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.

The parent youth ministry relationship seems to have tension. Sometimes parents think youth workers are pushing boundaries and they are not sure whose side they are on. Youth workers want to serve parents but they have a much larger focus on students. Youth workers often think they need to take the students’ side in order to have a relationship with them. To break down these walls of suspicion youth workers need to find ways to serve parents. Here is one idea:

College prep
Parents don’t know all the ways to preparing for college, especially when it comes to paying for it. Ask a Christian college near you to come and make a presentation to parents on how to prepare for college. Most colleges have this kind of presentation and they would love to talk directly to parents of Christian students. It’s a win, win, win. The parents get help, the college gets to talk to parents and you get to serve parents and break down walls.