Cultivating your Youth Group’s Heart for Global Mission
15/05/24
At a recent visit to a youth group, I was encouraged to see young people spending time intentionally praying for a mission partner of their church. It was clear that this was more than an irregular, token segment to tick the global mission box. This youth group were actively engaged in knowing and supporting their mission partner, who is serving cross-culturally in a very different part of the world.
In recent times many of our churches have done some helpful thinking about ‘mission’. Yet current trends in church culture have meant that when we use the term ‘mission’ we now mostly mean local evangelism. We are (rightly) spending time considering how to best be missional to those in our local area. We are (rightly) equipping and encouraging our young people to be on mission to their family and friends. We are (rightly) assessing the ‘mission heat’ of our youth ministries.
Amongst this increase in mission thinking it’s worth taking a temperature check and asking the question – have we unintentionally side-lined a heart for global mission in our youth ministries?
Keeping global mission on the agenda in our youth ministries helps young people align their desires with God’s desires for people of all nations to know and praise God. In Psalm 96 we are reminded that God’s love, mercy, and compassion is for all people. In Revelation 7 we read of the new creation, in which people from every nation, tribe, and language are present. If this is the future towards which God’s people are heading to, it is only right to ask if our youth ministries are places where young people are being shaped in light of this certain reality.
Assessing your global mission temperature
One helpful way to assess the place of global mission within your youth ministry is to consider your current ‘global mission temperature’. The Church Missionary Society (CMS) identifies that churches (and by extension, youth ministries) fall into one of four categories in regard to their global mission temperature.[1]
Mission Uninterested – Global mission is not a part of what the church is involved in. No mission partners.
Mission Interested – The church has mission partners. Mission exists as a special interest for a subset of the church.
Mission Supporting – Mission partnership is part of the church’s core identity. Members are personally engaged in partnership.
Mission Sending – The church is not only partnered in mission but is looking to train and send people into mission.
As you consider the global mission temperature of your youth ministry you may also like to reflect on the following diagnostic questions:
What place does global mission have within our strategic plans for youth ministry?
What does partnership with global mission look like in our youth ministry context?
How well known are our church’s mission partners within our youth ministry?
Does our youth ministry actively encourage people towards global mission?
Once you have assessed your current global mission temperature, consider how you might take steps to move your ministry forward to the next temperature category.
Turning up the temperature
Making forward progress in cultivating a heart for global mission doesn’t necessarily require you to completely restructure your youth ministry plans. Here’s some suggestions for how to turn up the temperature.
As you plan the next term of youth group consider how to incorporate global mission into your weekly and termly rhythms. You might consider focussing on one of your mission partners over the course of a term with a weekly segment – this might introduce who they are and what ministry they are involved in. You might spend time praying for them, writing letters to them from your youth group, or raising financial support.
Look for opportunities in your Bible teaching and discussion to naturally incorporate a growing heart for global mission. You might find there are many opportunities to connect the application of a talk or the discussion questions of a small group to helping young people think more clearly about global mission.
Consider the language that you use about the aims of your youth group. Many groups are great at encouraging youth to think missionally about family and friends. It might be a simple language change to add global mission to that encouragement.
Identify the youth in your ministry who naturally have a heart for global mission. Encourage and equip them in helping to increase the global mission temperature. You may like to provide them with opportunities to share or present about global mission within your youth group.
Build global mission into your leadership training. You might consider adding a training component on global mission for your junior leaders and for your youth ministry leaders. This will help to foster a culture of awareness and support for global mission within your leadership teams.
Consider your own attitude towards global mission. Your personal global mission temperature is crucial here – sometimes this is the barrier. A youth ministry will generally not move any further ahead than the temperature of the head leader of the ministry.
As you consider how to best invest in helping young people align their desires with God’s desires, what are the next steps you can take to increase the global mission temperature of your youth ministry?
[1] As presented by John Lovell at the CMS NSW/ACT Summer School in January 2024. Used with permission.
