult volunteers are key to youth ministry
The size of a youth ministry is determined by the number of adults that in significant spiritual relationship with students. Butts in seats don’t matter, relationships do. I believe we must spend significant amounts of time and resources equipping and training our adult volunteers.

4. Parents are the primary faith influencers in students’ lives
I believe parents are to take the lead role in the students’ spiritual growth. The youth worker is to come along side the parents to help them and provide resources to assist them in students’ growth. If students don’t have parents who are Christ followers (Or parents who don’t care) then the youth worker takes the lead.

5. Students can lead now
If we continue to treat students like participants they will continue to leave the church after high school and not return. If we allow them to lead they will become owners and will see how their giftedness benefits the body and brings joy to their lives. Students are not the future; they can lead now.

Youth workers do lots of cool activities; retreats, camps, small groups, community service, overnights, and the list could go on and on. Activities are good for building relationships and growing trust, but just because a student comes to a pool party doesn’t mean we had a discipleship moment. Not everything we do or even everything we teach is discipleship. Everything in youth ministry is not discipleship. To be honest, I think curriculum marketers were the first ones to try and push this at us, wanting to lump all curriculum into the always-popular discipleship basket.  But here are some of the discipleship must-haves:
 
First of all, the student needs to have a desire to be a disciple. You can’t disciple a student who doesn’t want it, so just because a student heard your best sermon, or went to small group, doesn’t mean you discipled them.

There also needs to be a relationship.  For a student to be a disciple, there has to be a relationship that goes beyond attendance. Every disciple needs a rabbi.  This relationship is key and even more true with an immature student.  Someone needs to walk the road with them and show them the way to Jesus.

Discipleship happens outside of the classroom.  Jesus didn’t teach his disciples in a classroom, instead He chose a path, a hillside, and a sea.  Discipleship happens in a process of living out your faith.

As youth workers, our leadership revolves around leading students so obviously when we think about leadership we think about leading students. But the truth is, we also lead parents, adult volunteers and church leaders. So how do we balance our leadership? Doug shares a few tips on balancing leadership.

We all have a passion for students. We want them to grow in Christ and in community with each other. We are so committed to this we have given our lives so students can grow in faith. So how do we feel about their parents? You know, the ones God has called to be the primary faith influencer in their lives? How committed are we to serving them, do we have a passion for them? When I was a youth pastor I didn’t give them much thought. The only time I really gave them was when I needed them to pay for a costly event. So whose side was I on? Did I have my parents’ backs or did I just care about students? As youth workers we need to think this through, how committed are we to serving parents? Will serving parents really get us to our goals for seeing students living for Christ? What about parents who don’t care, aren’t they giving us permission to not care about them? I think many youth workers deal with this problem by staying in the middle or by keeping each group in the dark. For example, if I tell parents their concerns matter but I tell students we are going to push the limits. The parents think I am following them and students think I am an alternative to their parents. This is dangerous because you run the risk of losing the parents and lying to students. Pick the side of parents, form a partnership with them and speak a common language. When students hear you saying the exact things their parents are saying you will make a strong team. If you stay in the middle you will find yourself in trouble. By picking parents you are going with scripture and together with the parents you will see great things happen.