What only do in this section is continue to talk about vision statements and developing them and why they're significant as you've been reading Through Purpose Driven Youth Ministry He identifies the five purposes of the church as well as the five audiences have you read that section so far Okay, what were the five purposes of the church? Okay worship Ministry All right Three more Okay, okay, what's the last one? All right, there certainly are other words that we could use to identify With these things for instance ministry could be called missions Evangelism could be called outreach discipleship could be called growth and you're gonna hear different terms As we talk about this I want you to take one minute turn to the person to your right or left and I want you to prioritize which of these are the most important one to five And let's take one minute so this get together in pairs real quickly and do that starting now ready go Okay, time's up. Who's got the list the perfect list. All right Who was the shoot There's no perfect list. All right. What do you guys put? Immediately you were quick. Okay, which one most important? Okay worship is first All right, what's second? Okay, what do you guys put what do you guys put for first? Who all put worship first? Everybody you guys? What's up? Yes, we're eating your cheese nips. They're having a good time. Why don't you okay fellowship first? Okay fellowship first? All right So he's the feel good guy. Hey, let's just have a party. They're not for worship And he's got food here. He's got a doctor pepper. He's gonna told us what the slogan was and he's got the cheeses all right So you drew that's true. Okay, you got me there. All right, so you guys got worship you guys have fellowship first, but you don't agree And you might get anything for second Okay, worship evangelism Okay, so it was in the top two Just type of ship. Okay Third, okay Let me ask you a different question You've been hired This is your first year You've been asked to come to a session meeting with the five purposes here They want you to pick which one you're gonna concentrate on the first year Then continue that on and to accomplish all five at a level. It's very successful. What are you gonna say? Take a minute come over the answer No, which one are you gonna do first then second and third and fourth and But you're gonna do it for a year. You're focused on this one and you're gonna build consecutively from then on all right I want you to think about it. It's a session Your group of elders your leaders
Yes, you are new to the church Yep Any youth ministry context Fellowship and talk together. Oh, it's together. I'm sorry Based on your convictions of the first time. It shouldn't be much different. What did you say? Did anything change? Okay, why Because you think if you say fellowship, they're gonna think oh this guy just looks like fun in games Okay, good. What do you say second? Okay, so worship went further down. Whoo. Okay, David's not going to do very well. All right Worship moves further down. Did you just eliminated from the whole thing?
Discipleship because you want to challenge them to go deeper than you want to look Let me say so three years after they have a foundation. They can finally worship Roughly Okay, David's not liking this something feels like law school. I'm being attacked. All right somebody else Who's worship first? Okay, let's keep worship first. What are you gonna do in the first year to accomplish your purpose?
Yeah Okay, good
Yeah, okay, good. So you've got to understand what worship is before you can actually worship all right What about the thief on the cross? How much time did he have to be discipled? Did he worship? Man, I bet there was amazing amounts of worship going on in this heart as he's rejoicing that he's no longer Gonna be separated from God your racism. Go ahead
Top building relationships first Yeah, right all right these are good answers, and I'm glad you're thinking let me tell you though that I think the conversation we just had is ridiculous I think it's totally inappropriate But it's one that's had constantly the reason is because we want to prioritize are you gonna be an outreach or in a church? Or you're gonna be a discipleship or in a church As your church primarily focused on growth or outreach in evangelism The word of God doesn't give us such flexibility and freedom. It calls us to all of these things at all times That we should be seeking in our vision to do all of them So that we most effectively are equipping students to understand all that God wants them to be The reason I teach this is because I get asked the question constantly with Doug Phil's book being so popular And it is a very good book some people are frustrated with it because he comes from a church that's so large But the principles are very transferable especially in the area of vision such things as that is that well Which one is most important? I had a tune up our conversation with a colleague once about that and he said If you to pick one which one would you pick? I said I don't have a pit one so I won't Just to come on you got to believe that discipleship and growth is the most important thing And I said I don't in fact if I had to pick one which I don't I wouldn't say that I would say worship Because God says to love them with all of our heart soul strength of mine He said God, but you don't understand the way he is you can't worship