 Thanks for joining once again. We're getting started with another session of the new Introduction to Youth Ministry. We finished page 34 in the previous class. We're talking about the dynamic program and events and talking about leadership and the kind of leadership this generation is expecting of their leaders. And tailoring a youth ministry that has maximum impact. We spoke about impacting millennials and you know how this generation has seen how they're so advanced and how they are so very well connected to internet and their perspective of life. For example, their online life is perceived to be the same as the offline life as well. And we've seen the advancement and the growth of technology and how it's helped ministries, so to say. So relational leadership was the other aspect that we learned. And so yeah, we concluded with you know dynamic program and events. How do we plan, design strategically an event or program for the youth? Again, having a feedback kind of a session, asking important questions. What worked? What did not work well? You know, meeting with your team and discussing to how to better programs, you know, in the future. So that is where we stopped at page 34 in your PDF. And so we'll continue with page 35. Page 35 in the PDF talks about depth and spiritual leadership. Let me see if I can share their screen. One second. Apologies. Just when I want to share a thing looks like my computer decides to do something else. Okay. Anyways, hope it works. I'm a class, please forgive me, but this seems to be a persistent technological problem issue with me being able to share my screen. Sorry about that. I'll see if I can get that sorted. Sorry, can you just follow along with me in the PDF that I've shared, please? I hope that's all right. Okay. So let's continue with page 35. We're talking about depth in spiritual leadership, spiritual discipleship, sorry, depth in spiritual discipleship. It starts off by saying so millennials may not come with vast knowledge of the Bible, even basic Bible stories have fallen out of their common culture and experience, but this generation is passionate about acquiring new knowledge. Again, it has an unquenchable desire to learn by exploring meaning in depth rather than skimming the surface or superficial understanding. Right. So if this generation is looking for answers and if then if this generation is really good at digging in deep and they are passionate about learning new things, we can't be satisfied, you know, but just teaching them the very basics. We need to go deeper as well in our teaching, our youth. Okay. So provide Bible teaching and basic doctrine. So it may seem very overly simplistic, but to lead a generation with no biblical background or common knowledge, the church must assume just that there exists a fundamental need to provide Bible teaching and basic doctrine. Okay. We need to teach our younger generation so that our youth ministry is not a place of, you know, get together, you know, as we've spoken or shared earlier, that people can get together anywhere, right, you know, with their friends and do whatever they want to do. What separates us, what differentiates us when we come together is that, yes, it's a time of fellowship, it's time of getting to know one another, it's time of having fun and building community and whatnot. And all of that, you know, is a bonus to be for the word of God being taught, right. And I'm forever grateful to my youth leaders and my worship pastor in the 2000s who drilled literally the importance of God's word, you know, into my life. And some of the young people, even today we may get together, we talk about how beautiful those days were. We talk about the Bible studies, you know, and how it's impacted and shaped my life and in my journey as being a Christian. And so it's, we cannot stress enough on teaching the importance of Bible and its doctrines to our young people, right. It's like one of the scriptures that we saw, I think a couple of classes prior in the book of Judges chapter two, where it says that after one generation passed away, there arose another generation that did not know who this God was or what he had done. It simply means that the older generation did not take time to invest in their younger generation or to teach them or to share with them about all the wonderful things that the Lord has done, had done and how he brought them out of Egypt, how he brought, how he made way through the Red Sea, how he parted the seas and how he provided for them in the wilderness in the desert, how he provided water, you know, through the rock, you know, it was their responsibility to share all of that with the next generation. And because they failed to do that, the generation that came after, who did not know who the Lord was or what he had done, they walked in wicked ways inviting judgment of God. Okay, so it falls on us as leaders, not just, you know, teaching biblical doctrine, but also being a shepherd to them, right. And I think it's in this day and age, especially pastors slash leaders can come across very popular, you know, or it's like a, how do I say, not sure if it's right to say like a hero worship, kind of a thing, you know, very popular and whatnot. Being a leader is great and whatnot, but then what we need to have is a heart of shepherd, right, we need to shepherd the flock, flock, and that begins by us learning and realizing that we are a sheep first, and David realizes that and he writes, you know, this Psalm 23 is known to be a Psalm that where David writes in during the latter part of his king, kingly life, right, where he realizes and says, okay, although I am a king, although I'm king of the nation, and although I lead a nation, I've come so far and I've been successful in life, he still recognizes and realizes that he is a sheep when he says that the Lord is my shepherd. So I think the first step for us being, having a shepherd's heart is us realizing that we are