Youth Ministry That Lasts a Lifetime

"Youth ministry that doesn't last a lifetime doesn't matter very much." The real criteria for evaluating youth ministry is this question: Are we consistently introducing teenagers to Jesus and then discipling them into believers who will, for a lifetime, love God, love people, and make disciples for the glory of God? Everyone who evaluates youth ministry needs to ask a new set of questions. The issue really is not: How is our youth group doing today? Instead, the core question is: How will our youth group be doing for a lifetime? Most youth pastors love King Jesus supremely and do their work tirelessly. But by employing a sixty-year-old model of youth ministry, the great majority of church teenagers are not becoming world-changing disciples as adults. Is the church willing to give up comfortable youth ministry for a radically new model that is likely to lead many more teenagers to lifetime faith?