The following is an article that I wrote for the youth ministry blog for my friends over at Youth Ministry 360:

Student leadership is an often overlooked but essential element to youth ministry.  This element is often neglected due to the time, energy, and investment involved versus the seemly small tangible pay off.  Student leadership, though the small part that it plays in most groups, is a key to building ownership in your student ministry.

At NorthPoint Community Church in Georgia, lead pastor, Andy Stanley, lays out the key, which I use to explain the idea of ownership and leadership to students.  He uses the analogy of a house to explain people’s levels of involvement in the church.

When people come into a house, the first room that they enter is the foyer.  In the foyer stage, people are probably visitors who are in a new place checking things out.  They are not sure if they are comfortable or if this is even somewhere they should be.  This category includes every visitor in your student ministry and maybe even some of your newer students.  These students are going to “the youth group down the road.”

The next stage, according to Andy Stanley, is the living room.  In this stage, people begin to feel comfortable in the environment.  They have checked the church out and have decided it is a place where they are willing to spend some time.  This is the stage where most of your students are.  “The youth group down the road” has become “the youth group which I attend.”  This is a crucial step in creating an environment where students want to be.

Most student ministries stay in the living room stage and do not ever get to the final stage of the kitchen.  In this stage, students become part of the family and as part of the family they have roles and responsibilities as part of the youth group.  In this final stage, “the youth group I attend” becomes “my youth group.”  This stage is bridged through student leadership where students take ownership in the ministry.

How do you build a student leadership team?

Enlist Students to Be in Leadership

From my experience, the best leaders will not be the first to volunteer.  Many students with leadership potential are already serving as leaders in many different areas and may be hesitant to sign up for something else.  The same students that serve in leadership at the church where I serve are also leaders in athletics, Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and First Priority clubs at school.  They are not just leading in these areas logistically but are stepping up as spiritual leaders in the arenas where they have influence.

I have found that it works best to enlist student leaders.  If you are in a church where you are the lone youth worker, look around you for students who are stepping up and showing leadership potential.  If you are in a larger church with a ministry team, incorporate your ministry team in leadership decisions.  I have found it helpful to let your leadership team be your primary people to select student leaders because they know students that you may not have had as much interaction with and they also serve as a buffer to the charge of the youth leader “playing favorites” in selecting a leadership team.

Explain the Cost and Responsibility of Leadership

According to Andy Stanley, “Leadership is a stewardship.  It is temporary, and you are accountable.”  This quote hangs on the wall in my office so that I am reminded of it every time I walk out of my door to minister.  Students must also understand that leadership comes with a cost and they are responsible to God and others for how they lead.

In order to present the cost and responsibility of leadership to students, I gather them for the first student leadership team meeting of the year and present a leadership covenant.  This is a single page document that each student takes home and prays over before signing.  This document underscores the importance of prayer, Bible study, modeling Christian character, developing spiritual gifts, and witnessing.  These are all essential elements to leading other students well.  After the first meeting, students are given an opportunity to step away if God is not leading them to serve.

Explore Students’ Spiritual Gifts

Serving as a leader is not going to look the same for every student.  Just as you, as the youth leader, have certain strengths and weaknesses, your students do as well.  Many students, however, have a hard time on their own defining these strengths and weaknesses.  This is why student leadership forms an important role in developing students through personal growth and discipleship.

As students learn their strengths and weaknesses, they will grow as individuals.  This is why student leadership often does not have immediate, tangible results.  As youth leaders, we will never know the impact that we have had on a student with regard to their growth both spiritually and in leadership.

Empower Students to Serve

Empowering students to serve is the final step in developing student leaders.  This is a phase that many youth leaders struggle with because at this point some level of control and responsibility must be given over to students.  This can be a messy but rewarding process.

It is important in this process to create spaces for students to serve based on their spiritual gifts.  In doing this, we allow students to play to their strengths and to have success in leadership endeavors.  Setting students up for success is essential in helping students be willing to step out and lead in the future.

