What is a Successful Youth Ministry? Part 2

In the last post, I defined a successful youth ministry in light of Col 1:28 as a ministry that helps equip youth to make a transition to mature Christian adulthood. But what are the characteristics of such a ministry? This is an important question that I will address in the next several posts. This post identifies what I believe to be the pivotal foundation of any successful youth ministry: Dependency on God’s Sovereignty and His Promises.

All church ministries, including youth ministry, should approach ministry with a humble confidence. Humble, first of all, because we recognize our complete dependency on God for any lasting success. Without God’s sovereign work in the lives of people, any ministry endeavor that is undertaken will fail to produce enduring fruit. As the Psalmist says: “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain” (Psalm 127:1). Youth ministry must be done with the clear recognition that no program, method, formula, curriculum, or event will ever by itself produce growth and maturity in Christ. As Paul reminded the Corinthian church: “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth” (1 Cor 3:6). Nevertheless, youth ministry can be done with confidence because the Lord who is sovereign over salvation has given his church great promises that we can depend on. God promises that as we faithfully plant and water he will bring growth. God promises that his word never comes back to him void. God promises His church will never fail. God promises that generation after generation there will always a people on earth to declare his praise until he returns.

This dependency on God's sovereignty and promises have important implications for how youth ministry should be done. First, it highlights the central role that prayer must play. If only God can change the hearts of our youth, then we ought to spend just as much time interceding with him for every youth at our church as we do planning ministry activities. Second, it implies that we must stick to God’s plan for youth ministry and not come up with our own. In youth ministry it is sometimes claimed that God’s word does not address the methodology of youth ministry and therefore churches are free to do “whatever works.” As a result, contemporary youth ministry is often innovative, centered around the latest cultural trend, and rapidly changing. Whatever is “cool” in culture is “Christianized” and brought into the service of youth ministry in an effort to be relevant. I completely disagree with the assumptions behind these innovative approaches. The Bible is not a handbook on youth ministry, but neither is God silent on youth ministry. God has given us a broad outline of how youth ministry should be accomplished, he has provided “tracks” on which the church should operate. Our responsibility is to run our ministry on his tracks and not our own ideas of what works.

What is a Successful Youth Ministry?

This is the first in a series of posts exploring the biblical foundations of a successful youth ministry. In this first post I consider the important question of “What is it that makes a youth ministry ‘successful?'”

In answering this question I believe Christians today face a real temptation to judge the “success” of a youth ministry by the wrong criteria. First and foremost on this list would be the “Numbers criteria” - how many youth show up? Closely related is the “Program Criteria” - how many different programs does the church offer for the youth? These two criteria can often dominate the discussion when a youth ministry is being evaluated. The more kids that show up routinely to youth group and the more “stuff” the church is able to provide for the kids, the more “successful” the ministry is perceived to be. Larger churches that can boast of separate youth centers, state of the art equipment, and large numbers of youth packing the house weekly are considered the epitome of “success.” On the flip side, smaller churches which lack financial resources and have smaller numbers of youth are considered sub-par in their youth ministry. As a result, parents, parishioners, and pastors in smaller churches often operate with a perpetual sense of failure and are tempted to be envious of the large church programs down the street - “If we only had the resources that “X church” does, then we could really do something!”

But surely this is the wrong way to go about evaluating the “success” of a youth ministry. Numbers and programs are not unimportant, but they are too shortsighted to be the criteria by which a youth ministry is judged. A much better (and more biblical) criteria is that of equipping. I believe that the ultimate goal of any youth ministry must be to assist the parents and the church (more on this later) in leading youth towards maturity in Jesus Christ (Col 1:28). A “successful” youth ministry is one that equips youth to make the transition into mature Christian adulthood, one that lays a foundation which endures the test of time.[1] A youth ministry that has 200 active youth may appear impressive, but if it turns out that 60-70% of these students leave the church once they enter college, has it really been ‘successful?’[2] The point is this: we must not judge the success of a youth ministry program by how many kids are involved and show up on a weekly basis. Churches need to look beyond these short-sightedness goals to the long term results of their youth ministries. What is happening to the youth once they leave? Have they been equipped to make the transition to maturing Christian adults, or were they merely entertained? Over the next few posts I will lay out the defining characteristics of a youth ministry that is focused on equipping youth.

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[1] I am indebted to Mark Devries for this definition from his book Family-Based Youth Ministry.

[2] These statistics are unfortunately very accurate according to many recent polls. For one example: http://www.christianitytoday.com/le/2009/summer/istheeraofagesegmentationover.html?start=1.