him I said I don't think that's true. I think you can worship God with very limited knowledge But that knowledge has to be centered on what you understand of his grace and power But if you can understand your need and what he's done for you. That's a pretty simple message. You can worship God Now some people hear that and they're like, well, I don't know if it should be first Well, you don't have to decide that But if you don't make it a priority and all of them a priority You're not succeeding as someone who's called to the youth ministry Simply aren't you're picking and choosing the things you're most passionate about that you think are most important But you're not necessarily taking a biblical approach to all these things every one of these are important and we must pursue we don't have to deal with the question which is most important now And it comes to strategy how you implement them? Doesn't necessarily mean that's what you think is most important it means based on where your group is the context of it your Relationship with them. This is what you're going to do in the way you say your priorities. Does that make sense? For instance worship doesn't have to be a large band singing praise songs to lots of students who are singing worship could be prayer Sitting in a circle just asking God praising God Confessing his attributes honoring him. That's worship. It could be three kids could be two it could be one It could be a multitude Don't allow necessarily style to dictate what we're saying here outreach Outreach doesn't have to be a large mega-youth event broom ball hockey Some other kind of super pizza party that invites lots of people. It could be one student saying I have a passion for my friends How can I share the gospel with them and you take them through EE or through powerful vangilism for the powerless or something like that? Fellowship really unwind almost everything you do because students are so social and active There's an element of that that takes place throughout everything whether it's doing a road trip with them driving to get surely dogs in a state three states away or whether it's going to amusement park whatever that's fellowship ministry missions It could be serving in China or in Mexico or down the street making cookies for someone who's husband recently passed away Discipleship could be in the form of one-on-one one on five five on five in lots of different ways But all of them are important and how you flush them out will largely depend on the staff you have The funds you have And the style your personality and the way it influences everything. Does that make sense? So don't get into the argument of which ones most important don't you want to excel in all of them? When you love to have just the most amazing discipleship program There's causing your students to love God with other hopes to strengthen mine. I Don't fight a worship, but also to love their neighbors and self seeking to just evangelize as many as possible Because if they're evangelizing students going out in the name of Christ Remember the lesson God is as interested in what he's doing in their life as he is a student. They're sharing the gospel with That's powerful that will transform so all these things have to exist any questions so far just as we discuss that Well, we'll really move into the five different audiences That fills mentions in his book Do you remember the names? Five audiences identify different types of students I'll tell you what mine are minor different, but they're pretty much the same and lots of different books have them we start Not with seeker we've heard a lot about the term seeker seeker sensitive churches things like that We don't start with seeker because there's a large population in fact the largest population that isn't seeking anything They're certainly not seeking the church. We call them spectators And these are students Who come down Clayton Road and see our church their students who have seen me on their campus They're just pretty much anybody in the world that doesn't have a relationship with Christ They're spectator they watch things they see things, but they're just simply spectators paying attention to some things not to others The second one is the seeker these are people who have turned a corner and at least are interested in Something we've done they they have a relationship with one of our students that come to one of our events or they participated in something That might have been very informal Whether it was going out to get something to eat with a couple friends, whatever, but they're seekers at some level They're interested. They're asking questions. They're at least showing up Third level is the believer Now, this is someone at the basic level Has responded to the call of Christ they have a relationship with their Lord. They are believers Fourth level is disciple The disciple has moved beyond believer in the sense that they're really taking serious They're passionate to grow in the Lord their understanding of his word and theology Understanding of what it means to love the neighbor as themselves and the last level is a leader And these are students who basically are taking what they learned as disciples And becoming leaders in the group and the way they help set the goals The structure and their commitment level increases that they'll be involved in pretty much all the different things that we do and are constantly asking