Through this process, the connection of ownership occurs.  The movement from “the youth group down the street” to “the youth group which I attend” to “my youth group” is accomplished while encouraging, teaching, and empowering students to lead.

About this time last May, I was on a plane headed to East Asia to serve the Lord doing mission work.  One of the towns that we were in was a large city that had little knowledge of the gospel.  One day, we went to a model display of the city to pray that God would open doors in that city so that people could be drawn to Christ.  This week, I was looking through my journal from the trip and came across one of the reflections that I had while praying over the city:

“Satan blinds [city name] with darkness that blocks out the Light while Satan blinds the United States with religion that is used as a weaker substitute for the Light because the Light is too strong and radical to fit within the American dream.”

May the Light of the gospel shine in both the darkness of East Asia and in the darkness of America’s cultural religion.

I have been reading through Dr. Calvin Miller’s book Conversations with Jesus in 2009 and came across something that was very challenging and confronting.  The book is Dr. Miller exploring texts by doing an exposition of the text from the perspective of Jesus having a conversation with the book’s readers over the central theme of the text.  The section that I read under the title “Show Business and Human Need” with John 4: 46-48 as the corresponding text had the following prayer in response to the text:

“Lord, the world is a weeping place. Yet so often the church seems to be more of a theater than a hospital.  Entertainment has replaced ministry.  I see so many in need of splints and bandages, and our triage is flawed.  They bleed and die while we are dispensing song and dance.”

Dr. Miller continues with an observation from the perspective of Jesus:

“You have a taste for compassion (referring to the reader and also the crowds that surrounded Jesus in John 4: 46-48), but you must also realize how religious miracles are easily subverted to entertainment. You have seen that show-biz is always a temptation in the church.  Some churches have honestly gotten into this show-biz gospel in the attempt to exorcise the demons of congregational boredom from their worship.  Then they move from the Spirit’s direction to hype. Few of these mean to adopt hype and abandon the Spirit. But in trying to keep things exciting and positive, they trade worship for glitz.

Let me suggest that the only foolproof way you can know that I am present in worship is to ask a more difficult questions: Is the Lord present in the worship leader?  Worship leaders void of me can become quite proficient at entertainment, but they cannot lead in real adoration.  Your need is therefore rooted in their integrity.

Your salvation is an issue of simple worship; your worship will require you to walk and talk with me.  This is your best hope of honest adoration.”

The devotional entry ends with this prayer of challenge:

“Lord Jesus, I am needy, and I know all those with whom I worship are needy too. Would you come to us and teach us true soul hunger so that we never can be satisfied with any smaller definition of worship than that which starts and ends with you alone? Help me to turn from glitzy praise and start to meet you at the altar of my heart. Amen.”

My prayer for you as you lead and minister to people is that your passion and praise for Jesus Christ would be the driving force of your ministry.  Let us worship Jesus not to make much of us or to make others think that our church or ministry is cool, but let us worship Jesus because He is the only One who will eternally satisfy!

“The greatest opposition to what God is doing today comes from those who were on the cutting edge of what God was doing yesterday.”- R. T. Kendall in The Anointing

I read the above quote yesterday on a blog and cannot stop thinking about it.  I know from my experiences launching and leading ministries that it is easy for your idea and your vision to become like your child.  You want to remain in total control of the organization to make sure that the core values, programs, and innovative ideas.  The issue is that God may be opening new doors and allowing the organization to evolve into something new and different in order to be more effective in reaching people for Jesus and ministering to the church.

The struggle of a leader is letting go of something that is close to his or her heart.  We need to make sure that we are open-handed on the way that we do ministry while remaining grounded in the unchanging truths of the gospel.  God may be birthing something new in the hearts of people in your ministry, but you may be to busy holding on to the ideas and dreams of yesterday that you miss the opportunity of today.

