Video Transcript: Final Thoughts
We have explored building cathedrals, not the building of a of a big building building, but the building of people, the idea that young people are cathedrals in the making, and that's how God wants us to not only see them, but work with them. With that in mind, we we fall in sync with God's desire for every young person that he has created, and particularly those at risk, those who who may be denied the opportunity because of outward pressures to to be all that God wants them to be. And you remember I asked you the question, have you ever been to Disneyland? And I did that because going to Disneyland, you could see that, you could see that there's something beautiful there. But there are things that happened behind the scenes to make that happen, that the experience that everyone has when they go to the wonderful place called Disneyland, someone is behind the scenes doing the work to make that happen, and they're doing it with joy. They are enjoying it. They know that their actions are going to produce tremendous results. And we talked about the process of developing a transformational youth ministry. We talked about paying attention to context, that the that the context of that you're in, the circumstance, the environment that you're in, the one that you create, is important if you're going to accomplish your mission and your goals. And so it's important that you define yourself. Who are you, what is your purpose? You have to do the hard work of thinking through who you are. What is God called you to do? And then how are you going to get it done? And the master planning materials help you do that. Talk about identity, your your neighbor, being a neighbor. That that, that you are part of a community you how you position yourself, as you speak, as you share, as you minister, is going to impact your effectiveness. But then, not only is it, the context of your identity and being a neighbor, but also the context of the kingdom of God, and to be able to see yourself as someone that God has called as Mordecai said to Esther for such a time as this, this is your time God has placed a burden on your heart for young people, and you have responded, you must understand that you are not alone, that there are people all over the globe that are responding to the needs of youth just like you, and they're all about carrying out the what God has called them to do, and therefore, God's Kingdom agenda, you will play a role in the future generations. And it's important that you understand how to behave, that you have that you're in that role. And then, what does that mean? How? How do you how do you respond? What is your role relationship to the church, or the church's relationship to you, understanding that is important. Then in the second phase, we talked about culture. How do you create what I call a discipleship, rich culture? How do you do that? There's some practices that you must, you you must, you must do in order to foster that culture. One of them is decoding that you're you're listening clearly to the ideas of people, of kids. What are they saying? If you were to boil it down to one sentence, what are they saying? What's the big idea? What are they saying, and what are they saying about what they are saying. And you put those two
together in such a way that you can state very clearly, okay, this is what I'm hearing you say. And then at the same time, you're listening to the Lord, you're listening to the Scriptures, and you're listening to your understanding. You're understanding the word within its own context. Knowing, if you know what the biblical writer, writer is saying, You know what the biblical reader is hearing, then you can know what God is saying. So you need to decode. You got to put all that in the language that young. People understand, then it's about modeling you are important, who you are, what you believe, and the congruity between between who you are and what you say and what you do, okay, what you believe and who you are, that the glass house you are allowing God is using you, and so therefore you're allowing him to equip you and prepare, prepare you. And then there's Harambee, what I call the Harambee moment, that moment each week where you are with a group of young people, and it's during that time that you are, how you set that up, how you how you work with them, you, how you you planning the The the discovery exercise, the discussion, that's that's real, and then your response, your talk to to them, and all of those things, those things contribute to a culture, a culture of discipleship. I remember when someone came to me and asked, Do you know so, Yeah, I bet you. I knew you did. I knew he was a product of your ministry. And I walked away saying, what? How did he know that he was a part of my ministry? Well, it was because he came out of a culture. There are things he knew how to do, the way he thought, how he behaved. That was evidence of being influenced in a culture of discipleship. Well, then we had the third phase. The third phase was the Emerging Leaders Initiative, and that's where you in high school. You have your young your young people, they can choose to be involved in as an emerging leader, and that takes on extra responsibility, the responsibility of leading an elementary group of kids each week, meeting with them, co leading or taking turns leading a Bible study or a lesson with them. Then all that leads up to where they they design and they prepare, prepare to lead a extended time with with children during a summer day camp or vacation Bible school, or whatever you would want to call it. It is something where they are now working with the kid over a period of time, and something that they are, that they have, they have, they're leading. They have responsibility and authority to lead younger people well as we come to an end, I want to, I want to look at some final thoughts as it relates to questions, as I've gone around and talked to people about this, there have been questions, especially about this section, about putting it together. I have met leaders who, when they get to this point, say, Wait a minute. Is that really what I have to do. And so I want to address some of the questions that have come to me. One of them is, do I have to change my ministry? Well, no, you don't have to change your ministry, and it doesn't matter what it is you are doing. I've worked with people who were they were in charge of youth in transitional housing or youth in the rescue mission. Well, that is transitory, and so you're not going to be able to