Solomon on Sexuality

This week as I've studied for our second sermon on the seventh commandment, I ran across this account: William Bennet, an author and former senior official to President Reagan and George H.W. Bush once attended a wedding in which the bride and groom vowed to remain together, “as long as love shall last.” Bennet said this – "I sent paper plates as my wedding gift." (From The Proverbs Driven Life by Anthony Selvaggio).

Today the divorce rate is still going strong, and many are preparing for divorce through no fault divorce and prenuptial agreements. Sexual infidelity is shockingly high among married couples, with more and more average couples saying that they have or would engage in extramarital sex if they had the opportunity. Sadly Premarital sex is hardly even a question among many teens.

In contrast to all this Proverbs tells us by way of appeal, by command, and by vivid example a simple message: run from sexual sin with all your might. Put sexual intimacy in the place where God has promised the blessing to be found – within the protection of God-honoring marriage. Proverbs deals extensively with this subject. Here are just a few places:

Prov. 1 –embrace wisdom

Prov. 2 – Seek wisdom: it will keep you from sexual sin

Prov. 5 – Drink water from your own cistern, rejoice in the wife of your youth

Prov. 6 – The one who commits adultery destroys himself

Prov. 7 – The case study of a man who lumbers like an ox into adultery

Why is this here so much about sexuality found in Proverbs? Remember, this is Solomon. This is the man who had so many women in his bed he could have had sex every night for more than two years straight and not been with the same woman. That’s a frightening thought. Perhaps the only thing more frightening would be trying to keep all those women happy! Solomon learned the damage of sexual sin at great personal cost.

But there is a larger reason for the Bible's teaching on sexuality: Sex is one of God's greatest gifts. He devoted an entire book of the Bible to the fundamental "goodness" of properly sanctified sexuality (Song of Solomon). God designed you as a sexual being to enjoy this gift in its proper sphere. He is a good God who loves to give good gifts to His children! (By the way, that doesn't mean that sex is perfect even in the context of marriage. Because of the effects of the fall there will always be some struggles and difficulties, but that is a topic for another article).

The witness of the Bible seems to reveal that God has even a larger purpose for sexuality mainly because He has a larger purpose for ordaining marriage in the first place. The late Edmund Clowney put it this way:

"God did not fish around for some image to use to show his people what His love is like, and then stumble on marriage as the best one to convince them to return to Him in covenant devotion. He did not recognize the power of married love and determine to use sexuality as the strongest figure. No. God planned it the other way around. The Lord placed in us at creation deep sexual emotions so that we might understand the jealousy of His love for us and the joy of jealousy in Him... such deep seated jealousy is right and good, evidencing the natural instinct that God has placed in us as human beings to desire 'one true love.' God created that instinct so that we would better understand his faithful love to us." (How Jesus Transforms the Ten Commandments, by Edmund Clowney)

Do you see Clowney's point? God created marriage, and sexuality in marriage to be a high definition picture of His love for you. Ephesians 5:25-27 may well have this in mind:

"Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish."

It seems that the love, proper marital jealousy and the sexual desires that come with marriage were created in us by God to help us understand His love for us. Don't shy away from this because it seems odd to relate sexual desire to God's love for us! The point is not that God's love for His people is sexual in nature. No, rather the point is that God wants us to know what it means to be deeply and wholly devoted to someone so we might better understand what it means for the church to be His bride. When Paul says "husbands love your wives as Christ loves the church, he invites us to see Jesus as a model for our marital love. But He also wants us to experience deep desire for and devotion to another person so that we might better understand His love for us and our calling to love Him in return. God has given us a desire for "one true love." And He is the only one who can perfectly fulfill that desire!

As we continue to think about sexuality in our sermons, let's never think that this is just about sex. God wants us to see His jealous, holy and perfect love for us, and He's given us concrete pictures (such as marriage and sexuality) to help us better understand the profound mystery of how Christ relates to us, His people.

Pastor David

John Murray on Romans 14:5 and the Weekly Sabbath

Romans 14:5 “One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind.”

Pastor David referenced Romans 14:5 in last Sunday’s sermon as a text that is often cited as evidence that the 4^th commandment no longer applies to Christians. It is stated that Paul is teaching in Rom 14:5 that all days are alike for the Christian, and thus implying that the 4^th commandment which requires observance of a “special” day is now a matter of indifference. A popular study bible expresses this view in its commentary on the verse: “What is remarkable is that the Sabbath is no longer a binding commitment for Paul but a matter of one’s personal conviction. Unlike the other nine commandments, the Sabbath commandment seems to have been part of the ‘ceremonial laws’ of the Mosaic Covenant…(and) are no longer binding on new covenant believers.”