how can I serve in This capacity you could put a lot of different words there You can make them all start with ass. I think that feels does that or one letter You can do anything you want with that doesn't matter to me, but these are the ones that we use and it's a basic stair step Process you know spectator Seeker believer disciple leader. It's also a triangle where leaders Represent the smallest portion of this spectators the largest seekers next Believers then disciples all the way up to leaders the purpose of this is to identify What are we supposed to do with who are we supposed to do it for and with is that make sense and that creates a formula that Doug feels talks about Which is the purpose statement for any event program resource that you create First thing you asked is what is our purpose and who was our audience purpose plus audience equals the program So let me have some fun What's how many of you are involved in some Sunday school somewhere? How many of you are involved in Sunday school as a student when you're in high school or I just start there. What was the purpose of your Sunday school hour? Of the five here. Okay, so discipleship was the purpose Who is the audience? Okay? Would that be all of that maybe
Okay, so mostly this category here okay somebody else would you say the same pretty much? That's why the Sunday school hours usually not that good Because it's not focused enough In terms of what it's trying to accomplish that it becomes too broad and doesn't accomplish much at all Some people say we shouldn't have Sunday school. It's the worst wasted hour I don't think it's a wasted hour, but I think it's very poorly organized in most places Very poorly understood about what we're trying to accomplish and it could be any of these things Some Sunday schools have an amazing amount of seekers coming other ones focused mostly on disciple or leader and Certainly these three can be broadly put together at times, but there certainly are individual things that the leaders need to be attending As it all as it goes down from there to the end the point is everything that we do in ministry ought to have a clear Purpose statement for what we're trying to accomplish This is especially true in areas of evangelism and discipleship Fellowship as I mentioned pretty much can undergar all of this worship has specific times and missions will have specific times But evangelism and discipleship are so connected in In terms of how most people in the ministry do stuff that neither one happens that effectively in other words They'll say well we have a youth group that's kind of for discipleship and evangelism Well, I don't know too many seekers spectator seekers who are really excited to come to most up that's centered on discipleship practices And so really we should begin to identify things that are more specific Few years ago in our youth ministry we were focusing on the first word bring students into the body of Christ and I said to our students How do you think we're doing with the first line of revision statement and they said you're doing we're doing great Look how big it's got that's growing. It's doubled. So it went from like, you know four to eight It's doubled in size. We're excited with what's going on here and I said But are we really bringing students into the body of Christ our new students coming to the Lord and then connecting and And they're like, I think so and so then I went on there was a joy. How many of your friends have come to Christ David? How about you? kind of how about you And they're like, well, none How many of you invited to anything we do I'm not gonna fight my friends to this They don't know Lord. Why? Oh, because they you know, they wouldn't like it. We talk about the Bible too much or whatever I was like see we're not doing that good. Are we about bringing students in the body of Christ and they realized we're not And I said, I think we need to create something new and You guys help us create it that you'd be excited about inviting your friends to And so they got together and they began to pray and think about what is it they'd be wanting to invite their friends to And as they did it they created this idea, which was called crew, which is the name of a group carried out of your crew Money nights which would be an outreach event. They would have a Bible story that could communicate and connect to students who are lost It would have a fun time of lots of different things But it'd be something they would all be excited about participating in and then we began to see that first line of our mission statement Beginning to make a difference The reason it did was because it was very purpose oriented. It would be about Evangelism and it would be for these two audiences Not the believer not the disciple and not the leader the message would not be centered on them It would be centered on these two Now Would they get something out of it? Absolutely because the gospel should always give us something every time we hear reminded of our need thankful for what Christ has done But it's not going to be law It's not going to be intense. It's going to be addressed to ours. Are they going to get anything else anywhere else during the week? Absolutely Sunday morning and a small group wherever else But we had to realize we're not doing that well In the area of evangelism. Does that make sense? And so we got very specific now I start here as we talk about