There is no question that young people need to be discipled to grow in their leadership abilities. The implications of the pandemic have disoriented and discouraged many leaders. I encourage you to rest on God’s sovereign involvement and leadership of your life as a leader. Scripture shows us the Lord determines your place, people, and purpose, even when you may not understand or have planned for it.
Friendship is powerful. During adolescence, it becomes central to almost everything, especially trials. One of the privileges of discipling young people is being able to walk through trials with them and point them to Jesus when they need healthy support. From our smallest needs to our most epic feelings of desperation, we all long for someone who loves us, is reliable, is capable, and is willing to humble themselves enough to help, even if it requires sacrifice. The Gospel of John shows 4 reasons why we should turn to Jesus in times of trouble that you can use to point young people to Christ. He is the best friend and ultimate support in times of need.
The people in your life are there under God’s sovereign authority. As a disciple of Christ, it is important to intentionally invest in the relationships around us and to be verbal about what we know about Jesus.
There is an immense challenge in Jude 12-13 to not let our knowledge of the Gospel go to waste. “These are hidden reefs at your love feasts, as they feast with you without fear, shepherds feeding themselves; waterless clouds, swept along by winds; fruitless trees in late autumn, twice dead, uprooted; wild waves of the sea, casting up the foam of their own shame; wandering stars, for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever.”
People who have not put their trust in Jesus Christ are like withering plants who desperately need water for their roots. In the same way that plants need rain, people need a personal relationship with Jesus. Imagine how plants respond when their roots are watered. Being verbal with what we know about Jesus is like rain to a dry soul. We can communicate the hope people need and will nourish their roots. As a disciple of Christ, we must be responsible to make sure we are not clouds without rain. To be intentional and loving in our relationships we must not hold back the rain that their souls need.
Here are some questions you can ask to help you think of creative ways to share the hope of the Gospel with others.
This takes prayerful consideration and creativity. It is important to also remember that people will always have concerns that we strive to address, but it is ultimately God who draws people to himself (John 6:41-44). He will use you in the time, place, and community he has placed you in. Remain in Him, and you will bear much fruit.
Understanding Jesus from the perspective of the Father’s love can really inform the way you abide in Him, serve others, and pray. The Gospel of John tells the story of the relationship between the Heavenly Father and his Son Jesus and their indescribable love for you and for me. It is a story about Jesus Christ’s extravagant and extreme love for the lost. I challenge you as a leader to ponder this truth and consider how it may change you by fully embracing it.
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. (John 1:1-5)
Recent studies from the Pew Research Centerb and Springtide Research Institute show something significant happening in peoples’ spiritual lives. People are turning from religion. Millennials are raising their children without the church. People have lost trust in religious institutions. However, even though people are walking away from religion, they aren’t necessarily abandoning spirituality. How are faith leaders going to meet this reality as they evangelize and disciple young people in their relationship with Jesus?
Springtide Research Institute has one of the largest datasets on the state of youth in America. The data undeniably points to the need for discipling leadership from adults. Springtide summarizes their enormous dataset like this:
Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. – Mark 1:35
Blue Zone is the category of Full Spectrum Ministry that brings life to all the rest. Sadly, Blue Zone (rest and retreat) is the type of ministry that leaders neglect the most.
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The consequence of neglecting our need to retreat from the busyness of life is painful. Leaders who don’t develop a regular rhythm of rest and retreat suffer from emotional, spiritual, and physical burnout. They lose their ability to share grace and truth with the people around them.
You’ve probably heard this before: “Everyone has a story.” For some people, telling their own story comes naturally. But for others, it can be a real challenge. One of the main things that keep leaders from sharing their personal life story with students is insecurity. If you’re a leader who wants to witness the relational power of your life story, you can combat your storytelling insecurity by intentionally building 3 things into your life:
If you simply invest the time to build these three things, you can share your personal life story (and help other people share theirs too!) the way it was meant to be shared: as a gift that changes lives and deepens relationships in ministry.
Leaders who tell the gospel story and their personal life story are off to a great start with becoming impactful storytellers. But there’s one more story type that’s worth keeping in your back pocket: the symbolic story.
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What’s a symbolic story? A symbolic story uses simple language to convey a complex point. A few examples of these are Jesus’s parables, personal word pictures, legends, or historical anecdotes. In a previous post, we looked at the way Nathan the prophet used a symbolic story to gently confront David about his sin. Using a symbolic story that represented David’s situation (rather than exposing it explicitly from the get-go) softened David’s heart and brought him to a place of repentance. Symbolic stories are powerful!
Let me ask a question. When was the last time you told someone the story of Jesus Christ? Can you remember?
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A disciple’s desire is to joyfully spread the good news of Jesus with others. Yet many followers of Jesus struggle to share the gospel story on a regular basis. Why? Since the gospel has the power to restore people to a right relationship with God, it encounters the most spiritual resistance of any story. Satan wants to stamp it out before we share it with other people. But as disciples of Jesus, we have no excuse to keep God’s good news to ourselves. We must push past the enemy’s resistance and our own inhibitions so we can proclaim the good news even more boldly to a world that’s literally dying to hear.
In this post, I’ll offer 3 strategies to help you spread the gospel story with confidence.
One of the best ways to reach people is through storytelling. Storytelling softens people’s hearts and makes space for transformation. In the last post, we talked about the why behind storytelling. Youth leaders tell stories because Jesus told stories, people remember stories, and creation is a story. But which stories should leaders tell? There are three kinds of storytelling leaders should learn: The Gospel story, symbolic stories, and life stories.