do everything that I've talked about here with building cathedrals, but if you apply the principles, then you can ask yourself, well, what can I do? Well, how? How can I best serve the young people who are in my care? Now, you may have a ministry where you are working with elementary, middle school and high school, and you may say, I want to do this. Well, then find a way to infuse it into your ministry. Say you have a sports ministry. Say you're, you're, you're working with kids in a basketball league. Well, I know for many Christian leaders, there's a time when they're not, when they're not practicing or preparing for a game, they are pulled aside for a little Bible study. Well, that could be your Harambee moment. That could be when you are talking to the kids about, here's where what are your felt needs? where is God in the midst? In the midst of that. You can do that there. It doesn't matter whether it's sports or singing or music or whatever it might be. You can infuse this into the center of what you do, and then out of that can come. What would Emerging Leaders look like for that? What would working with younger kids? Well with children look look like in your context. These are principles that you apply, but you must apply them to your setting so that you have to change your ministry, not necessarily, but if, as you apply the principles, then that might bring about the changes that will enhance your ministry or make it even better. Here's another one. Do I have to create a new program, like a summer day camp? I tell you, I shared this with some leaders of larger organizations ministries, and they looked at that and said, Oh no, we're not building a whole new program. We can't do that. We already have our program. We're not going to do that. So I said, we need to create a new program. And I would say, yes and no, there has to be. If you see your existing program, say you have summer activities. If those summer activities are activities that you can infuse these principles and the practice of developing leaders where the leaders can own it, then then fine, do that. But if it's not, if it's something that really it came. This is a ministry that you developed. It's yours. We'll invite kids to come in and benefit from it. But it really is. It really belongs to the adults. Well, then you're not really contributing to helping young people discover who they are in Christ, at least not experientially, and that's something that has to be weighed also in the matter of a summer day camp. You can call it whatever you wish, with whatever you wish. Many churches are comfortable with a vacation Bible school. So for, there are many ministries where, for an extended time could be a week, two weeks, three weeks, they are spending time with kids during the day, where their parents bring their children, and the children experience this, this Bible lesson. Well, you could easily take that and turn that into something that would benefit your emerging your emerging leaders. And so no, do you have to create a new program? I think it depends. But what you want is a something going on in the summer where the things that your young people are learning on a small scale, they can learn on a big scale. You want to create that environment for them. Here's another one. I only work
with one age group. Are you saying I need to expand my ministry? I've run into this a lot where there are ministries that they're focused on just working on high schoolers, or they're just working on high schoolers and middle schoolers, but that's as far as it goes. We don't want to do any more well. You don't have to create a whole new ministry within your program. You can partner with someone else. When I ran neighborhood ministries, we had elementary, middle school and high school. When John L was with switch up, he only had high school, high school and some middle school, but he partnered with a neighborhood program. In this case, it was a community center, and they were all about elementary children, and so they came together and worked together. And so you can do that. It's an excellent opportunity to partner with other ministries so that you don't have to expand. You don't have to expand your ministry by creating something new, but you can enhance your ministry by partnering with others, and that can make a real a real difference. You're still working with one age group, but you're allowing them to work beyond that age group. And here's another one, for various reasons, I can't live in the neighborhood where my kids are. What do I do? I think, as a principle, to the best of your ability, you live among the people you serve. It really is a matter of positioning yourself so that they not only hear you, but they see you, they can study you. You want your life to communicate the reality of your relationship with God and the reality of the relationship that you are encouraging them to embrace. So in order to do that, they need to study you. They need to not see you in just the setting of you teaching them are are you meeting with them at a particular time? Now I'm not saying, I'm not saying that you should move into the neighborhood and be available to kids. 24/7, no, I'm not saying that at all, but I am saying that you must, you must position yourself so that young people can see you in different settings beyond the teaching or leading setting. So as much as you're able live among the people that you serve now, you may be a church or a church leader, and you're wondering, you're concerned more broadly about a group of young people that are in your neighborhood. I know in my in here in the States, God has brought the world to the city, and so now there are suburban areas where there used to be just middle, upper class folks living there now you've got poorer people, lower class coming into the same neighborhoods, if you're if you're a church, if you're a pastor of a church, I would encourage you to challenge your congregation to think strategically about reaching your new neighbors, and even for them, even though they have your new neighbors that they're now neighbors, but maybe it would require you moving, maybe just a few blocks or a mile, or whatever would be positioning yourself so that you can Be a part of that of that neighborhood. And then this last question, I work for a church, Christian organization, how do I get them to buy into this approach to youth ministry? I tell you, this approach to youth ministry is not very it's not very common, and it's one of the reasons why I wrote the book. By handing them the book building cathedrals, you're giving
them an opportunity to read about the kind of ministry that you want to establish in your church or community, and by doing that, it can open the door for dialog and for conversation about, well, what if we did how much of this could we do? What would it look like if we did this? You certainly are welcome to connect with us. We can certainly have a conversation with your pastor or leader. But getting people to buy in to something like this, it does take time. It's change. You're putting new wine into what might be an old wine skin, and so that means you have to do that carefully. You have to move you want people to be with you in what you do. And so by looking at the book, by by studying the website, the Center's website, they can begin to be introduced to the idea that maybe this is something that would really benefit, if we have this kind of transforming influence in the in in our community with the body of Christ, benefit from this, would they begin to Feel, perhaps a renewed sense of purpose or an opportunity to make a difference in the lives of people. They became missional, participating in the ongoing work of the living Christ through youth ministry. Well, these are just some, some final thoughts on building cathedrals. I trust that you will engage in this and I, I trust that it will make a tremendous impact on your life and your ministry.