vision statements because we have to identify What is it we're called to do and how or who are we going to go do it with? Once you begin to identify that and whatever terms you want Make sure it's biblical of course, which this is and then move forward With the statement about how you're going to accomplish this we use the terms bring students into the body of Christ Well, that includes worship That includes ministry that includes fellowship that includes discipleship and it includes evangelism But it gets more specific if someone said what does it bring really mean? Well, primarily it's going to be about evangelism Bring the action verbs or critical here nurture is going to be primarily about Discipleship and equip is going to be primarily about ministry Worship and fellowship will be a part of all of it not necessarily which is seen But we will be worshiping God as we lift up his name We will be fellowshiping as we have relationship time in all those meetings. Does that make sense? We summarize it at the bottom by saying it's all by the grace of God all for the glory of God Which shows is our foundation? It is worship that this is all centered on kids moving towards worshiping God whether that's individually or Corpably so our vision statement then becomes the tool for us to evaluate whether or not we're doing it effectively and So how do you do it? What do you do? What are the steps to build a vision statement? Well, let's talk about it for a few minutes first thing I think this is important is to look at books and resources that will help you ask good questions Doug Phil's book will help you do that there are other books in the business world that will help you identify that one I mentioned earlier It's not the big that eat the small but the fast that eat the slow is kind of a pioneering book about what mission statements look like Stephen Covey books are good for these kinds of things as they ask good questions about what you're trying to accomplish But that's not the most important the most important thing to do is to spend time in prayer to spend time really looking To the word of God and praying Lord What is it you want us to do light of the five things you've given us in scripture these audiences that you want us to meet their needs What is it you really want us to do and how can I articulate that and just ask God to give you wisdom? Go on a silent retreat. I have to do that whenever I start thinking about vision stuff I've got a cabin. It's at an insbroke This is a little community not far from St. Louis where I can go sit at this little apron cabin Be as quiet as I want for as long as I need to and I have to do that to get distracted from my cellphone from my laptop from email So I can just think about what is it that God wants me to do? So listen to prayer of others You know, it's help parents. I'm gonna be going away this weekend just to think about the vision statement for you Would you pray for me and then listen? Listen to God for direction open the word allow those words to come off the page and help shape what it is You're wanting to do you don't have to be super creative. It's okay to steal It's okay to give credit to where credit is due, but don't necessarily try to recreate the will Don't try to be too clever Simply take what's good if it fits use it tweak the words if you think there are better words Draw the vision statement from God's word. It must be the foundation We've used is our foundation Matthew 22 the great commandment and the great commission Love the Lord your God with all your heart so strength of mind love your neighbors yourself Matthew 22 go and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father of Son and Holy Spirit Matthew 28 that's where we draw these things from this is what God's called us to do It also guards us from going in the wrong direction Nobody's gonna look at this and say well fellowships not biblical or Discipleships not biblical that it is and you can clearly draw from scripture Passages that you want to use that are gonna help motivate Hebrews 10 for instance is one that we would use under fellowship Let us not give up meeting is somewhere in the habit of doing but let us encourage one another and all the more as you see the day approaching Those are important things Another thing to do is to list your core values Your purpose statements here, but now you're getting down to core values. What are the things that we're gonna be about? These are the five purposes, but what are your core values? For instance some might be we will never do any activity Other than corporate worship on Sunday might be a core value. We're not gonna have youth group or small groups We don't have that on Sunday nights. It's not one of ours, but it might be one of yours And so you need to put that We're not gonna have students be out of the at a church activity more than once a week other than Sunday worship Because you could I mean if a student in the ministry that I'm a part of wanted to do something Sunday night Tuesday night Wednesday night Thursday night They could those are formal activities One of my core values is to discourage kids from doing that much I wanted to be involved in a couple But not all but we have a lot So that kids can get involved in multiple ways, but not always does that make sense? Another thing is to then make sure your core values Have been those of other people What are the elders core values? What