Last night, I had the privilege of listening to Francis Chan speak at Conclave.   I am still trying to process the ramifications of what he said on my life and ministry so I wanted to pass some thoughts along to you about it.

Francis was emphasizing the need to build our ministries around discipleship instead of events or programs.  He did not come across as completely against events and programs unless these contain no scripture.  The Word is central to people encountering God and having an all-consuming love for Jesus Christ.  Without the Word in our ministries, we are wasting our time.

Francis went on to talk about his desire to here Jesus say, “Well done.”  He went back to a statement that I have heard him say before but had never really sunk in.  Francis said that he does not want to come before Jesus and present to Him the church that God has given him to lead and have to say, “Jesus here is a group of people who kind of like you.”  This is so often what the American church mentality creates.  People who attend church not to follow Jesus, not to study the Word, but rather to be entertained.  It is so easy to fall into the mindset of liking Jesus when our lives are going well, but this like for Jesus tends to be a Sunday morning like when we are in church instead of a love for Jesus that leads to our radical obedience to His call.

The message went on to address the fact that Jesus calls us to give up everything and take up our crosses and follow Him.  This is a radical obedience that leaves no room for us to merely like Jesus but that comes from a radical love for the Savior.  Our ministries need to not shy away from the radical nature of following our King.

Francis then used the passage about salt losing its saltiness and becoming worthless.  He said that tasteless salt ruins everything even a pile of manure would be ruined by tasteless salt.  It has no use to anyone and should be thrown out.  Francis then took out some salt and poured it into a pile.  This was the “good salt” which had not lost its saltiness.  He then picked up a container of “bad salt” that had lost its saltiness and poured it on top of the “good salt” with flavor.  He went on to pose the question: “Why would anyone want to do this?”  The pile got larger and larger then Francis explained that this is what we do as the American church.  We are so focused on getting a big pile of people in our ministries that we are willing to have a large ministry filled with people who kind of like Jesus rather than calling people to a radical discipleship fueled by a passionate love for our Savior which may cause us to have a smaller pile.

Our focus so often in ministry is so far off of what Jesus calls us to.  We need to repent of our Christ-less ministry priorities and seek to not only become radical disciples of Jesus but to empower the people to which we minister to become radical disciples also.

Last night’s session ended with Todd Agnew playing “My Jesus.”  The following are the lyrics for your reflection:

Which Jesus do you follow?
Which Jesus do you serve?
If Ephesians says to imitate Christ
Then why do you look so much like the world?

Not a posterchild for American prosperity, but like my Jesus
You see I’m tired of living for success and popularity
I want to be like my Jesus but I’m not sure what that means to be like You Jesus
Cause You said to live like You, love like You but then You died for me
Can I be like You Jesus?
I want to be like my Jesus

Between the Times had a great post on preaching Christological texts:

Evangelicals believe the biblical teaching concerning the uniqueness of Jesus Christ as the sole and sufficient Savior for all persons who have lived or ever shall be.  We note that such an affirmation is needed because the Christian church is now confronted with various theological heresies such as universalism, radical pluralism, theological inclusivism, and religious relativism, all of which call into question the clear teachings of Holy Scripture and belief in the particularity and finality of the revelation and salvific work of Jesus Christ.

What is it that drives Baptists like us, and evangelical Christians as a whole, to make such strong statements of theology and faith?  I believe the answer can be found not only in “the clear teaching of the Holy Scripture” in general, but in the great Christological texts in the New Testament in particular.  I refer to the quintessential quartet of John 1:1-18; Phil 2:1-11; Col 1:13-23; and Heb 1:1-3.

The clear exegesis and exposition of these four passages are the bedrock foundation of biblical and orthodox Christology.  Both his person (full deity and perfect humanity) and work (sacrifice and atonement) are gloriously expounded in these texts, though it is his person that is more strongly emphasized.

What we think and believe about Jesus influences all aspects of our theology: what we think about God, the Bible, and salvation, for example.  If we are to think correctly, that is biblically, about Jesus, these four great texts should be taught clearly, consistently, and courageously without compromise or apology.

