Guiding Principles for Youth Ministry

If you were to look up the phrase “youth ministry” in the Bible, your search result will undoubtedly come up empty, at least as far as literal use of the term is concerned. But the Bible does, in fact, speak on how a young person spiritually develops, as well as the responsibility of those who look to guide them toward lifelong discipleship. As YPT has argued in many ways, although the phrase “youth ministry” may not be in the Bible, the concept is certainly there. 

The more difficult task to answer is: how should we think about what our guiding principles in youth ministry should be? How do we structure our ministries for success? Can we develop safeguards to help keep the focus on steering students toward a life of pursuing Christ? Here are three guiding principles as you think through these questions. 

Consider Discipleship Lanes

First, there is the primary discipleship role of parents. We might call this the Deuteronomy 6 principle, where Scripture teaches, “And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates” (Deuteronomy 6:6-9 ESV). Clearly, the Bible places a high emphasis on the parents for the discipleship of their children. Since they have been placed as the primary authority and spiritual influence in their households, any approach to faithful youth ministry must keep parents in mind. How you resource them, support them, encourage them, and empower them to pour into their students should be your first discipleship lane. 

The second lane of discipleship for student is the secondary (but still important!) discipleship role of the local church. The Titus 2 principle describes how the older generations help minister to the younger ones. Older men and women are admonished in verse 2-3, but then verses 4-5 discuss how have they are to then help those who are younger in age (and also typically younger in the faith) on how to live a godly lives and become self-controlled. Although parents occupy a large portion of students’ spiritual lives, they will not be their primary spiritual influences in the same way in every stage of life. God has graciously equipped other adults and spiritual mentors for students to continually learn from as they move from stage to stage. Leveraging volunteers and interns for this endeavor will serve our ministries well. 

The last lane of discipleship that I think many of us overlook is the peer-to-peer relationship within student ministry. If our goal is to help students become life-long disciples, then helping them learn to rely on those in the same stage of life is an important practice to learn! Although everyone needs mentors and older saints to impart wisdom to them, encouragement from those who are experiencing the same things at the same time can help students thrive.  

Control What You Can

In our backyard, we have a fig tree. It’s come to outgrow even my own height at 6 feet tall. On the surface, it would seem to be very healthy and impressive. But here’s the problem: it hasn’t produced fruit this year because the proper pruning wasn’t done to help it grow. Youth ministry can sometimes be judged similarly. It sometimes looks impressive on the outside by its sheer size, but it lacks actual fruit. At the same time, even if it looks unimpressive in the moment, by “playing the long game” and fixing what can be fixed, fruit will eventually come. 

In youth ministry, we can’t control the work of God in the lives of students, nor can we control how a student responds to the Lord. As Jesus told Nicodemus, “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit” (John 3:8). But there are some things we, as youth leaders, can control. 

Although we can’t force a student to participate in spiritual disciplines, youth leaders can make the commitment to both challenge their students to form spiritual habits and to lead by example. The Apostle Paul couldn’t physically control the behaviors of the Corinthian church, but he did admonish them, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:1). Youth leaders can’t control how often a student attends church or youth group. Nor can they force them to cultivate a consistent quiet time routine, but they can make a point to emphasize their importance regularly.

We cannot control what our students do, but we can control how we care for the students in our churches. We control our commitments to reaching out to students and praying for them. We can control how we show up when they need it most. We can control how we anchor our lessons in God’s Word, bathe them in prayer, and present them with conviction and clarity. And we can stick around, maintaining a consistent influence in our students’ lives. 

Create Space for What You Can’t 

Romans 10:17 reminds us, “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” We could rephrase that as an equation: no hearing the word of Christ = no faith. Youth ministries ought to be a place where the word of Christ is clearly and effectively communicated in order to prompt and foster faith. But the words from 1 Corinthians 3:6-7 are also helpful here: “What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.” Youth leaders can plant the seed of Scripture and even try “watering” for several years, but only God has the power to give the growth. 

This means we need to create space for a smaller “return on our investment” than we desire. If a student hears God’s Word faithfully taught week to week, but rejects the Christian faith, that doesn’t mean his youth pastor is a failure. Similarly, if a student grows by leaps and bounds in her faith, a youth pastor can’t rightly say, “You can thank me for that.” There are other times when we pour out our heart and soul for the spiritual wellbeing of students, only to find out that they’ve left the church or even left the faith. Thankfully, the measuring rod of our ministries is faithful stewardship, not tangible results. 

Missionary William Carey once said, “I can plod. I can persevere in any definite pursuit. To this I owe everything.” Will you do the same? Only God has the power to provide spiritual growth, and He calls us to trust in His power, the means He has given, and His promise that His Word will never return void. Our role is to establish guiding principles that depend on the means God has given, the practices He has commanded, and the power He has promised. We should be content to sometimes plant, sometimes water, and always expect for God to move.