I feel like I could write a book on this because there are so many more reasons (outside of these 3) that Student Ministry will always have a place. Just decided to pick 3 as they are on my mind as I’m doing final prep for some workshops I’m teaching down at National Youth Workers Convention this coming weekend.

1. Student Ministry done right, has a relational dynamic that can’t be matched anywhere else in the church.

When student ministries are helping students connect with each other and other Godly leaders, the bond/camaraderie cannot be touched with a 10 foot pole. Not going to go into the psychology of it right now but it’s been proven for decades. THEN it’s the student ministries job to connect those same students/leaders BACK to the larger local church body.

Being blunt, the biggest mistake a student ministry can make is NOT using their relational equity to connect students to the larger church body. Sure there are other REALLY big mistakes student ministry can make, but assuming the basics are covered, this one is a big/common miss.

2. Families will always need outside voices to reinforce their Godly wisdom/parenting.

If you’ve interfaced with a lot of parents you will hear time and time again, “I’ve said that for years” or “I say that ALLLLLLLLLLL the time” “….but since you said it, they actually believe/trust it”. It’s true, sometimes parents can talk until their blue in the face but sometimes until at least one other person they love/respect affirms it, their kids don’t fully believe/get it.

3. Students like hanging out with each other and gathering together around content that interests them in their present form.

Not to say that non-student ministry service are irrelevant to students because that’s the furthest thing from the truth in our church context here at Granger. We actually have made a staff vow (within our GSM Staff Team) to NEVER try to ‘compete‘ with the weekend service….frankly because we can’t, haha they’re amazing! BUT we do have a unique space where we can drill down deep on exactly what’s going on in the demographics of teens in our area and adopt a missionary mindset to specifically target how to reach them with the Gospel.

So there’s just a few, hope the ebook that I just wrote (here in this post) wasn’t too long for you to wade through.

Rock on and Keep it real!