Flipping Spiritual Formation

Feb 24 2010 Author: Doug Franklin Filed under: Mission trips, Youth Ministry

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For most of us small groups is our program for discipleship. We want students to join a group and begin to grow in their faith in the context of a caring community. For our students who have been attending small groups and are actively growing in their faith we offer them the opportunity to go on our summer missions trip. We do this because its a well known fact that missions flow out of a mature heart for God.

I think things are changing – Many students today have a heart for people in poverty and slavery. Students want to bring an end to AIDS and the lack of clean water. They no longer think Christ, first compassion second. They are burdened by injustice, not the fact that people don’t know Jesus. It’s not that they don’t care about Christ but their hearts want an end to the fixable. Clean water, poverty, hunger, lack of medicine; fix these things first and then share Christ.

This thinking must be engaged – what if we were to allow seekers to go on mission trips and then invited them to small group? What if we mirror students’ thinking with our programing?

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One Response to “Flipping Spiritual Formation”

Jason Huffman
February 28th, 2010 at 1:32 pm

I’ve never limited mission trip attendance to committed Christian kids who are involved in a small group and am not sure that’s a good thing. I think mission trips are a great place to introduce kids to true Christianity. I do agree though that social issues are at the forefront of our kids minds. I won’t say they are burdened with them, but I will say that we live in a culture where it’s cool to be humanitarian. The president promotes it, celebrities promote it, even American Idol promotes it. It is critical that we teach our kids to make the distinction between mere humanitarianism and making a difference in the world for the glory of God. But I think to share the gospel by itself without taking opportunities to truly meet the needs of people will be futile (faith without works is dead, as James said). Good post.

My name is Doug Franklin and I serve youth workers through a ministry called LeaderTreks. I love youth ministry and the people who serve in it. I work with an incredible team creating tools and resources enabling youth workers to develop students into leaders. I want to influence youth workers to challenge students and prepare them for leadership in the kingdom of God.
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