T.H.I.N.K. SERVICES! 52 times a year, 364 times from 6th to 12th grade we have an opportunity as student leaders to impact students in the large group setting we call services assuming they show up every week for their entire student career (highly unlikely). Chances are this will be the "environment" they bring their unreached friends to and evaluate the youth ministry on. With that in mind our services will be the most important point of contact to our students (small groups would probably be the best for our students). It will be the place where the majority of salvations will occur and therefore it deserves our attention. We must T.H.I.N.K. services.
TIME - We should focus and invest a serious amount of time to building and creating services that attract students (see post on T.H.I.N.K. atmosphere). We should also evaluate how much time our services consume. Say more with less. Keep it short, students are more likely to invite their friends to a 60 minute service than a 90 or 120 minute one. Students today are used to programming that captures their attention from start to finish. Our services should be no different, they should capture their attention, so God can capture their hearts.
HEART - Sometimes working hard and investing time into services is draining. Having to prepare a message week in and week out wondering if anyone is listening let alone getting changed; can turn an incredible honor God has given us into a duty or a have to. We need to examine our hearts and make sure that our heart is filled with desire and passion. Make sure your heart is captured by your students and God will use you to capture theirs.
INVOLVEMENT - Getting the right people involved in your services is paramount for it's success. From the creative planning process to who steps foot on the stage, who's involved is huge! Evaluate who is involved. Make sure they have character and the talent. Presenters on stage should be engaging and captivating and full of Godly character. The creative team should be well... creative and character filled. Just because someone has character doesn't mean they should be a presenter and just because they have talent doesn't mean they should be a presenter. Evaluate who's involved and get the right people even if you have to go get them yourself.
NUMBERS - Your service had better be taylored to reach the masses... period. We're called to reach a generation, not just a specific genre or clique. Make sure everything you do for your services has the whole generation in mind. Every series, design element, worship experience should have the numbers in mind especially those numbers of students who do not know Christ.
KULTURE - Our services need to reach a culture that is broken and blinded with the life changing message of Christ in a way that the culture understands it. With this in mind we often then must speak the language of the culture like Paul did on his missionary journeys in acts. The language of youth culture is music, movies, tv and internet oh and texting :-). Without compromising the Gospel we need to speak their language. Use the culture to reach the culture. Be in this world, but not of it. The Gospel doesn't change, but the method for presenting it does. Speak their language in your services. Here's an example of a cultural service intro.
Questions to ask yourself:
- How much time do we spend planning our services?
- How much time do we spend evaluating our services?
- How long are our services?
- Are our services engaging and captivating to students?
- What needs to change?
- Is the service intro engaging?
- Is the worship engaging?
- How do we transition to the message?
- Is the message engaging?
- Is the closing engaging?
- Do our services allow for God to capture students hearts?
- Is my heart captured by God
- Is my heart captured for my students?
- Is my service preparation a have to?
- Who's involved in our services? Do they have character and talent?
- Who's involved in our creative planning process? Do they have creativity and talent?
- Do we have the right people involved?
- Does our service reach the many or the few?
- Does our creative process plan to reach the many?
- Are we speaking the language of a culture?
- Are we presenting the unchanging Gospel with an ever changing method that reaches a culture?
No comments:
Post a Comment