Despite the surface plausibility of such an interpretation, I do not believe that Paul’s intention was to set aside the 4^th commandment for Christians. In what follows, I summarize the arguments of Systematic Theologian John Murray, who addressed this very question in an appendix of his Romans commentary. First, Murray lists several implications of adopting the interpretation that Romans 14:5 abolishes the weekly Sabbath:

1. The 4^th commandment then no longer has binding authority upon Christians. The observance of one day in seven would be abrogated and in the same category of other ceremonial rites of the Mosaic economy. To insist on observing a Sabbath day would be just as ‘Judiazing’ as to demand the continuance of the Levitical feasts.

2. The first day of the week would no longer have any prescribed religious significance. It cannot properly be regarded as the Lord’s day in distinction from the way in which any other day of the week is to be lived in devotion and service to Christ.

3. Observing the Sabbath as a day commemorating the Lord’s resurrection would then be a feature of the weak brother! The strong brother would be one who recognized that observing a weekly Sabbath was unnecessary.

Next, Murray lists several reasons against interpreting Romans 14:5 as abolishing the 4^th commandment:

1. The Sabbath is a creation ordinance and did not begin with the Mosaic Covenant (Gen 2:2-3. This is a key point, note how the Study Bible quotation above assumes that the Sabbath originated with the Mosaic Covenant). Further, to assume that the Sabbath no longer applies is to assume that the pattern provided by God himself in the work of creation and which Christ declared is a benefit for man (Mark 2:27-28) no longer has any relevance for the regulation of man’s life on earth. It also assumes that only 9 of the 10 commandments have authority for Christians, of which there is no evidence at all.

2. The N.T. recognizes the first day of the week as having a special significance because Jesus rose from the dead on this day (Acts 20:7; 1 Cor 16:2, Rev 1:10). If Paul in Romans 14:5 implies that all distinctions of days has been obliterated, then there would have been no legitimacy for the early church and apostles to recognize the first day of the week as the Lord’s day in this way.

3. Romans 14:5 is best understood as referring to the ceremonial holy days of the Levitical institution. This understanding fits perfectly in the context of Romans 14 and with the teaching of Scripture as a whole. To include the weekly Sabbath as falling under the scope of Paul’s statement goes beyond the exegetical warrant of the text and contradicts clear principals that are embedded in the total witness of Scripture.

Bottom Line: We still have 10 commandments, not 9

What is Discipleship? Part 2 - Who is a disciple? Is being a disciple tied to being a Christian?

How often have your heard the call of Matthew 28:19­_­-20, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age.” used as an encouragement to GO, and evangelize some lost nation? But, is this the only thing Christ was calling His people to?

If this is truly the way that Jesus was describing the work of the church this brings up important questions for our discussion of who is a disciple?  Is it only the new believer that needs discipleship? Or, do all believers need to be discipled? This truly strikes at the core of the question of this blog series, What is Discipleship.

So lets begin by asking the question, Who is a Disciple?

In the most basic of terms anyone who has been called by Christ, is committed to follow Christ, and who fellowships with Christ and His Church is a disciple. So as I pointed out in my last post anyone who is a believer in Christ is a disciple.

Now I can hear your objections, “Wait a second, I have been walking with Christ for the last 10 years! I do not need to be discipled! I should be the one discipling.” Well maybe you would not go that far for fear of me calling you, but you get the point.

In some cases I would agree, you ought to be discipling! But, you should also look for ways in which you can be discipled. If, as I will argue in a later post, discipleship mean’s “forsaking everything to follow Christ”[1] and growing in our love, knowledge and obedience to Christ then we as followers of Christ need help along the way.

It doesn’t matter if you have been walking with God for 5 minutes or 50 years you still are in need of training and growing in love, knowledge and obedience to Christ. So as we follow Christ’s command in Matthew 9:9 where he says, “Follow me.” God gives us one another to assist us in our growth.

Now lets move to the second question: Is being a disciple tied to being a Christian?

