Video Transcript: From What and Why to How

We are continuing our course on urban youth discipleship, and we have come a  long ways. We have spent time rethinking the purpose of youth ministry, about  creating environments in which youth can discover who they are in Christ, and  we've examined the scriptures regarding mission, divine imprint, leadership and  other teachings related to transformational discipleship. Well, now we are  turning to the doing part, how do we press the what and the why of  transformational discipleship into how? How do we do it? And so welcome to  building cathedrals. We're going to learn how to build cathedrals that is young  lives. Our premise is this that leadership pulls mission, growing up urban and  the divine imprint into a powerful adventure of growth, discovery and influence  within the adolescent experience, armed with the knowledge of who they are in  Christ, young leaders can move confidently beyond high school into the God  shaped future awaiting them before we continue, I want to ask a question. Have  you ever been to Disneyland? Probably many of you watching this have not  been Disneyland. I live in Denver, and during the years that we had our ministry,  our youth ministry based in Denver, we would take our youth on mission trips,  sometimes they were overseas, and sometimes they were to different ministries  within the country, and we have friends that will have a wonderful ministry in  California, in Pasadena. And so every summer, after they've gone through a  year, our emerging leaders have gone through a year of teaching elementary  kids, of preparing and designing and leading the summer day camp. After that,  to top off their leadership experience, we would go to another ministry where  they could utilize their skills in another context. Well, one of my favorite places to go was to Pasadena to work with my friends there in the ministry there, and we  had a philosophy, work hard, play hard. So if you you work hard, then you're  going to have some fun. And our fun in Pasadena was going to Disneyland.  Disneyland was a wonderful place. I think it became my favorite place in the  world to go. And the reason is this, I would go there, and I would stand and just  watch everything that was going on and everything was done with excellence.  And I would always ask myself, how do they do it? What's going on behind the  scenes that would allow all of this to take place so well? And so I enjoyed being  there. Was a place where I would just kind of soak in all of that, the wonder of  what was going on and how they did it. I've Have you ever been in a situation  where you've listened to a preacher and for some reason, that preacher just  seems to really hit the nail on the head. It's as if the preaching is that maybe  he's not preaching very long, but what he says is so clear and so precise that it  just goes straight to your heart. I've been a singer for years. I've studied music,  and it's interesting when you get up in front of people and you sing when you're  done, people marvel at it. They may marvel at they may really appreciate your  singing, but they seem to think that it just happens. And that's not the case.  There's all kinds of things going on inside, and having a clear understanding of  what your body is doing, you're having to deal with the it behind the scenes, 

what's going on in the inside, so that what comes out sounds comfortable and  beautiful to. Them. I think use it. I think youth ministry is very similar. Someone  has to get behind the scenes and do the work so that the result is something  that is wonderful. Your kids and your program, they want to you want them to  come and experience something. You want them to experience fun, but also  learning and growing thinking. You want them to experience all of that, which  means, as a leader, you have a lot of work to do to prepare that you do it in such a way that the young person walks away and thinks, wow, I was here for an  hour. It only felt like 20 minutes. Why? Because it was thought through so well.  Someone was behind the scenes making that difference. That's what the youth,  youth ministry is about. That's what the youth leadership, leader does. And so  let's talk about our context. We're basically talking about three different age  groups. The first is late childhood, ages eight through 11. Most youth ministries  have elementary, middle school and high school youth in them. We really like to  focus on late childhood, and the reason for that is the fourth grade from two  different sources, from Jawanza Kunufu, talking about the fourth grade failures  syndrome for black boys to Bob Biehl, talking about, if you want to know who  you are, ask yourself what you were doing in the fourth grade, that is a pivotal  time of growth and change and discovery, and so to allow your high school  leaders to influence this age group is very significant for them. So you have  children, the early adolescents, and then the adolescents who are influencing  the children. And it's circular. It takes the African proverb, it takes a village to  raise a child, so we take advantage of that. So you've got late childhood, and  then you've got early adolescence, ages 12 through 14, and that's when the  early waves of what Chief Stanley Hall called sturm und drang, storm and  stress. It's the beginning of the struggle of figuring out who am I. And so that's a  critical time that which means that is an optimal time to begin to get your young  people to be thinking, to bringing them in with a group, working with junior hires.  They can be a tough group, but in in in a club setting, to get them thinking,  asking questions, getting honest answers to honest questions, creating the  culture, which we'll talk about a little bit later. That's, that's, that's a great time to  do that, and that prepares them to move into adolescence and the high school  and entrance into your Emerging Leaders Initiative, whereas high school  students, they are learning by doing. We also need to understand what  leadership is. We talked about this before that. There are many definitions of  leadership. The one that we're going to use that's most practical for us, the one  to teach your young people, your your your emerging leaders, your high school  leaders, is this one leadership is knowing what to do next. It's knowing why that  is important and knowing how to bring appropriate resources to bear on the  need at hand. Let's break this down quickly. Knowing what to do next involves  process. How are you going to with anything? How are you going to fix the light  bulb? It may take three or four steps, maybe five steps, if you're like me, in 