sheep and the Lord is our shepherd, and he guides us, he leads us. And, and so we, we learn from the way he leads us, right, the way he guides us, the way he provides for us, the way he's there for us, right, that's what the shepherd does, isn't it, he leads us in the parts of righteousness, right, he provides for us, he leads us beside still waters, right, and we have all that I need, as Salman says, right, so and, and as we can draw from those, from the lessons of Psalm 23, we are called to be shepherds, to guide them in the right parts of righteousness, right, so that's the need of the hour as well, they're not really looking for a star, leader, but they are looking for a shepherd who will walk with them, who will guide them, who will walk beside them, right, so this is a wonderful quote by Tom Crandall at the bottom of page 35, it says, if we don't give the next generation an encounter with God, there won't be a generation to carry the kingdom of God, right, so we owe the world an encounter with God, and I want you to remember that, okay, talking to the leaders, I'm talking to you leaders, worship leaders, pastors, we owe the world an encounter with the Lord, amen, I hope you are with me, all of this leads to the next page, 6.4 in page 36, so all of this is great, so how do young people commit to being part of such a community, how do they commit, what can we do to get them to commit, right, last month we did a theme at APC with the youth meetings on the power of commitment, based on one of the APC publications called the power of commitment, written by Pastor Ashish, it's a 30 pages small book, which I would recommend you to read, it talks about the importance of commitment, the characters, the characteristics of a committed person, right, and I think to a certain extent, being committed can be a challenge in this day and age, isn't it, for the longest time, you know, if you go and ask people about the meaning of commitment, they would talk about the relationship status on Facebook, you know, committed to this or not, you know, but the book talks goes deeper and I would encourage you to give it a glance when you can, okay, so how do we, how do young people commit to being part of a community, okay, the first thing that rests on us as leaders is creating a culture, okay, now we can talk about culture for a month, the importance of culture and how it can be set, etc, etc, but I just want to give like a gist of what we can do, you know, in creating a culture, right, it's a very strong word, like in India, at least we, you know, in different languages, at least in Tamil, we say Kalacha, right, it's in India is rich, isn't it, when it says, when you ask anybody else like a foreigner or whatnot, they say, well, you guys are so rich in culture, the culture of India is so rich, isn't it, etc, etc, and that means it's been there, it's been set for years, hundreds of years, decades and decades, right, so how is that going to impact youth ministry, right, so it says, the culture that you are creating is the culture that you allow, okay, if you do not set the culture of your youth ministry, it will be set for you, if we are not deliberately creating and building kingdom culture, our youth ministry can easily adopt the existing cultures of the society in which we live, okay, pay attention to that, if we are not deliberately creating and building not just any culture but kingdom culture, our youth ministry can easily adopt the existing cultures of the society in which we live, you know, which may not necessarily always be the healthiest ones, right, so let's take a few negative cultures that can be created, there can be a culture of gossip, a negativity, a backbiting, complaining, a jealousy, all of that, if it's not corrected, if you don't set the culture, the worldly culture can creep into our ministries, right, so it comes down to us in creating and building kingdom cultures, okay, and so a couple of things that we like to emphasize at ABC and which we emphasize to my youth leaders as well as this is the culture that we want to kind of create, we are striving towards, you know, we intentionally work towards, right, the first one is come as you are, that's the kind of, you know, atmosphere and environment we want to create, come as you are, is, you know, regardless of who the person is, what their worldview is, what their belief is, what their weaknesses are, they are invited, they are welcomed just as they are, right, so with so many options available for young people, it's important that as a youth ministry, we commit to creating a culture where young people can come as they are, regardless of what problems they are facing at college or at home and regardless of what they have been through, where they've been and what they've done, they can find a place where they are accepted and loved, right, we don't label them, okay, the person walks in with a tattoo and we go, you know, the guy is, you know, we must be very careful not to demonize the person or whoever it is or whatever it is, you know, that you think is wrong, right, but are people, are they allowed to come into your ministry just as they are, you need to ask the question, isn't it, you know, and that again is an example and inspiration when we see from the ministry of Jesus, the way he did and how sinners were attracted towards him, right, they came and he didn't shun them away, right, and that's why the Pharisees, it made them angry, right, the scribes of the law is like, who is this man, why does he eat with sinners, you know, they asked, so it's so important that we create a culture where they can come and it is in ministry that they are empowered, so a sinner comes in, you know, but it is in your ministry, it is in your discipleship that they are empowered to go back and live a different life, right, a Christ-centered life and that's what we ought to do as a ministry, right, so that's one come as you are and second is