How a church in Western Sydney encourages youth to serve
Encourage youth To learn To servE at church in tangible ways such as welcoming, serving Food, operating the lights or sound desk.
I used to think that youth were the future of the church. But over the last little while, I’ve begun to rethink this.
I came to realise that youth are not just the future church, or the next generation waiting in the wings to join the church sometime when they are older. Rather, they are the present church: the current generation, God’s adopted sons and daughters, Christ’s bride, equipped by the Holy Spirit for works of service.
This means we should actively seek to train them and give them opportunities to serve the body of Christ in the present.
Throughout Scripture, we see faithful people were entrusted with the responsibility of spreading the gospel (Acts 6:1-7). Paul also commanded Timothy, "And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others” (2 Timothy 2:2). There's a four-generation chain from Paul to Timothy who would then go on to equip reliable and qualified people to teach others. God grows his Kingdom, not just as we teach the gospel but also as we equip them to reach others.
Online Youth Group, through COVID, initially required a heavy investment from leaders to teach, encourage, and care for our youth. But as time went on, we were reminded of the joy it was to see our youth involved in using their gifts as they participated online, shared their faith with friends or shared a testimony online,
While leading on Youthworks Leaders in Training, I was encouraged to be on the lookout for youth we could ‘throw the keys’ of responsibility and service to: to identify youth and entrust them with meaningful opportunities to serve others.
So, when Youth Group began to gather again in person, we were convicted that we wanted to facilitate more ways for our youth to move from passive consumers at Youth Group to active contributors to the Kingdom.
In Term 4, our leadership team ran an initiative called Young Guns. with the purpose of youth being trained in serving, and then serving at Youth Group.
Over the four weeks we ran Young Guns, we trained at least 35 youth in Years 6-12, and equipped them in:
Upfront skills
Welcoming and building community and
Gospel foundations.
Each week we celebrated seeing youth learning and serving in tangible ways such as welcoming newcomers, checking youth in, serving pizza, operating the lights or sound desk, or involved as an MC.
Each week it was our joy was to see how serving built a greater sense of ownership among our youth and enabled our youth leaders to be freed up from tasks to interact with and disciple youth throughout the night. This year we’ve already seen our Young Guns involved in serving as the year has begun.
We’re planning to continue Young Guns this year, focusing on starting, leading, and training others up in lunchtime Bible study groups at their own schools. Our prayer is that these same youth who have started taking opportunities to serve now will continue what they’ve started as they get older.
In 2021, God will build his Kingdom in ways we don’t understand or expect, just as he did in 2020.
As you plan a whole new year of youth ministry, consider how you can prioritise training your youth to use their time, talents, and treasures to grow God's Kingdom!
Which one of these steps will you take?
Read Youthworks’ Training Paper on Increasing Active Participation in Youth Ministry and share ideas with your youth leadership team.
Sit down with your leadership team to plan what training and ministry opportunities could look like this year.
Talk with other pastors about how to help youth to serve at church outside of Youth Group.
List all the roles in your Youth Group and consider which ones youth could be involved in.
Get youth to help with the various roles you do. Eventually, find ways for youth to own it.
Rehan Prins is Youth Pastor at Multicultural Bible Ministry, a Sydney Anglican church in Western Sydney.