you're seeing your pastors core values? What are the parents core values? And what are the students core values? You must solicit others you need to compare your values to the values of other ministries You can be way off You could think you're going in the right direction But then when you look at other ministries and talk to people there, you realize theirs aren't the same You should ask why now sometimes you have good answers and good reasons but sometimes you might not And then limit the list to the most important values. Don't simply try to make it massive But what's most important? What's what's core? You might break it down this way This is something that we do Is you have your core? Values right there You have the things that you know they're strong convictions and then you have your commitments These are important to distinguish These are the things that exist We talk about youth choir for example, that would be a good example where it's not a core value for me in this ministry to have Choir I could go to another church where that's a core value for them You better believe I'm going to adopt that as one of mine as well because it's been there at success when it's exciting and so I would do that Convictions, you know People have different convictions about different things Commitments of things that get a little bit looser, but you know you're committed to and you have to understand how significant That is as you walk people through that some people will take the commitments you have and they make that there's their core You want to know who they are and why they're thinking it's certainly want to listen to them and get insight you don't want to make a commitment in Your eyes something that somebody has as a core that they're willing to die for that maybe you should be too You need to really seek the council letters. That's very very critical one of the safest ways to do that Especially if you're new to a church is simply make sure that your vision statement is compatible with that of the whole church Now my church's vision statement is big It's well written and it's exciting by God's grace. We seek it's just a field to and there's a paragraph That's way too big for any student to ever memorize It's certainly something we refer to a lot, but the language of our vision statement is very compatible with that Of course like grace will service those kinds of things are very very significant in our vision statements The elders and the senior pastor and associate pastor and the other team endorse what we do They're glad that we have our own because it speaks specifically to what we're trying to do But it uses similar language the churches vision statement also has a slogan Living for Christ that others might live which we use often with our students and it connects them to the church Image statements so they're not competing and I've seen many churches where they compete lots of them for the youth pastors created one But has no relationship sometimes on purpose even for the rest of the church And that's not very healthy make sure that your vision statement is pleasing to the ears and the eyes Why would I say that's important? Not mean tickling the ears like compromising what you're saying, but that's pleasing to the ears and to the eyes
See
Yeah, and I'm not talking so much here about whether you're putting stuff that would turn people off as much as I am the way it sounds So that people can enjoy it and remember it a vision statement that people don't know or understand and can't remember It's worthless. We summarize ours with one line. We're playing for keeps Most people in our church can't say what our vision statement is I use active verbs because they can say things like Oh, yeah, it's about bringing and equipping and nurturing they can get those. Hey, that's good They can get that much, but they all can say okay more playing for keeps and I say what I mean by that And they say well you you mean that we're really Understanding the need is great. It's urgent. We need a play for keeps. This isn't about fun and games only This is about really playing for the lives of kids And that's exciting that they can remember that and embark upon the same journey as it makes sense and so it's important That's why it needs to be pleasing to the eyes and ears make it clear make it concise. You don't need to use big words And nobody understands make it as short as possible What was Disney's vision statement? Make people happy. What was the elevator one? Keep it tell me somebody specifically. What was it work for word? Nobody knows do you remember it was something about moving up down and sideways? Sure, it doesn't says but you can't say it word for word Disney's you can because it's so simple now. I'm not saying make it one sentence But I think you can make it in a way where it's attractive to the ears to the eyes Also, when you put it on paper use an attractive font. I use something that catches the eyes That really motivates people and you can change it depending on who the audience is like I'm probably not gonna put it on a statement That goes to parents with the same font that I'm gonna use it goes to students I might if I chose a really great font, but I probably would try to be more sensitive All right, any questions about Developing it and putting on paper what it's supposed to look like Let's talk about promoting it then First thing that's most important is allow the leaders in your church to review it I have some friends who didn't do that and there's nothing more discouraging than when you've put hours, weeks, days, and months into something And you launch it and suddenly it's out there and people say well wait a minute. You need to come back in pull that thing off It's no good. We don't like it. It causes the credibility of People you know you and people's eyes to really tumble and also causes people to think you like judgment And also could question the leadership of the church, but they don't like it. It's a bad process and it doesn't need to happen Simply take it to the people who's the best person to sell your vision statement
