This is the write up of the long-anticpated by my 2 readers (thanks wife and mom!) to the NYMC track I attended. If you recall, and you of course do since this is the most important blog in Cynthiana, Kentucky, I had some trouble selecting a track for the convention because there were just so many good ones to attend. I finally settled on Rick Lawrence’s workshop on “Jesus Centered Youth Ministry.” I was not disappointed.
Rick Lawrence is the editor of Group Magazine and the author of the book (go ahead, guess!) “Jesus Centered Youth Ministry” (Did you guess it?) The whole thrust of the track and book was that we need to make Jesus the center of our youth ministries. Too often, it is the church, a program, or ourselves that becomes the center and Jesus is the garnish that makes it look just spiritual enough to get by. Instead, we need to remember who the focus should be, and making HIM the hub of our youth ministries, not just a spoke.
There was just so much in those eight hours that I could not do them justice to even begin to describe what we talked about. I HIGHLY recommend any youth minister that is serious about reaching teens FOR JESUS read the book, it will give you pretty much the same insights that were discussed in the track. We have too many youth ministries built on bad foundations, instead of on the foundation of Christ (my own included too many times, I am sad to say). Even when we do the best we can to build on Christ, we often don’t make sure our students lives are built on the foundation of Christ. Perhaps these two reasons are why students leave the faith after they graduate from our ministries?
I am still turning over in my head many of the things I learned. One thing I am doing is trying to get my students to know Christ. I’ve always stressed having a “personal relationship” with Jesus, but I think thats a foreign term to many of these students. Sometimes its a foreign term to me. But I have been going over who Jesus is and what He did so that they can have a better picture of Him. It is my hope that they will “get it” and move closer to Him.