Ministry Moment – Building Relationships with Students

When I graduated High School, I (briefly) attended the University of Cincinnati before heading on to Bible College. I don’t remember much about my time there (willful blocking out of memories, not some alcohol induced haze!) but one of my more vivid memories involves one of those street preachers who often stood on main thoroughfares and yelled at everyone, telling them and me what a sinner I was. While I did and still do sin (occasionally), this guy had no idea who I was or what I needed to hear. Its no surprise that this fellow or his compadres had very little success in bringing about life change.

Ministry is all about relationships.  That is why those speakers failed. That is why Jesus succeeded. Jesus had his greatest success not with his sermons, but in the relationships He made – the disciples; Mary, Martha, and Lazarus; Nicodemus; many of those He healed…the list goes on and on. The crowds turned on Him, but many of those He built relationships with still had relationship with Him when He rose from the dead.

We need to be relational in ministry. By relational, I mean that our goal should not be programs nor should it be buddy-buddy, but to build life changing relationships with teens. As I’ve said in a previous blog post, we should use programs as opportunities to build those life changing relationships, but that shouldn’t be an end to our attempts at building those relationships.

I have always struggled at building those relational bridges with students. Its hard. Its messy. I could be rejected. I could be laughed at. I feel out of place. I wonder if some other adult is going to question my motives. It takes time. There are thousands of reasons why it is difficult. Programs, on the other hand, are easy. I can throw something together in a few hours. I can download a nifty video, find some good illustrations, locate a fun game, mix it all together and out comes a nice hour of youth group. Easy. Simple. I am even insulated from feelings of rejection because the teens would be rejecting the program, not me.

I finally had an epiphany a few years back. At the time, I had spent many months going to the local middle school for lunch. I went on a day that I knew other youth ministers would be there so I wouldn’t feel alone or out of place (too much). Even then, I saw how students would react to the younger and cooler other ministers, and felt like a relational failure. After I’d made my rounds, I sat down to talk with the school security guard for a bit. He talked about how great it was that we came down and were doing this for the students. He then went on to point out so many of the kids that were in need. There was the boy that had been suspended multiple times for drugs. There was the girl that was “easy” because she couldn’t find love at home. There was that group over there that was always causing trouble. On and on and on he went, and I discovered that while I was busy being afraid these young people (all under 14 years old) were busy running from God.

At that moment, I realized that I was there for a specific purpose – God had set a “divine appointment” for me with someone. Many days I had completely missed that appointment because I was too wrapped up in myself. Yet my eyes were suddenly opened, and I saw that my just being there or our church programs were not doing it. Instead, I needed to be regularly building relationships with students of all stripes.

If you are like me, at first you are unsure how to do it. Like I said, its not easy. Some students and environments will be harder to crack than others. It took me a full two years of being in the schools and the community to really break through, and this was in a fairly open rural community. Some other places might go quicker (especially if you’re better looking than me!) or it might take from 6th grade through senior year. Either way, your divine appointment is not to change the student’s lives. That is God’s job. You are merely to be there, to offer your hand in friendship, and let God use you from there. So, here is a list of things that I found to be helpful in meeting those divine appointments and building those relationships.

• Visit during school lunch (I found this to be the #1 way to meet students)
• Go to sports games, band and choir concerts, and any other extracurricular activity whether you have students involved or not
• Invite students to accompany you in your daily life like shopping, hospital visits, house work, etc. (obviously, never take a student alone – stay above reproach!)
• Take some students out to eat after church or after youth group
• Shoot some hoops or throw around a football with the teens
• Play a video game with them
• Send them encouragements on Facebook or Myspace
• Remember their names (THIS IS HUGE! Teens want to be remembered)
• Drop in on them at their work
• Remember their birthdays (a simple card or balloon, hand delivered, will mean a lot)
• Pray for them, and occasionally drop them a simple note to let them know

This is by no means an exhaustive list. What you will find as you go along and do this is that students will respond to you, they will come to you, they will listen to you, and you suddenly have a great deal of influence in their lives. You’ll suddenly see that you have met and fulfilled those divine appointments, and God has used you to change these students lives.

What other ways do you use to build relationships with students?