encouragement, right, so in a world where people focus on tearing others down, let's be a ministry where we are building people up in the midst of a bullying and negative peer pressure, let's create a culture where young people are valued and empowered, okay, they need to feel valued, they need to know that they are important, right, that they mean something, that their life means something and so encouragement is a huge part of creating a culture, it's like oxygen to another person, but you never know, right, someday you just wake up and you're really not feeling that great, you feel so not motivated and discouraged and whatnot and someone, a word of encouragement, a nice word of encouragement would be like a breath of fresh oxygen to your soul, to your spirit, where that helps you get up and face that day and creating an environment of encouragement is crucial in youth ministry, right, young people want to be believed in and to be encouraged, so as a youth ministry what are we doing to actively encourage young people to be the best that they can be, right and the third point is knowing the why, you know this is more on the ministry leaders itself, be intentional with everything that you do in your youth ministry, okay, more than what you do it's important to know the why of what we do, right and that can take us to places knowing the why, it's easy to fall into the trap of doing things for the sake of doing things or because the other church in your city doing that, although that's absolutely fine to be inspired and copy what other ministries are doing and show you understand why it's necessary and important for your youth ministry, right, it's an important question isn't it, so I mean I can ask you, ask us all this question, you know for example why do we go to school so that we can be educated, right, why do we need to be educated so we can you know be literate and you know the popular answer would be to find a job, why do you need to find a job so that you can you know provide for your family, put food on the table, why do you need to put food on the table so that you can live, why do you need to live so that I don't have to die, you know so that circle can go on, isn't it and we can kind of bring it to our context as in asking why are you doing this Bible college course and so you will have a response to that, right and then we can keep asking okay why that, you know so knowing the why is so important, right, you cannot be here doing this Bible college course simply because you do not find, not know as in without knowing the why then and if you're not fully bought into it then it would be a waste of time isn't it if you don't really know the why and sure God can change any situation and whatnot but it's crucial it's important so if you know the why of what you're doing and if you're able to communicate that to your team and even the youth they will see the intention the motivation behind the activities the events the programs that's being done okay so when people know why do you do what you do they can lean in and own it with even more conviction okay when they know okay so this is the vision this is where pastor wants to go know I believe this is why I want to be committed to this community okay so knowing the why and communicating that is crucial as well and finally commitment as pastors as youth leaders you have to be committed first but you have to be all in 100 percent why because the culture can't be created in the absence of trust okay please pay attention to that statement the culture can't be created in the absence of trust if you've not bought in your youth will sense it and they will not buy in right if you don't believe in with all your heart and what you are doing any generation of youth if there's anything that they are good at they can smell you know if you're genuine or not if you're authentic or not from miles away right they will sense me okay they're just doing it you know because they have to do it and then they will not be all all in and they will not believe in your vision because they don't see your vision right and so once that once us we as leaders are committed full all in then the youth will see that and then they start to commit as well right so you your youth needs to be committed as well both to your group and to grow in their faith so you need two hands to clap I mean it's not to say that you know we have to do everything there's always two sides to a coin right it's it's it's a relationship as in you make all the efforts right we we give 100 percent in what we do and then we leave the rest to them right they have to still make their choice and commitment is a choice right so both to you so the youth needs to be committed as well both to your group and to grow in their faith right to grow in their faith it requires commitment right if spiritual growth is absent no amount of work on your part to create a vibrant youth ministry will be of any use okay that's where discipleship that's what discipleship is all about isn't it committed to grow if you are not committed you know if you were not committed with this course you wouldn't have come to the final year you get you get what I'm saying right I hope you are with me okay so that's the importance of commitment so all of those four points leads us to is what I believe in building a healthy culture in youth ministry now these are I'm not saying all of this has to be the same four points that you build on for your ministry but you certainly if there's anything that makes sense to you guys can use them or tailor your own points to build to building a culture in your ministry it's very crucial okay so that's the first part the first point was about culture about how do we make young people being committed to being part of this community is first one is setting a culture creating a culture and the second point is building a community okay building a community and this is kind of resonating from the previous