Steps Forward in Advancing Youth Ministry

As a church, our mission is to live and share the gospel. The gospel is the wonderful message that Jesus Christ, God’s Son, reconciles us to the Father. This reconciliation, a loving gift of God’s grace, is ours as we receive it by faith, placing our trust fully in Jesus.

In this relationship of love and trust, we are blessed by the ministry of God the Holy Spirit—a ministry that focuses on leading us in obedience to Jesus’ command to love (the great commandment) and Jesus’ command to make disciples (the great commission). Our desire as a denomination is to walk in step with the Spirit by assisting our members and congregations to grow in their faithful ability to live in harmony with Jesus’ commands. That desire extends to all our members, and a particular concern is our youths (children, teens and college age young adults).

Commitment to serve youths

We have commitment to serve our youths by growing healthy youth ministries. We are living out that commitment in a number of important ways.

First, we multiplied our summer camps from a single central camp to several regional camps (six in the summer, one in the winter and we hope to add an eighth next summer). The fruit of this migration to a regional camp model has meant not only serving hundreds of children and teens, but also helping to equip dozens of youth workers.

During last year we also provided various regional and district youth ministry events including Discovery Weekends for youths and Builder Conferences for youth workers. We also addressed children’s ministry issues at our 2002 regional conferences. Finally, we provided advanced training for several key youth ministry leaders who will, in turn, train others.

The year ahead

In the year ahead, we’re going to keep moving forward. We’ll continue to build our regional camps, and we will have many Discovery Weekends. Additionally, at the 2003 regional conferences we’ll provide specialized training for our pastors in advocating and facilitating youth ministry in their congregations. We hope many congregational youth ministry leaders will also participate. We’ll then supplement this training with additional Builder Conferences and with articles here in The Worldwide News as well as specialized articles for pastors and youth workers appearing in various places, including our web sites (including http://genmin.gci.org/).

Congregational level youth ministry

The purpose for our national, regional and district initiatives will be to strengthen youth ministry at the primary point of delivery—our congregations. And the overarching mission of our youth ministries will be to multiply young disciples of Jesus Christ who will, themselves, live out Jesus’ commands to love and to make disciples. Our vision is to see the multiplication of young disciples who make disciples.

Youth ministry team

To help advance this vision, I’m pleased to announce another key step forward. We have formed a national youth ministry development team. Team members are Jeb Egbert and Ted Johnston.

Jeb has served as a leader in youth ministry for many years, including directing the Summer Educational Program (SEP) in Orr, Minnesota, and serving on the faculty at Ambassador University in Big Sandy, Texas.

Ted has served in leadership in youth ministry in the church since the early 1970s and has served as camp chaplain at SEP camps for the last several years.

Jeb and Ted work together as a team reporting to me as the director of U.S. Church Administration. Jeb focuses on national and regional programs, including the regional camps. Ted focuses on liaison with district and congregational youth ministry leaders. Jeb may be contacted atjeb.egbert@gci.org and Ted at ted.johnston@gci.org.

Mission statement

As an extension of Church Administration, the development team’s mission is summarized in the following mission statement:

The mission of the national youth ministry development team is to facilitate the growth of great commandment-great commission healthy youth ministries to multiply young disciplemaking followers of Jesus.

This emphasis on great commandment-great commission health is reflected in the team’s logo, where the heart represents the great commandment of love, the cross represents the great commission to make disciples and the emblem GC2 stands for great commandment-great commission.

In order to facilitate youth ministry, the development team uses vision casting, leadership multiplication, resourcing and measurement strategies. The team’s primary emphasis is on identifying, developing, networking and resourcing great GC2 healthy youth ministry leaders in districts and congregations that lead youth ministries to seek the lost, build believers, equip workers and multiply and send additional leaders—all for the purpose of giving birth to a new generation of disciplemaking followers of Jesus.

The development team works in accordance with the following key result area objectives:

Share the vision: Communicate a compelling, biblically faithful vision for growing GC2 healthy youth ministries to seek, build, equip and multiply young disciplemaking followers of Jesus.

Multiply leaders: Facilitate the identification, development, networking and resourcing of GC2 healthy youth ministry leaders including regional camp directors, district youth coordinators and local youth ministry leaders.

Resource ministries: Develop and deploy resources that support GC2 healthy youth ministry growth:

Identify and network GC2 healthy youth ministries and ministry leaders to serve as models and mentors and for peer-to-peer support.
Assist pastors in the development of intergenerational, youth-friendly congregations, including identifying, developing, networking and resourcing youth ministry leaders.
Assist pastors and youth ministry leaders in developing youth ministries in congregations, including identifying, developing and deploying young leaders-in-training.
Use regional and district youth ministry venues (including SEP camps) to build GC2 healthy young disciples and youth ministry leaders who will advance multigenerational disciplemaking in their congregations.

Measure progress: Monitor youth ministry at all levels for GC2 healthy growth. Publicize progress to model forward movement. Inform district superintendents, pastors and youth ministry leaders of needs for remedial action at the local level.

One final note, please pray for our youths, our youth ministries and for Jeb and Ted, our national youth ministry development team.

2002