I was watching my friend Parker the other night. He is an incredible student leader and a talented young man.
He was working lights at our Saturday night service during our "You Own the Weekend" series. He was killing it, super passionate, incredibly creative—even his parents came to see his work!
I looked around the room and was so happy—adults were around talking to students and generally keeping order—but in most cases, students were serving in a ton of areas.
Got me thinking—when did this happen? I can think of a time not too long ago when we didn’t have students serving in any significant way. When did students really start serving at our services like this? When did Parker move from attendee to ingenious lighting guy extraordinaire?
The answer was simple—when we had a place for him to serve! When we had all sorts of specific opportunities, students jumped in! We made it simple to get involved, we had something for everyone at all levels of spiritual commitment.
Made me wonder if maybe you’re frustrated because students aren’t involved in your ministry … and maybe it is because there isn’t a role ready for them to immediately jump into. Maybe you have some ideas in your head, but it isn’t clear to them.
Maybe you want them to merge with your ministry, but they’re having some trouble finding the "on ramp." Seems elementary I know, but it made a huge change for us that paid massive dividends.
Josh Griffin has been in youth ministry for 16-plus years in one small church and one big church. He currently serves as the High School Pastor at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif. His original blogs can be found at morethandodgeball.com.
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