points and everything that we've discussed and you see in page 38 right why is building a community important what is the difference between a community and a group okay that's a question for you guys to ponder on and think on what is the difference between community and a group and if I were to ask you all that question which I have you know all your answers would be interesting right and would be right one of the one of the most popular responses that I get to that question is a community is very missional okay they know what their mission their goal is they know what brings them together a group is they can just come to get together for a short period of time and and move on okay let's see a few scriptures of what it talks about you know the importance of togetherness and unity of two or more people Romans 12 4 to 5 it says just as our bodies have many parts and each part has a special function so it is with Christ's body we are many parts of one body and we belong to each other we belong to each other Matthew 1820 says for where two or three gather together as my followers I am there among them Hebrews 10 24 25 let us think of think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works let us not neglect our meeting together as people do but encourage one another especially now that the day of his return is drawing there and so many more you know we can some of the scriptures as mentioned there with where there is no council the people fall but in the multitude of counselors there is safety right all of the scriptures to say that you know in coming together of godly people that there is wisdom that there is healthy council there needs to be encouragement motivation motivating one another right and when we gather together in his name he is there Jesus is there right that is like that is like the ultimate difference between just a group getting together and a community coming together is we are gathered together in the name of Jesus that means he is there in our midst right and the importance of community can't be stressed enough because we were never created to be alone we were not designed to be alone we were created to be relational and I think the idea of community community started when God said it is not good for man to be alone right so just a few pointers on the importance of community is our intimacy with Jesus should lead to our involvement with people okay you cannot say that you are a follower of Jesus and you have an intimate relationship with Jesus and say that I don't like people right it doesn't work like that right yes it is important to have that intimate relationship with Jesus but it will always lead to it will always lead to loving on people to serving them right it's like Peter you know an amount of transfiguration Peter sees Jesus in all his wonder and holiness and his magnificence and his awesomeness and Peter says Lord can we just pitch our tents and just stay here forever you know mountaintop experiences are good right that's what intimate relationships are like you know with Jesus is that mountaintop experience but ministry is done in the valley that's where the crowd is that's where the people are that's where people you know who are hurting who need an encounter with God so the truth number one is that intimacy with Jesus should lead you to involvement with people that's truth number one why because leading to truth number two is intimacy you know sorry love defines us we know this popular scripture from 1 Corinthians 13 1 to 8 it defines us it literally is isn't it just goes on to say that if I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels but didn't love others I would be a noisy gong or a clanging simple right if I had the gift of prophecy and if I understood all of God's secret plans and possessed all knowledge if I had such faith that I could move mountains but didn't love others I would be nothing and from verse four you see the lovers patient and kind love is not jealous and boastful we know the scripture isn't it and there I would ask you to you know ask yourself to replace the word love with your name on it that's when we see that love actually defines us and that's what is expected of us right okay it's a simple test okay for for all you guys okay against I can you all see the pdf are you all uh do you have a pdf open okay so do you see a test a simple mathematical test there okay so tell me what you see excuse me feel free to unmute your mic and share what you see it's not complicated it's a very simple mathematical test isn't it okay what else addition all right a sequence sorry a sequence I didn't follow the sorry what is it a sequence a sequence okay and so what do you see in the sequence increasing gradually increasing sequence from both the five five two seven seventy nine okay um so are they all fine guys thomas kanan Aaron but there's a mistake though okay okay all right thanks there Kiran thomas um first time a little issue to open that by checking with that's why I went right okay all right prince what do you see kanan number is increasing numbers increasing okay are they all increasing correctly what not kanan what do you see okay not sure they can hear me all right right so uh okay this is about four plus two is a seven okay all right okay that's just a fun test okay um so I normally do this test uh you know I've done it with uh a lot of young people groups um so the reason I did this is this okay so you have you see four sequences there right and the immediate response that I get from a lot of groups is uh there's there's a there's a mistake there's one wrong there's one wrong you know the third one is wrong the third one is wrong the third one is wrong uh right but uh not a single group uh has said the three are right the three are right okay so why doing this test is just it it's almost natural for us to uh look at the mistakes and be fixated on the mistake instead of seeing the other positive ones right and similarly