First it's you then it is your pastor in the session, but you got to sell it to the senior pastor to the elders You have a good relationship and it's biblical most of the time they're not going to have any problem But you're the one who God has given this unique vision you need to take it in there If you simply just have it laying around and you know Give it to somebody and you don't really talk about it Suddenly people will not be excited about it and you won't go to sell it That's a principle that's going to happen a lot for instance You might go to a group and there might be some really cheesy names for the youth group meetings that have been there for years And you walk in and you go I don't like it when I came to Chesterfield They had two names crew KREW was the name of the high school group in zoo was the name of the middle school group They rhyme crew and zoo And that's why they created them crew was created out of this word breakaway at a conference that kids went to and they had to make a Word out of breakaway with the letters they were given they were given KREW and so you're either going to be work spell W E R K or or crew carry W so they spelled it carry W I came in and said hey, you know, I'm not going to change that name. It's fine, but zoo Oh, I didn't like it. I mean how do you encourage a middle school kid to go up to their friends and say hey? You want to come to zoo with me tonight? You know, yeah, let's go look at the animals. I mean they don't understand what it's about people in the church It was funny because it's like a zoo down there. I'm not even sure that's the best description and so I had created a Word a name for the group that I thought would be cool that I think I thought people would like I talked to some students in middle school about it It was going to be crew for the senior high and there's me Jay crew for the middle school All right, and I wasn't going to do the insane word like J.C.R.A.W. because I would go to jail But I was simply going to college a crew what happened was before I could sell it One of the moms got the idea and she heard about it and she put it all over this piece of paper that she's sending out an announcement It went to middle school the announcement pamphlet showed up in the middle school that morning What a middle schoolers look when they see it Suddenly that that zoo is the coolest name in the world. J.C.R.A.W. that's stupid You know, they go off on it, you know, and I'm like, uh-huh. No. I mean J.C.R.W. is a lot cooler than zoo Even if you just spelled zoo backward ooze, I mean it's still cool And we had designs and logos already with that that some students really liked But it wasn't sold in the right way and that's going to be a critical thing So it's now called crash Which I'm indifferent on it's better than zoo. Thank you. I don't think it's as good as J.C.R.W. But that's not for anybody really worried about is it? That's my own little issue The point is allow Yourself to be the one to sell the vision to people and what looks like but you need people to back you the leaders of the church Definitely don't wait till the end invite their criticism put them in the process. I say to my senior pastor Hugh I'm going in. I'm gonna be working on the vision statement. What are some things you think I need to really pay attention to He give me a list. All right. I'll pay attention to that next give it a test run share it with them listen to their thoughts Make needed changes and don't be defensive the worst thing you can do and the initial phases is get real defensive with people instead Step back and ask them. What do you think then once you get it done? It's been approved. You want to give it mass exposure I mean if you can afford to do it within the budget or church I would send a letter to everybody in the church a Personal letter from you and maybe even from a student or two You're so-and-so over the last few months we've been seeking to clarify what is it God's called us to do within the mission statement Within the youth ministry of our church We've created the following vision statement after praying and studying the word of God asking him what does it? We want us to do this is what it looks like boom laid out there We're excited that you'll be able to participate with us in this We say we want to bring students into the body of Christ We ask that you'll be there with welcoming arms helping develop this young generation of students into the body of Christ We're also going to nurture them boom boom all of a sudden people are looking at it going wow our youth Ministry is a lot more than just playing games. Are youth ministries a lot more than just doing relays It's a lot more than just cheesy little Bible studies. They're really got a purpose in a vision And then whenever you stand up at any time after that people will see you in a totally different way Especially when you go to ask people to consider volunteering and being a part because they'll see that there's a big emphasis on where we're going and how we're going to get there any questions and Terms of vision statements that you might have that we could talk about and clarify you know What would be bad in a vision statement? What would be good those kinds of things? So I want to make sure we don't miss anything here
