Youth and Kids Ministry Basics—What, Why and How
In youth and children's ministry, leaders pour their hearts into their work, sacrificing time on Friday nights, Sunday mornings, and various points throughout the week. The sacrifices are worth it. But after a long week/term/year, it’s easy to forget what we’re on about, why we’re on about it, and how we go about it.
For many youth and kids leaders, much of what I’m about to talk about here is as obvious as the fact that Taylor Swift sings songs, and Michael Jordan played basketball. But I still think we need to be reminded of this stuff, and be on the same page.
So what are we doing? Why do we do it? How will we do it?
1. What Are We Doing?
Making Disciples
Jesus' great commission to "go and make disciples of all nations" sets the cornerstone of our ministry. We want to make disciples. That’s what we’re on about. A disciple is simply a “student”. We want to make disciples or students of Jesus. This means that we want to see youth and kids become disciples of Jesus. We want to see conversion and baptisms. We want to see youth and kids baptised in “the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19).
And we want to see youth and kids grow as disciples of Jesus. If what we wanted to do was make a massive, insanely fun youth group, we’d pour all of our energy into fun games, great music, and crazy good food and drinks—and those aren’t necessarily bad things to invest in. But, at the end of the day, we want to make disciples of Jesus. That’s what we’re going to spend our time and energy on.
We also want to make disciples of all nations. This certainly means that we want to be focussing outwards toward the nations beyond Australia. But the word “nations” can also mean “people groups”. One of the exciting things about living in Sydney is that the nations have already come to us. You can obey the “all nations” part of Jesus’ command simply by leading in youth and kids ministry at your local church,.
Occasionally someone will point to the fact that Jesus was only talking to his disciples when he said to them, “Go and make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:19).” Then they’ll say that Jesus’ command only applies to the disciples. We’re off the hook. If you want to know why that argument is unhelpful, see my article titled, “Why the Great Commission is for All Disciples”.
Making Disciple-Making Disciples
The command to make disciples of all nations isn’t just for us. It’s for the youth and kids too. We want them to be on about the same thing. We want them to be disciples who seek to make disciples. We want them to be sharing the good news of Jesus with their non-Christian friends. We want them to be helping each other grow as disciples of Jesus.
Making Obedient Disciples
Being made a disciple of Jesus means being obedient to Jesus. Jesus says, “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you (Matthew 28:19-20).” In my experience, people often forget to emphasise the “obedience” part of the great commission. But it was so important to Jesus … that he said it. He wants us to make disciples who obey what he says. He wants to change our youth and kids. He wants to transform them. And he wants to change and transform the leaders too.
And what does a baptised, growing, obedient disciple look like?
Making Maturing Disciples
We can also describe a baptised, growing, obedient disciple as a “maturing” disciple. So, we want to make maturing disciples. In Colossians 1:28 we read, "He is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ."
What does it mean to present someone “fully mature in Christ?” In Ephesians 4:13, Paul talks about how he wants Christians to “become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.” Becoming “mature” means attaining to the whole measure of Christ’s fullness. That’s a complicated way of basically saying that becoming mature means becoming like Jesus. As our youth and kids hear the gospel, become Christians, get baptized, and become disciple-making disciples who obey Jesus, we want to see them become more like Jesus. That’s what we’re on about.
Making Bible-Receiving Disciples
How do we become like Jesus? In Ephesians 4:11-12, just before Paul talks about us becoming “mature”, he mentions that “Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people”. For now, let’s just hone in on the bits about the apostles, prophets and equipping. How has Jesus given the apostles and prophets to our youth and kids? We don’t see the apostle Peter rocking up in the flesh to Youth on Friday night, nor do we see the prophet Jeremiah physically present on Sunday mornings. But we do hear the words of the apostles and prophets as we read the New Testament (written by the apostles) and Old Testament (written by the prophets). So, Christ equips us to become mature like him as we receive what he gives us: the words of the apostles and prophets. Therefore, we want our youth and kids to be Bible-Receiving Disciples. This will involve us evangelising, pastoring and teaching our youth and children (even if you don’t see yourself as a Billy Graham “evangelist”, a John Piper “pastor”, or a Don Carson “teacher”).
Making Serving Disciples
One of the ways we become like Jesus is through serving. Just a moment ago when we looked at Ephesians 4, I talked about how Jesus equips us through the Bible to become mature. But I actually skipped a bit in the middle. Verses 11–13 read as follow:
So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature…
Christ gives us apostles and prophets (and the others). The apostles and prophets equip us. They equip us for works of service. The works of service are supposed to build people us. The “building people up” bit results in us becoming “mature”.
My point here: we want to make disciples who are “serving disciples”, the kinds of disciples who are looking to the building-up others, so that others can become like Jesus.
Therefore, we want to find ways for our youth to serve. This can be roster stuff. We can encourage our youth and kids to find ways to serve in an organised way, perhaps giving talks, running games, organising crafts, leading discussion groups. We can—and in some thought not all cases should—encourage them to do this kind of rostered stuff.
We can encourage our youth and kids to serve in more unstructured ways. Welcoming the new kid. Inviting their friends to come. Being helpful participants in discussion groups. Being ready and willing to offer up prayer points when it comes to prayer time.
We can even get the youth to serve with stuff like set-up and packup. Putting out and packing up chairs and tables. Vacuuming. Taking out the bins. Although not explicitly sharing the Bible with others, these kinds of tasks make sure that the Bible stuff can happen. These can be great entry-points for youth and kids to serve.
Making Loving Disciples
When asked what is the greatest commandment in Matthew 22, Jesus replied:
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments (Matthew 22:37–40).