What might four expository sermons on these great texts look like? What would be an accurate assessment of their theme and emphases? I would like to propose the following for consideration of how to get at these passages in preparing to proclaim them to the people of God.

1). A message on John 1:1-18 might be titled “Jesus Christ: The God of Incarnation.”
Such a sermon would declare that as the Word of God Jesus powerfully preexisted (1:1-5), was prophetically witnessed (1:6-9), was personally rejected (1:10-13), was permanently incarnated (1:14), is properly exalted (1:15-17), and that he perfectly communicated (1:18).

In this text emphasis is placed upon the Logos, the Word, Jesus as coeternal, coequal, and consubstantial with the Father (1:1-3).  He is the perfect embodiment of God revealing himself to humanity (1:14, 18).  By believing in Christ alone we can become children of God (1:12).  Various structural analyses of the passage generally agree that the focus is on vv. 10-14, while vv. 1 and 18 also receive emphasis.  The central verse is considered to be either v. 12 or v. 14.  It can be argued, in fact, that v. 12 contains the soteriological heart of the passage and v. 14 the Christological heart.  This text is so full theologically, one could consider a six part series of these 18 verses.

2). A message on Philippians 2:1-11 could bear the title “Jesus Christ: The God of
Humiliation.”  This passage declares first that we must cultivate the disposition or mind of our Lord (2:5) by seeking unity (2:1-2), humility (2:3), and sensitivity (2:4).  Second, we must consider the humiliation of our Lord (2:6-8), who humbled himself in his renunciation (2:6), in his incarnation (2:7), and in his crucifixion (2:8).  Third, we should celebrate the exaltation of our Lord (2:9-11), who has an exalted position (2:9), designation (2:9-10), adoration (2:10), and confession (2:11).

The second and third divisions of this passage (2:6-11) is believed by many to be based on an early Christian hymn of two stanzas.  It may find its Old Testament roots in Isaiah 53.  The passage is ethical (especially vv. 1-5) and soteriological, with emphasis falling on the humbling and emptying of our Lord.  The incarnation was not a subtraction of deity.  It was an addition of humanity.  Emphasis on Christ’s full deity and utter uniqueness as the God-man is clearly communicated in the text.

3). The third message on Colossians 1:13-23, could be titled “Jesus Christ: The God of Creation.”  Here the message is that Jesus is Lord of the Cross or Savior (1:13-14), Lord of Communication or Revelator (1:15), Lord of Creation or Creator (1:15-17), Lord of the Church or Leader (1:18-20), and Lord of the Christian or Master (1:21-23).
 
Also viewed by many as an early Christian hymn, this text emphasizes that (1) Christ makes visible the invisible God, (2) Christ is the agent of creation, and (3) God’s fullness dwells in him (cf. 2:9-10).  Perhaps used as a polemic against first-century heresy, this text is quite relevant in confronting “New Age” ideas concerning the relation between God, Jesus Christ, and the world.  Further, the preeminence of Christ “in” and “over” his church sounds a much-needed call in our day when personal agendas and self-serving attitudes unfortunately prevail in too many of our churches.

4). Finally, a sermon on Hebrew 1:1-3 could be presented under the title “Jesus Christ: The God of Revelation.”  The message of this passage is that Jesus is God’s best because of his 1) proclamation (1:1-2a), 2) his possessions (1:2b), 3) his power (1:2c), 4) his person (1:3a),5) his provisions (1:3b), 6) his purification (1:3c), and his 7) position (1:3d).  Seven marvelous characteristics of our Lord weave this text together.  Thirteen times the author will use the word “better” in this book to convey the superiority of Jesus to prophets, angels, Moses, and Aaron, i.e., to the entire Old Covenant economy.  The emphasis of the prologue (which closely parallels Luke 1:1-4; Acts 1:1-3) is upon Christ’s superior revelation to anything previous, as well as its climactic and definitive nature.  Jesus is God’s very best in every way.  When we have Jesus, we have all from God that we need.
 