Once again I would have to answer in the affirmative. I think that this is a large part of what Christ was saying in Matthew 28. He is saying to go and as we see people come to Christ we are not to leave them in spiritual infancy we are to train them up in righteousness. James Boice says this, “All this is to say that discipleship is not simply a door to be entered but a path to be followed and that the disciple proves the validity of his discipleship by following that path to the very end.”[2] The Christian life is a life that is characterized by being discipled and discipling, and we would do well not to turn our backs on one of the most important ways that God has given us to grow in Him

So, will you follow Christ? Will you find someone who can disciple you and hold you accountable?  ‘“The Master is going before you. He is looking back at you with a most compelling gaze. He is saying, “Come!” He is commanding, “Follow me!”’[3]

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[1] Boice, James Montgomery, Christ’s Call to Discipleship p 13

[2] ibid. p 22

[3] ibid. p 23

What is Discipleship? Part 1- What is a Disciple?

       I have often wondered, what is a disciple? This question began to come to the forefront of my mind as I have started to try to develop a culture of discipleship at NCPC. As we think about the three fold vision of NCPC, Worship God, Live in Community, Serve our World, discipleship is typically looked at as falling under Live in Community . But, discipleship falls into all three area, and because it falls into all three areas it is an integral part of NCPC’s mission and work.

Today, I want to explore the question I posed above, What is a disciple? It is important that we get the answer to this question nailed down before we move onto more discussion on the topic of discipleship. Now I don’t claim to know everything about being a disciple, or discipleship in general, but this discussion is helpful to get us started down the path to discipleship.

What is a disciple?

A “disciple is basically the pupil of a teacher.” This is a good starting point, the pupil of a teacher. We see this definition at work all around us. We say, “Well so and so is a disciple of what’s his name”, and we generally understand what that person believes, their stances on positions, and who they look up to. As this word applies to business, or school the teacher/leader may not even know the disciple, but the disciple does everything he can to know the teacher.

But in Christianity, this idea falls short, and as I propose a working definition for a disciple of Christ the distinctions will become clearer. I want to take a look at three items that help to define (in part) what a disciple of Christ is. Three of the things that define a disciple are:

• Calling by Christ
• Commitment to follow
• Fellowship with Christ, and the Church

Calling by Christ

The disciple of Christ is called by Christ to follow him. While Christ walked the earth he called people to follow him. We see this pattern laid out in the gospels, as well as Acts (calling of the Apostle Paul). Jesus calls, and the disciples drop what they are doing and follow him (Matthew 4:18–22; Mark 1:16–20, 2:13–17, 3:13–21; John 1:35ff; Acts 9). This is how Jesus makes his disciples, by calling them, and they are bound to repent, believe in the gospel, and follow (John 10:1–19). Jesus knows his disciples, they know him, and he calls them out by name.

This ties discipleship to our salvation. In his book Christ's call to Discipleship James Montgomery Boice said this, 

But I say at the outset that the arguments of the following chapters are essentially one thesis, namely that discipleship is not a supposed second step in Christianity as if one first becomes a believer in Jesus and then, if he chooses, a disciple. From the beginning discipleship is involved in what it means to be a Christian. (p 16)

Commitment to follow

As we all find out eventually, following Christ comes with a cost, it is not easy. We have read of the cost of being a disciple of Christ as he called the rich man to sell everything, give it to the poor and follow Christ (Mark 10:17–31). We have heard of the call to leave father, mother and family to follow Christ (Luke 9:57–62). Now, Christ is not calling his people to a life of poverty or solitude, but he is saying that with the call to follow, and worship him comes the call to denounce the idols that can trap us.

But the one call that summarizes Christ’s teaching on the cost of discipleship is found in Matthew 16:24–28 where Christ says, “If any one would come after me let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me…” Now it would take up too much room to fully explain this passage, but what Christ is calling his disciples to do is sacrifice what he himself sacrificed. But the beauty of this call to costly discipleship is that Christ has fulfilled this command for you, so even though you will never do these things perfectly, Christ has and his record is yours.

Fellowship with Christ and the Church

Growth in God’s kingdom does not happen in a vacuum. God has given each believer a new family (Mark 10:17–31: other believers are who we gain as brothers and sister and mothers) who are to care for each other. Paul Tripp has a lecture series out on this topic and I love the title because it captures this thought so well Your walk with God is a community project. 

We are made for community, we are called to encourage each other. But God also gives us the visible church and the means of Grace (Word of God, the Sacraments, and Prayer) for us to grow in Christ. By these means we fellowship with each other and with Christ.

So are you a disciple? I will be writing more in the following weeks to help to explain and encourage you to take hold of the reality that, if you are a Christian you are a disciple, and to encourage you to get involved in either discipling or being discipled.