Love is heaps important. We want our youth and kids to love God with everything they have. Just like Jesus loves his Father. And we want them to love each other (and us). This character stuff is important. They can know all the answers in discussion group, remember all the memory verses, be reasonably well behaved, but then fail to actually love God and love people. This is a heaps big problem. In fact, John tells us in his first letter that “Anyone who does not do what is right is not God’s child, nor is anyone who does not love their brother and sister.” (1 John 3:10)
So there we have what we’re on about in youth and kids ministry. We want to make disciples. And we want these disciples to be disciple-making-disciples, obedient disciples, maturing disciples, Bible-receiving disciples, serving disciples, and loving disciples. But why?
2. Why Are We Doing This?
Why do we do it? Why do we want to see these things?
It’s not about us
This may seem self-evident to you, but I’m constantly surprised how often this point gets missed. We don’t do youth and kids ministry for ourselves. We don’t do it so that we have something to do on a Friday night or a Sunday morning. We don’t do it because we enjoy it. We don’t do it because we want to avoid the guilt of saying “no” when asked. We don’t do it so we can say that we’ve ticked a box. If that’s what is driving you to do youth and kids ministry, perhaps this isn’t the ministry for you. In fact, perhaps no ministry is for you. Because ministry is not about us. We have to be crystal clear about this. As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:5, “What we preach is not ourselves”.
It's not about them
It’s not about them either. It’s not about the youth and the kids.
You might try and throw Colossians 1:28 at me. “He is the one we proclaim … so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ.”
“Did you see that Marty? We proclaim Jesus so that we present the youth and kids mature in Christ. We do youth and kids ministry for them. To make them like Jesus.”
My response: yes. But that’s not the ultimate goal. It’s sub-ultimate. Why do we want to see the youth and kids become like Jesus? Answer:
It’s about God’s glory
It’s to the praise of God’s glory. In Ephesians 1:3-14, we see that everything that God does is so that he might be glorified. His plan from before the creation of the universe to save people. His work in redeeming us through Jesus. His giving us the Holy Spirit as an inheritance guaranteeing our adoption to sonship. This is all part of a bigger goal: that he might be glorified.
Everything God does is for his own glory. And that doesn’t make him a narcissistic self-obsessed, egomaniac. The highest form of love God can show to humanity is to draw them towards what is supremely good – which is God Himself, in his glory. Human beings are designed to find their greatest joy and fulfillment in God. God's desire to see himself glorified is therefore an act of love because it directs people to the ultimate source of joy and satisfaction.
Everything Jesus does is for God’s glory. In John 17 he prays, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that your Son may glorify you” (17:1) and then adds, “I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do (17:4)”. Everything he does, including enduring death, he does for God’s glory.
Christian maturity is about becoming like Jesus. Therefore, the reason we do stuff is the same reason Jesus does stuff. To bring glory to God. It’s why we were created (Isaiah 43:7). It’s why we were saved (Ephesians 1:3-14). “So,” As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10:31, “whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” We proclaim Christ so that youth and kids become mature. Becoming mature means becoming like Christ. But becoming like Christ means glorifying God. Therefore, the ultimate reason we do youth and kids ministry is that God is glorified. We need to be 100% committed to this.
This brings us to our third and final question.
3. How do we do this?
The passages we’ve just looked at give us some helpful pointers.
With Power
Our ministry is not based on human strength but on the power granted through Christ. In Matthew 28:18, Jesus tells us that he has been given all authority, and then, in 28:20, he assures us: “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” Colossians 1:29 reminds us that this same Jesus is at work through us: “To this end I strenuously contend with all the energy Christ so powerfully works in me.” At the end of the day, it’s Christ’s power at work! It ultimately depends on him.
With Strain
At the same time, ministry involves struggle and effort, as indicated in Colossians 1:29. “To this end I strenuously contend with all the energy Christ so powerfully works in me.” Yes, Christ is ultimately the one at work. But he chooses to work through us, through our toil. He uses us to achieve his goals. Sometimes ministry will be hard. The youth and kids will be ratbags. The other leaders will get on our nerves. The parents will whinge that their kids aren’t having enough fun. We have to push through this with all the energy that Christ so powerfully works in us. Why? Because of all of the reasons above!
With Truth
We disciple our youth and kids armed with the truth. Jesus is “The Truth” (John 14:6) and he has given us the truth of the gospel. We direct the youth to this gospel, found in the Bible. We do this in our talks, in discussion groups, when chatting with youth and kids before or after youth, maybe even meeting up with them during the week to read the Bible. Our ministry has to be rooted in truth. So, we “speak the truth…” (Ephesians 4:15).
With Love
Which brings us to love. Ephesians 4:15 again: “We speak the truth with love”. As we share the truth, we do so with love. Yes, as we heard before, the youth and kids, the leaders and even the parents may get on our nerves. But we’re called to love. As we’re reminded in Ephesians 4:16, “From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.”
With Prayer
Prayer is the backbone of our ministry. We depend on God for everything. We can prep crazy hard, have the best games, the best talks, the best discussion groups, the best welcoming, the best inviting, but if God’s not at work, what will this amount to? We need God! We really, really need him. Therefore, we need to be people of prayer.
Why not pray a prayer like this for ourselves, our youth and our kids:
"Heavenly Father, we, along with our youth and children, kneel before You, recognising that every family in heaven and on earth derives its name from You. We pray, from Your glorious riches, that You would strengthen us all—adults, young people, and children—with power through Your Spirit in our inner beings. May Christ dwell in our hearts, across all ages, through faith.
Help us to be rooted and established in love. Grant us, our youth, and our children the power, together with all Your holy people, to grasp the vast dimensions of Christ's love—how wide, how long, how high, and how deep it is.
Let us all truly know this love that surpasses knowledge, so that we, along with our younger generations, may be filled to the measure of all Your fullness. Now to You, who are able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to Your power at work within us all, be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever! Amen."
