The Great Commission.
I have worked in youth ministry for the past 15 years. In 1993, shortly after I graduated high school, my youth pastor asked me to work in the youth ministry. I've been working with Jr. & Sr. High school students ever since. 10 years ago I was hired as a full time youth pastor at my church.
It's been a fun time. I've spent a lot of time with a lot of kids and taught a lot of lessons. But I have this dreadful feeling that I'm wasting my time.
It seems as if we are loosing all of our teens once they graduate high school. There are so many teens that we spent so much of our lives with and they seem to have just drifted away. It kills me to see the teens in my youth ministry now and know that they will be gone in a few short years. I'm afraid we've been making converts and not disciples.
So what can we do? Lately I've been thinking that this problem will continue in my church unless the church as a whole attempts to address it and changes the way we do ministry. If I simply change how I do youth ministry, that's not enough. In fact that's not even really the problem. The problem comes when the students have to transition into the adult ministries. But to be honest most of the students never give the adult ministries a chance. They may go once or twice but then that's it.
So my question is what can we do to make disciples of Jesus Christ and not just converts who will drift away once they graduate from high school?
Any thought?
