Earlier this year, I felt a strong sense that something was wrong in our student ministry. Something was very wrong. Our youth ministry drifted from an others-first outreach to a safehouse for believers to gather.
Now, some people think I’m a heretic for thinking the “safehouse” mentality is wrong. I want to clarify that I definitely think that we should gather with other believers. But, as I read the Gospels, Jesus was never interested in only serving those who were already “found.” He was known for spending time with those who needed rescued. He would leave the 99 and go after the 1. We were spending all our time with the 99.
We had slipped into mediocrity.
At the right time, God gave me a big vision for a big change. Right off the bat, I knew it was what God had for us to do. But I also knew that we would have to count the cost of this change.
Over the next week or so, I’m going to be hitting the high points of how we’re going through the process of driving change. Our student ministry is in its 7th week of the change I’m referring to, so I’m by no means an expert. However, I feel like there may be church leaders who might have a vision for big change out there, and that are afraid to go through with it because of the consequences.
Before I move on with this series, you need to know the core principle of driving change:
If It’s a God-given vision; if God told you to move, then you’d better move. If God is calling you to drive change, He will equip you. He’ll raise up people around you. But even if He doesn’t, you’d better move.
Tonight, in our student services, we’re celebrating what God has done. We’ve spent this last summer training 12 students to lead their peers. For the last 7 weeks, we’ve seen God move in big ways – bigger than I originally expected. Tonight, we’re baptizing the students who have made decisions for Christ since we made our change. My hope is that the sight of so many students standing up for Christ will influence others to do the same. I hope to post a clip of the service to give you a little more context into what our student ministry is up to.
I’m looking forward to working through this series. As I post, if you resonate with the idea of driving change in your organization, I’d love to hear from you. This blog typically isn’t comment-heavy, but I’d love to hear about what you’re going through in your context.