Right You could you could you could have one slogan for each of them you could even have a slogan for each of the different events that you're doing like this right here Now obviously the more you take Our give the hardest to be for people to remember what it is specifically But you could easily do one for each age category age group that you break into ours represents all of student ministries But within each student ministry the middle school is going to have its own little Subvision statement as will the college ministry, but it's still focusing on the same core values
Many people as possible could learn both would be the best what I do is I ask all my leaders to learn the vision statement Now, it's not I don't give them a test they hear at these two guys who work at Chesterfield They could some at some level have said with that vision statement as probably not word for work But eventually they'll be able to also ask that all of our student leaders learn it So we have student leadership meetings on everything. I would give them it'll have our vision statement Almost every time I send a letter or something out it'll have our vision statement and then a little lion at the bottom We're playing for keeps That's critical right there because it sets the tone for how we're going to minister The other simply says this is what we're going to do in ministry And I think it's important to have both because people need to understand What it is we're doing and why we're doing it Some would say you can make too much Of vision statements you can make them they can become too big a deal this book It's not the big deal is small but the fast need to slow they say that That's why they go down into core values and principles which they say are more important It's a great book because it identifies Five businesses and the core principles that they've identified which then helps them make decisions quickly We've identified in our own ministry that we are doing the same thing We have to have those kinds of principles that will help us make decisions so that we're not constantly Spending hours thinking about whether we should do this or that Your principles and vision statements will allow you to make quicker decisions Oh, we're not going to do that because boom For instance You may want to go to a conference The conference is going to be centered on outreach They say they won't They will allow people to wear two-piece bathing suits It's one of your core values you said we're not going to go to conferences where people have Core values immediately you you dissolve that conference you're not going to go there Does that make sense now? I'm not talking about whether you should or shouldn't I'm simply saying that's the way a core principle would allow you to make a decision quickly Um, we're going to go to mission trip We're not going to allow Those who don't have a relationship with Christ to go I'm not saying you should do that I'm saying that would be a principle therefore this trip will be centered on students who know the Lord Therefore they will have get they'll give us a written testimony that written testimony will identify How they know the Lord and then we'll let those go and they'll go so students who come to you who don't know the Lord You can simply say you know what this is a trip for students who based on this category our believers are beyond and you think you Confest you're not there yet. We love you. We're glad you're here But this isn't a trip necessarily for you. Does that make sense? And maybe they come to the Lord through that process It's good now. I'll talk later about how mission trips actually can be good evangelistic trips as well But that's not necessarily for today any other Questions regarding mission statements One of the projects that you you can do is you can participate in Developing your own mission statement before church like in the first year So be thinking about that if that's yours I'd be happy to encourage you anyway. I can one tip of advice is don't spend hours trying to be clever You know if it's something you like already out there use it and build off of that Don't be clever and confused Be creative But also be wise if something's good take it Well, I want to go ahead and wet your appetite for what we're going to do next Section we are going to be looking at how do you build a youth ministry team one of the new things that we're talking a lot about In the ministry that I work with at Chesterfield Is this idea that we don't have enough leaders Working within our ministry and we have quite a few But we still don't feel like we have enough Something I've been working on it's brand new is the thing I call the ratio Of three to one. Have I mentioned this yet? Good. What do I mean by three to one? I'm talking about Relationships here. So what do I mean by three to one Whenever you take a group of kids to a camp