Video Transcript: Transformational Discipleship

Okay, we have looked at transformation. We have looked at discipleship. And  now let's put them together, and let's see what we get, two realities that demand a response. The first is that God has created mankind in his image. We are  uniquely created in His image. And then secondly, God has so designed human  development that the one issue that dominates the adolescent stage of life is  that search for identity. Who am I? Why am I here? So youth seek answers to  the identity questions. So again, if one and two are true, what's the purpose of  youth ministry? What is the church's primary response to young people during  the formative adolescent years of their lives? I believe it is to create an  environment in which youth can discover who they are in Christ and so our  mission is equipping leaders to transform at risk youth into the emerging leaders they were created to be. And it involves a process or an approach that we call  transformational discipleship. It's an approach to urban youth development  centered on maximizing the adolescent leadership experience in ways that mold them for future service and motivate the future leaders the children that they  influence. Let's unpack this first. It's an approach. This approach taps youth's  natural desire to influence children, children you can categorize children in three children, and you get children early adolescent and then adolescent. I don't  know what your school system is. Most school systems in the United States  have these three separated, and so they're age related, and they're separated  from the other age groups in their classrooms. They may come together outside  in the playground, but they're pretty much focused on an individual a curriculum  that is designed for a particular age, age group, okay, well, the African proverb is that it takes a village to raise a child. And if you happen to be in a family, a large  family that has a number of children, that you know that as your children, your  older children, play in it, play a part in the raising of the younger children. Well,  this approach takes advantage that it takes advantage of adolescents who  desire to have an impact on children. They want to make a difference, and they  have a natural desire to influence their younger siblings. So it's an approach,  and it's about leadership, maximizing the adolescent leadership experience.  One of the things we're going to learn we'll learn about this when we start talking about leadership in the next section, is that we all lead, and we all lead all of the  time. And so all youth have leadership capacity. They don't know it. Many of  them think of leadership as well. If I'm not the quarterback or the president of the chess club, then I'm not a leader. But that's not true. We all lead, and the task is  to animate or bring to life the adolescent. The capacity that adolescents have for leadership, it will be unique, but that's a part of their uniqueness, and our task is  to maximize the adolescent leadership experience. As they get involved in  working with youth, they'll all be attracted to different things. Some might see the big picture. Some might enjoy the relational part of ministry. Some might enjoy  the organizational side of ministry. These things will come out as they work with  young people, and the idea as the adult leader is to point that out to them. Do 

you see how you have this interest here, how you really gravitated toward this  person of this, this particular need? Wow. You seem to see the big picture. What does that say about you? What does it say about who you are, how you were  created, and what your potential might be? There are two transformational  activities that must take place among young people. The first has to do with  thinking. Need honest youth. Need honest answers to honest questions. Okay,  we need to be able to say, Where is God in all this? And again, Jesus modeled  this for us. But it's all about getting them to think, to examine, and then the  second one is apprenticing. You're discovering while you lead, can you lead and  teach children? And the optimal age is third through fifth grade. The reason I say that is from two different sources. One is Jawanza Kunufu. He wrote a book  called countering the conspiracy to destroy black boys, and he talked about  youth development of black boys and how when they were younger, earlier than  the fourth grade, he said they were, they were they were bright, they were  excited about life, they you could see that they were happy about living, but  something happened to them in the fourth grade. It's almost as if realities began  to settle in, and that's when you began to see, he began to see a dramatic  change in demeanor and behavior of young black boys when they entered the  fourth grade now from an entirely different source, Bob Biehl he he writes about  that, if you want to know who you are, Ask yourself what you were doing in the  fourth grade. And so from these two divergent places, they are both pointing to  the fourth grade as a time, a pivotal point in the life of a child. And that is why  bringing emerging leaders, your adolescent leaders, influencing children at this  time, those adolescent leaders can have a powerful impact on the lives of these  children at this time in their lives, okay, but apprenticing means responsibility  and authority. Somehow you must give them something. You must give your  high school leaders something to do where they have responsibility and  authority. And then finally, they're learning while doing, while they're while they're doing all of their leading, you're there watching. You're helping them discover.  You're helping them interpret the things that are going on. They're dealing with  issues that are coming up in the context of leading. And you're helping them  think through how to how to respond, and they are learning themselves how to  respond. Then third is direction molding for future service. Again, the defining  adolescent question is, who am I? Identity impacts and shapes direction if I  know who I am, and that gives me idea of what I should do. So molding is about  discovering and animating the divine imprint. You're allowing them to not only  understand how God has made them, they're allowing that to mold them into the person they were created to be. Haddon Robinson said this, in any given  situation, who you are determines what you see and what you see determines  what you do. There are three passages here, I think there's three passages  here. One is, I am fearfully and wonderfully made from Psalm 139, Bob Biehl  said, define your uniqueness and maximize its use. And then third, Max DePree 

he said, we really should be in awe of human potential. And then the last part is  legacy, motivating the future leaders that they influence. Again, I think I may  have shared this with you. How. While during the summer I was the chaplain, I'd  be up in my office, and one of these kids would come to me, they come up to my office, and they would say, Can I do what he's doing? Someday, I want to do  what he is doing. The two very powerful discoveries here. One is, for the child, is possibility. And if you've worked, if you work in an inner city setting, and you  know from a child's perspective, when they look out their door, what the what the possibilities are for their lives, sometimes they're not very good. Sometimes they can look outside their door. Sometimes they can look inside their house and be  concerned about their future. But when they meet this person, same  neighborhood, coming out of the same community, and they're seeing this  person, you know, when you're an adult, you certainly can influence children, but when you are a teenager, and you may only be four or five years older than  these kids, all of a sudden, you you, you are exemplifying real possibilities for  that child. And so for the child, it's possibility, but for the Emerging Leader, it's  legacy they are leaving behind, a legacy they will never forget him. They will  never forget that this person was the model for me. This person is telling them  whatever you see in me, you can become so youth ministry, the discipleship,  rich environment, we came up with a phrase, potential and hope ignite when  children see modeled by youth from their neighborhood, possibilities for their  own lives. This is transformational discipleship at work. This is what is with this  kind of environment we can create youth that are coming out of difficult  situations, seemingly without hope at risk because of the pressures and the  what, what the what the community is saying, Who, about who they are and  What they can do. This can create an environment where transformation truly  can take place.