Though there is some degree of overlap in these texts, each is unique in its own right, and all four are essential in laying the foundation for a biblical orthodox Christology.  We need to preach about Jesus.  We need to expound his person and his work so that his people will know their Savior for who he is and what he has done.  I commend these four great texts to preachers of the gospel across our land with the prayer that their exposition will exalt the wonderful Savior who loved each one of us so much that had anyone of us been the only person to ever live, he still would have left heaven and died on the cross of Calvary just for us.  His death does not teach that we are great.  His death teaches that He is great.  He is great in love and holiness.  He is great in power and purpose.  He is simply a great God.

The following is Dr. Andreas Kostenberger’s book recommendation list for 2008:

The end (of the year) is near, and once again it’s time to list the best books in biblical and theological studies that appeared in 2008. This year seems to have been an especially fruitful year for publications in these areas. Here is my list:

1. The ESV Study Bible (Crossway): While people may debate the merits of the ESV as a translation, the qualities of the ESV Study Bible are indisputable. An exquisitely produced, high-quality product that sets a new standard for study Bibles.
2. Eckhard Schnabel, Paul the Missionary (InterVarsity Press): A worthy sequel to Schnabel’s landmark 2-volume work Early Christian Mission. The new “Ronald Allan” on Paul’s missionary practice. Both thorough and practical.
3. D. A. Carson, Christ & Culture Revisited (Eerdmans): A timely book on an all-important subject, the relationship between Christianity and contemporary culture. Carson properly takes his starting point from Niebuhr’s classic work Christ and Culture. A very important book.
4. Robert Stein, Mark (Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament; Baker): I haven’t read Stein’s work in toto yet, but from what I’ve seen so far, this commentary is first rate, as one would expect from this senior Markan scholar.
5. David Chapman, Ancient Jewish and Christian Perceptions of Crucifixion (Mohr-Siebeck): The revised version of a dissertation at Cambridge University under William Horbury, this will be the standard work on crucifixion for a long time to come.
6. Margaret Elizabeth Köstenberger, Jesus and the Feminists(Crossway): This book should have been written a long time ago. A judicious survey of various feminist approaches to Jesus. J. I. Packer calls it “scrupulously fair.” In the interest of full disclosure: I am married to the author.
7. Cosmology of New Testament Theology (ed. Jonathan Pennington and Sean McDonough; T & T Clark): Finally, a monograph on this very important but widely neglect aspect of New Testament theology. Worldview matters, then and now.
8. Craig Blomberg and Mariam Kamell, Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament: James (Zondervan): A great start to an important new series from Zondervan. Blomberg here teams up with Mariam Kamell, a doctoral student at St. Andrews University.
9. Suffering and the Goodness of God (ed. Christopher Morgan and Robert Peterson; Theology in Community series; Crossway): Another promising start to a new series, with contributions by, among others, Robert Yarbrough, Walter Kaiser, Dan McCartney, and John Frame.
10. Clyde Fant and Mitchell Reddish, Lost Treasures of the Bible: Understanding the Bible through Archaeological Artifacts in World Museums (Eerdmans): A great publishing idea, and well executed. As a teacher and student of Scripture, this is a resource I will value highly.

Final note: Readers may want to be aware of the imminent publication of The Encyclopedia of Christian Civilization (ed. George T. Kurian; Blackwell), a massive, 4-volume compendium. Ambitious in scope, with a large number of fascinating entries. Publication has been delayed until early 2009, however.

Craig Groeshel had an interesting post over at Swerve:

Signs of a Lukewarm Pastor
Craig Groeshel

What am I forgetting? Do you see any of this in yourself?

JD Greer, the pastor of Summit Church, had some interesting insights on his blog today from Mark Driscoll, Greg Surratt, and Larry Osborne that were very insightful.  Enjoy!

