My son has a shirt with a mischievous looking Despicable Me minion on it. The caption says, “I try to be good, but sometimes I get distracted.” A perfect description of the life and behavior of a 7-year-old boy. Getting sidetracked is a pretty significant marker for my son at this point in his life. We send him upstairs to clean up the LEGO pile in the playroom, and come up a half hour later to see nothing done. “I got distracted.” As youth ministers, we can sometimes get distracted, too.
In youth ministry, it is very common for us to get very focused on things that Christians do. Christians read their Bibles. Christians pray. Christians go to church. Christians share the gospel with their friends.
It’s also very easy for youth ministries to be focused on the things that Christians should not do. Don’t have sex before marriage. Don’t engage in substance abuse. Don’t gossip, or lie, or steal, or look at porn, or anything else in a very long list.
But what is being a follower of Jesus really all about? What does it mean to be a Christian? If we boil everything down, is the Christian faith simply two lists—a list of dos and a list of don’ts?
What Is Gospel Centrality?
The gospel is the heart of the Christian faith. The gospel is the Good News about Jesus. He is the perfect Son of God, who came to die in the place of sinful humanity so that by grace, through faith, we can come to a saving relationship with God in him. He took our punishment, was buried, and rose victoriously from the grave. Though we are sinners, we can have forgiveness and eternal life in Christ if we repent and place our faith in Jesus’ finished work.
In other words, being a Christian is not fundamentally about what we do or don’t do, it’s about what Jesus has done. This is the message that the Church is founded on, and it should be the foundation for every youth ministry as well.
Now don’t get me wrong. I certainly spend time in my own ministry teaching the ways that Christians are called to live out their faith in our everyday lives. It is incredibly important for students to connect the dots between a new life in Christ and the way we are called to live in that new life. But, if we are not careful, our ministries can drift to a place where students think that behavior is the core of what it means to be a Christian. And that can have some damaging side-effects.
Side-effects of Performance Centrality
First, in a performance-centered youth ministry, students who struggle with sin will feel perpetually defeated. Their lack of understanding (due to a lack of exposure to the gospel) will make them feel that God doesn’t love them because they are sinning. Because they have picked up that the Christian life is about performance, they will put their energy into that performance, and when they fail, they will feel that they cannot go to God, because they believe He must be angry with them. Their obedience will be performed out of fear rather than freedom, and their failures may drive them away from God rather than to the grace he offers us in Christ.
Secondly, when we don’t offer an understanding of the gospel in relation to the “shoulds” of the Christian life, students will be robbed of the joy that God’s instructions were meant to give. Bible reading and prayer are reduced to a chore to be checked off the list. Service to others becomes an obligation instead of an opportunity to share the love they have received with others, and church is a required function instead of a life-giving community of faith.
So it is vital that we do our best to keep the gospel of grace at the forefront of our student ministries. But how do we do that?
Bible Teaching
When it comes to teaching, consistency will be key in keeping the gospel at the center. We want teenagers to hear about forgiveness in Christ every time we teach. When Jesus met the two men on the road to Emmaus, “…beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.” In the Words, everything in the Bible (Moses, the Prophets, etc) have to do with Jesus. And if your teaching is based on the Bible (and it should be) then there will always be some connection that can be made to the gospel.
So, before you start hashing out your lesson, write or type “Gospel Connection” at the top of your page as a reminder that your students need the message of grace every week. If you teach on something that is a should of the Christian life, remember to word things in a way that makes it crystal clear that salvation is by grace through faith in Christ only. If your teaching deals with a should not, make it abundantly clear that Jesus offers forgiveness to us when we fail.
Relational Discipleship
A community centered around the gospel should be marked primarily by grace. This means the youth minister should respond graciously to students when they mess up. It means that good teaching (that we are all sinners in need of a gracious Savior) will lead students to respond graciously when other students express a struggle with a sin issue. In fact, students should feel comfortable sharing sin struggles because they understand that everyone in their small group is a sinner who is dependent on the grace of Christ.
Perhaps, at the beginning of sharing time in a small group, the leader reminds everyone that they are free to share about their struggles because we are all in need of God’s grace. If the gospel is at the center, it will work its way out in the relationships in a youth ministry.
Partnering with Parents
I am a parent of four kids, three of whom are in my youth ministry. I know the pressure that parents feel to have “good” and “successful” kids. But, just like a youth ministry, my parenting can inadvertently communicate that my love for my kids is somehow bound up in their performance.
As youth ministers, we can use whatever influence we are able to in order to encourage gracious, gospel-centered parenting. For example, if you have a parent meeting, spend some time having parents consider, “If my child were asked, ‘What does my parent want from me more than anything else?’ What would they say?” This could get parents thinking about what they are communicating by their words and actions. It could give you an opportunity to help them see that the way we parents shapes the way their children think about grace. When parents and youth ministries are both on the same page, students will be greatly helped.
So, don’t get distracted from the reason we’re in youth ministry—to help teenagers know Jesus. Let’s keep the gospel at the center of everything we do in youth ministry. And remember, if you feel like you’ve not done this exactly right, that God of grace to whom we are pointing our students extends the same grace to you!
Looking for encouragement and camaraderie in gospel-centered youth ministry? We hope you’ll make plans to join us for Rooted’s annual conference in Chicago, Illinois October 23-25!