the leaders of that camp always want You'd have a ratio of what? Yeah, students the leaders. So what do I mean by three to one? Say that louder? Okay, three students for every one leader now. Would that be a great ratio? I mean credible. I mean most require Five students per every one leader But you know, they'll they'll give a little bit maybe give six or seven. That's not what I mean here What I mean here is three leaders For every one student. I want to wet your appetite with that Because I'm convinced that based on the needs of the culture today It's going to require that many people or more Investing in each student's life To help them grow Into a healthy relationship with Christ Now immediately if I'm sitting in the chair or I'm watching this on tape I'm going to say if that's impossible and it's idealistic and it's foolish to even consider I know I would say that but I'm convinced That we shouldn't allow an idealistic statement To keep us from pursuing whether or not it's truth or whether or not it's even feasible I've convinced it is And it's based on a vision statement that I just shared today We exist to bring students into the body of Christ Therefore if you have a large number of people corporately in your church Then you have enough bodies of people to make this come true The problem is youth pastors and leaders don't know how to get People in the church to take this seriously because ultimately this is the most covenantal model of ministry that exist People when their children are baptized say we are vowing that we will help raise this child Therefore the ratio could perhaps even be bigger than three to one But as they grow into maturity The reality of that taking place in churches does or not exist That's why the vision statement Is so important. We exist to bring students into the body of Christ so that more than one person will be able to disciple them You see in the past and this is brand new for me in the past We've done the idea of we have one leader focusing on about five students who'd be a great thing It's shifting now where I'd like to get 15 leaders focusing on five students Not necessarily in the same way But in very different ways an example would be this There's a boy by the name of Nick Who is 18 years old and is a sophomore in high school He dropped out just the other day. I guess I mean last semester As he's struggling with life He realizes I'm not gonna make it so Nick goes into Our youth group late last spring It comes a Christian during a conference this summer and his needs are enormous in his life Is me Another volunteer But I quickly recognize that there has to be a lot more people Who are not part of his life right now to help him Well, who would they be? I don't mean to go get some sharp College student looks good popular attractive person. Then that's fine too But I can go far beyond that. Who does he really need in his life? He needs a man He needs a father. He needs somebody who can really help him So I think who would that be? Nick has a car about a 1972 Chevy Impala or something like that. I don't know anything about cars. He's having trouble with it I know who I should get There's a man named Harold Harold a man's man He knows how to use his hands to create things. He knows how to build cars So I call Harold and I say Harold who's also got a son in our youth group Would you be willing to spend some time with Nick? Just help him change his water pump. It's broken right now It's a Sunday They meet and sometime during the week they change the water pump So how many hours it takes him to do that? They're talking And here's Harold who would never feel like he could be a youth leader Touching a student's life Suddenly This ratio begins to become a reality Because when I'm not available and that other volunteers not available Harold might be And how great is it for Harold to begin to realize That God is as interested and what he's doing in Harold's life He is he is in Nick's as Harold ministers to him This is what I want to wet your appetite for as we begin to go into the next section Every time I speak somewhere on youth ministry one of the greatest frustrations is how do you find more volunteers? I need more volunteers too. I don't think it's complicated to find them I think we have Not because we asked not We don't know how to ask we don't know what we need And there's a lot of other things we'll talk about next time That causes from failing to have this kind of number That could totally change a student's life and totally change the way ministry looks Let's break Christ we know that you fed 5,000 We know that you walked closely with 12 And even amongst the 12 those three that you were particularly close to Lord That's certainly one the only scope of your ministry and we'd be foolish to think it was But you taught us some great things there And this day and age where bigger seems to be better We confess our temptation to evaluate things Perhaps very inappropriately But Lord the one constant is that you've called us the body of Christ and you've called us to be together And Lord we have worked today on what it means to develop a vision statement It's biblical that will help us pull people together and motivate them to follow you As they invest in high school students' lives Lord we pray that you would help us We pray for each other that you just transform our lives We love you. We pray all this in the name of Christ Amen