Continued from yesterday. (I got to spend the last 3 days in a small group with 3 great church leaders–Mark Driscoll, Greg Surratt [of Seacoast Church and one of the multi-site pioneers] and Larry Osborne [an ex-hippie of the Jesus movement, now pastor of 8000 attender North Coast Church of San Diego and truly one of the most insightful thinkers I've ever been around]. My time with them left me swimming with new ideas about innovation in ministry.

• The American idea to “achieve your potential” is a tyrannical goddess. It tells us that whatever we are doing is not good enough, because we have “more potential.” We should be living higher with more power. Potential is not a biblical concept, but an American one. “Calling” is the biblical concept, and often “calling” is simply taking the form of a servant (Phil 2:6-11) and not achieving your potential. 

• Most pastors turn ministry into a functional savior. When the ministry is going well, they feel closer to God; when it is going poorly, they feel farther away from God.
• To pastors who say: “I don’t count people.” Do you count money? Is money more important to you than someone’s soul? 

• In a rapidly multiplying church, we often have to settle for “good enough” rather than perfect. While we realize that we should do all things excellently to the glory of God, excellence can become an inhibiter to real ministry when it monopolizes our resources and keeps them from doing things that would increase our capacity to multiply. As we learn on the mission field, reproducibility is a crucial dimension of church planting. 

• The pastoral office includes “prophet, priest and king.” Kings are leaders. Prophets are guys who think about what the Bible says and it burns inside them to tell others. Priests care about people.” Whichever you’re not the strongest on, hire someone to do. (Mark Driscoll). (p.s. He asked me what each of us was… he then looked at me and said, “I know what you are. You’re freakin’ ‘open the Bible and yell at everyone’ guy.” Exact quote. He meant this as a compliment.) 

• Larry Osborne to me: “I’ve been at North Coast (a congregation of about 8000) for 28 years. The thing I am most grateful for is EVERY child of staff member has grown up to follow Jesus.” He went on to explain to me some things he’s learned about that. Of particular interest was his statement that one of the most important lessons to learn was that exuberance in the faith in the parent often works against the kid. What he meant was that often the ministry parent wanted their kid to feel the passion that they did for Jesus, evangelism, etc, and they often forced the child into situations hoping that would grow. Instead, it embarrassed the child and turned them off. The passions of the heart for Jesus must develop ‘naturally,’ by faith, and not be imposed from outside on the child. We expect our kids to grow up too quickly.”
• In Seattle we have a “Canadian arsonist nudist colony.’ I’m going to go ahead and tell you, unless they repent, they’re going to hell, but what a fun way to go. Getting naked and burning stuff down.” (Mark Driscoll) To note: comments such as this one do not reflect the opinions of jdgreear.com or its affiliates. Opinions are solely those of the ones being quoted).

I have been personally studying and focusing on being intentional to build spiritual disciplines into my life and schedule.  One of the books that I am reading on this topic is Richard Foster’s A Celebration of Discipline. Foster had a great statement on the chapter regarding meditation that I think is an accurate commentary on American Christianity.  He writes:

“The history of religion is the story of an almost desperate scramble to have a king, a mediator, a priest, a pastor, a go-between. In this way we do not need to go to God ourselves.  Such an approach saves us from the need to change, for to be in the presence of God is to change. We do not need to observe Western culture very closely to realize that we are captivated by the religion of the mediator.”

Foster is correct in suggesting that it is the tendency in the American church to rely on the pastor or spiritual leader as the mediator between God and the people of God.  This means that we have a bunch of Christians walking around waiting to be fed not by the power of the Holy Spirit through the Word of God but through the words of a pastor.  This is building a church that is full of spiritual infants who wait for the food of the Word on Sundays and then starve the rest of the week.  We need to be a group of Christians who seek God through His Word daily through spiritual disciplines.  God, make us a people desperate to seek You and to be changed by You!