How can I disciple young people well?

Every year it happens - I get reference forms to fill in for young people in our ministry who want to join leadership teams for Christian summer camps and festivals. 'Does she attend church regularly?' or 'Does he serve in the church?' I can answer. But then it happens: 'Are they a committed Christ-follower?' or 'How are their spiritual disciplines?' And I realise I don't know our young people well enough.

I'd challenge all of us to ask the following question of ourselves for every young person connected to our groups: Do I know them well enough to write a reference for a Christian organisation that's anything more than surface level? If not me, then does someone else on the team know them that well? In our youth ministry, we are definitely not at that place yet. Can we honestly answer, 'Are we growing each of our young people towards spiritual maturity?'

I know fairly well where the young men in the small group that I lead weekly are in their faith, others talk to me about what they're reading in the Bible, or ask me questions, or attend church services as well as youth, but what I know is often piecemeal. Recently a young woman, who is a regular in our youth ministry, asked me, 'What does it mean to be saved by Christ?' I realised then that she is in a very different place to where I thought she was.

Part of the challenge is that discipleship isn't like a school subject. How do we measure growth? I guess few of us ever do tests to find out. Having said that, I've just discoved the National Bible Bee in the US... But even learning huge swathes of Scripture isn't enough. Jesus said, 'Come, follow me' to Simon and Andrew (Matthew 4.19) and they left their nets and followed him. After that time, they were disciples. But there was a time (John 6.66) when we read: "From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him." They were following..., and then they weren't. The word 'disciple' comes from the Latin 'discipulus' meaning 'learner' or 'pupil'.

How do we know if our young people are learners of Jesus, and growing as such? It's worth spending time thinking through our programme to see if it encourages growth. Veteran youth worker, Dave Fenton, talks of 'Ways in' and 'Ways through': Ways for people to come into the church, then ways for them to be built up through it.

Our old programme

Midweek youth

We used to have food, games/activities then an hour of small Bible study groups midweek. These were peer small groups - year 10 boys (9th grade) etc. Great thing about that is, with regular leaders in place, they should over time work out where young people are in their Christian faith, and what next steps might be for them, helping them along in that journey. Downside is that to some extent, those who are less mature in their faith can hide behind the growing and keen members. It's also difficult to invite friends when you're never quite sure where discussions are going to go: 'I am the good Shepherd' or 'He drove the spear into both of them, right through the Israelite man and into the woman’s stomach'. I'm definitely not saying don't teach those things, but it's easier to teach to regular young people than one-off visitors, because of the amount of context needed and the benefit of existing relationship with the preacher.

Weekend youth

We would have some sung worship, a fairly long talk, then response time.

Downside of this model is that it's difficult to work out where the way in is. 60 minutes of Bible study that could be anything from Mark to Daniel is probably not the easiest way in to faith.

Our new programme

Midweek youth

Midweek, we now have food, games/activities for our older youth, then a 10-minute gospel talk. This is aimed at those with no or little faith, but a talk means you can get the Bible truth over quickly and clearly, without the meaning being made less clear by discussion and potentially disagreement.

After that, we split into small groups called On the Beach, Paddling, Snorkelling and Scuba Diving for 20 minutes of questions and discussion. If you wouldn't call yourself a Christian, you probably go 'On the Beach' and you can work out the rest. People choose where they want to go, but people are fairly stable in those groups (we have around 40 youth, split into maybe six groups - there are normally a couple of Snorkelling and a couple of Scuba ones). Find out more about the model here.

Weekend youth

Sunday night we have a group of around 20 for a longer talk (20-3o minutes) aimed at already Christians, followed by 30 minutes in small groups - year 10/11 boys, year 10/11 girls, etc. Lots of those also follow that up with our evening service.

We still find that some people turn up with absolutely no previous church connection on a Sunday. But they turn up because they want to go deep.

Here's a problem with this model: we find that those who come from unchurched families rarely attend this Sunday group (although they sometimes do). Family commitments often stop them.

Midweek Bible study

Added to that, we have an hour-long Bible study in the local coffee shop on a Tuesday after school. We get 10-15 to that, not only those who come to Sundays. That's a really good place to see who's growing as a disciples, as you chat about what they understand from a passage. You'll often also hear who's reading the Bible regularly and you'll hear of their growing love for Jesus and His word, for their friends who don't know Jesus, etc.

What else?

We have a growing number serving on children's teams on a Sunday morning, which I think is a good way to encourage growth in young people.

I'm trying to meet up with all our boys for one-to-ones for 40 minutes in a coffee shop at the moment. I'm only about six in, and it's definitely easier to get our Sunday regulars, but I'm working on it. That's a really good way to find out where people are at, because if they come, they're sort of expecting me to say, 'How are you and Jesus?' 'How is your prayer and Bible reading going?' etc.

We also have two annual residentials: a March weekend away and an August week away. We often find people making big steps forward in faith with that extra time to get to know Jesus. Even there though, moving people on is a challenge. Our Week Away, which is often focussed on discipleship, needs considerable family buy-in. This is much easier with families who come to church. So unchurched young people are more likely to come on our Weekend Away, yet we aim this at young people who don't know Jesus.

Our camps/residentials are great places to train young people. We have seminars on our Week Away on sharing faith, having quiet times or responding to deeper questions, to name but a few. Our most recent Week Away even saw three of our younger leaders running a seminar called 'Life Skills' where they talked about how young people could use their finances at university for the glory of God. Each morning, young people lead an optional quiet time, which is an excellent place for young people to learn how to read the Bible, pray and worship.

We always need to think of our people not just our programmes. Is our programme working to grow the people God has entrusted us with?

Our biggest challenge

How do we grow to maturity those who come to faith at a midweek group or on our weekend away? Thursdays we're aiming at evangelism, not discipleship. Weekend away, we're aiming at evangelism too.

Even just writing this, I wonder if in our free time midweek between dinner and talk/small groups (about 45 minutes) we should offer 15-minute one-to-ones with leaders - ask a question, ask for prayer, maybe almost a Discipleship 101 opportunity. I might try that at the start of term and see how it works... Some people naturally grab a leader for that time anyway, but if we could make it a normal thing rather than a surprising thing, that would be better. Maybe we'll give leaders, say, five questions to ask young people to answer:

• Who would you say Jesus is at the moment?

• Where would you place yourself at the moment in terms of Christian faith: On the beach, Paddling, Snorkelling or Scuba Diving?

• What do you think is a next step for you to go deeper?

• What's a question you have about God, Christianity or the Bible that you'd like to be clearer about?

• What can I be praying for you, your family and friends?

I'd love to have a resource that we can give to new believers, a bit like an extended tract - here's what a Christian is, maybe some stories of young Christians, here's how you can keep growing as Christians. We had a load of people make commitments in March on our Weekend Away, and I don't think we've helped them grow as well as we could. Have a look at 'How to go deeper with God?' here for a discipleship resource you can give young Christians.

There are my thoughts. Over to you. How do you disciple young people well? What works for you? What resources do you use? Contact me here and let me know.

Pictures: Wheat field by Levke Hannemann from Pixabay.

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If you want to think more about this, read the chapter 'Building disciples' in my book, 'Raising the Bar: Nearly Everything You Need to Know about Christian Youth Ministry' which you can buy here. It's nearly 400 pages! In it, you'll find other ideas about finding, training and growing leaders in your groups. You can find out here what other youth leaders think about the book.