changing a light bulb. Well, you need to know those steps. You need to know the process. Because if you're doing something, you're doing a project or an activity, and something breaks down at step four, then you can go back and look at step  

three. So knowing what to do next involves the process. How are you going to  get there? But also then you have to know why. Why is that important? And that  has to do with principle. Why are you doing what you're doing? Why is each step important? That's the principle behind the process, and then knowing how to  bring appropriate resources to bear on the need at hand. Most resources are  embodied. In people, and so knowing what to do next is process, knowing why  that's important is principle, knowing how to bring appropriate resources to bear  on the needed hand, that is people. If you have, if you have a group of people,  the person in the group that knows three these three things will emerge as the  leader. Okay, we're also going to be walking through this the phases of ministry  development. This is based on starting from scratch. If you're starting a ministry  right from the beginning a transformational discipleship ministry, and you're  starting right from scratch. There are three phases you're going to walk through.  The first one has to do with context. Who are you? Who are your neighbors?  And how do you fit in to the broader Body of Christ? And then the next step,  once you have your your ministry going, then you have to build a culture, a  culture a culture of thinking, a culture of that is unique to your to your ministry  into a transformational discipleship ministry. And so there are some things, some skills that we need to have. We need to know how to decode. We're going to talk about that, but we need to understand what it means to model what we believe  and what we teach. And then the third part is Harambe. I just call it the Harambe moment, and that's a word that I apply to the club or group setting, when you  most youth ministries meet with a group of young people every week. And while  that is fun and can be very fun and exciting and give young people something to do, it is also one of the most optimal times to communicate with young people,  to begin to build that culture of thinking, to give honest answers to honest  questions. How that youth club meeting is a strategic time for the youth leader,  and we're going to talk about that. And that's phase two, is establishing the  culture, because as you have the culture that out of that culture will come young  people that are prepared to enter the Emerging Leaders Initiative, and that's  where, when they become high school students, then you're they are invited to  participate in the leadership program That is about learning while doing, having  responsibility and authority and exercise in that and learning about who they are in the process. So before we begin, before you begin, you should know your  starting context. What is your ministry setting? They can be so many different  things. Are you in a sports program or in a music program? Are you just working  with kids in the neighborhood? Are you doing it on your own? Are you just living  in the neighborhood and you you're inviting kids over week by week, or are you  part of a organization? Are you? Are you part of a church? Are you like a youth 

pastor, or are you working in a para church context? You need to know your  ministry setting. What is that setting? And then, as you look at your setting, ask  yourself, what are the expectations or assumptions of the larger governing body. What are people expecting out of your ministry? What are they expecting now,  what is, what are some of the expectations and assumptions that are governing  what you do, or what you think about youth ministry? These are things you  need. Is this part of your context that you need to understand? Is there a past?  Everybody has a past. What about your ministry? What's the what's the context  in which you are doing youth ministry? Have changes taken place in the  governing body, in the church or para church, or have things changed in your  community? What? What is? What's the past history that has contributed to  where you are today? And then look at your community. Look at the youth,  families, other aspects of your community have a sense of what you are walking into. What are the top what context are you seeking to bring about change?  Another thing you need to do is to know the code we talked about this, the code  of the street. How is the code of the street those unwritten rules that are shaping Direction Behavior in your community? How are, how is the code of the street  impacting your ministry and your youth? You may not see this up here. We got  youth, family, peers, community, world view and ministry. There may be other  things, but you want to ask yourself, What's going on in your community? What  are some of the dynamics that are going on in your community, and particularly  in light of Romans 12:2, where Paul says, stop being conformed. Stop  squeezing, letting the world squeeze you into its mold. What are the squeezing  elements in your community? So that's the beginning, that's the introduction.  And now we're going to continue in learning how to build cathedrals.