when uh when an individual comes to church and what not uh it's very I think it it can be very easy and natural for us to find the flaws in them and find the mistakes in them but it takes it takes so much more uh for us to just dig deep and see the gold in that person right and that's how you know godly Christ-centered communities are built okay so how can I build a Christ-centered community uh there are some scriptures for you guys to just go through and um you know just meditate on and learn on on how you can build a Christ-centered community I'm not gonna go through it all okay so basically in conclusion uh you know a Christ-centered community uh is built by us just being like a Barnabas or Jonathan right Barnabas is uh given name his birth name uh it was given to him was Joseph or Joseph okay but the disciples or the apostles gave him the name Barnabas which means son of encouragement or son of exhortation isn't that wonderful that uh that your name is given uh in what we call as nickname right uh is the hey your nickname is encouragement it's so in line with your character with your personality who you are and so we're going to call you encouragement son of encouragement isn't that wonderful and how wonderful it would it be uh if if we are known as individuals who encourage one another who motivate one another who build each other right and that is how a Christ-centered community is built and you see Jonathan who was a best friend of David uh it talks about you know his life in first time in 2316 uh Jonathan went to find David and encouraged him to stay strong in his faith in God now Jonathan's dad his father Saul King Saul wants to kill David and David is running away in fear but Jonathan finds him in danger he's like you know we need to go out of our way sometimes to find those who are going through a hard time and encourage them right so uh building a Christ-centered community building uh in in your youth ministry is encouragement simply cannot be overlooked right it's so integral to building a culture and building a Christ-centered community okay uh hope you guys are with me any questions guys okay all right so uh let's move on to uh the next chapter chapter seven this is uh the last chapter of our course so how do you keep youth engaged and passionate okay how do we keep them engaged and passionate and uh like to first start off by asking that question um what is passion what is passion uh the dictionary defines passion as strong and barely controllable emotion a very highly expressive emotion right intense enthusiasm towards or compelling desire for someone or something right passion can range from ego interest in or admiration for an idea proposal or calls to enthusiastic enjoyment of an interest or activities so basically something that you are enthusiastic about your you love doing it is what dictionary defines passion as but the latin word for passion uh means passion which means to suffer or to endure or to endure right we started off this uh course by talking about youth ministry as a marathon and not a sprint right for a marathon you need to endure you need that endurance strength to be a marathon runner isn't it and so that's what passion is all about uh and that's why the last week of jesus's life is known as the passion week right uh a week of endurance a week of suffering right that jesus endured that week right uh and and one of one of the words that i relate to the word uh passion is fire okay uh simply because fire will not be ignored remember we're talking about how do we uh how do you keep youth engaged and passionate how do we keep them engaged and passionate as always it starts with us it starts with me right uh and so anything when some uh anytime when something is on fire people rush to see it or you know they want to see it okay what's happening there that's burning you know that that building is on fire and whatnot uh you know it it kind of attracts right so we see here you know god uses that symbolism of fire throughout scripture right moses and the burning bush god's presence as a pillar of fire our god is a consuming fire the tongues of fire as it says in acts chapter two right and uh john the baptist um has to stand out of all where he was the burning one right um he was burning alone in the desert for god he was so much in passion and in zeal and on fire for god in the wilderness people followed him uh to hear him speak right his passion for the kingdom of god was contagious right just like though a wildfire that can burn down an entire forest that's how his passion was he was ze he was zealous uh you know uh in his love for god and and for the kingdom of god right and john the baptist prophesied about christ when he said uh i baptize you with water for repentance but after me will come one who is more powerful than i who sandals i am not fit to carry he will baptize you with the holy spirit and with fire right and then we see a sequence of scriptures when this uh this what happens on the day of pentecost in acts chapter two was three and four and so how can you spark a blaze in the lives of your youth so they will lead lives set on fire for god what can you do a simple question a simple answer to that is they need to see you on fire for god okay they need to see you on fire for god uh i was listening to a sermon last week uh the preacher says uh what feeds me feeds them okay whatever is feeding you is what will feed your youth will feed your congregation will feed your flock right and if your source of food uh everything that what you intake about god is is from god that's what they are going to get right so the answer to that question is how do we keep them engaged and passionate it is very simple and it starts with us as leaders they need to see you all out sold out for god completely sold out for him they you know that they will see you burn even in the desert and that they will follow you there because that is contagious right so fire is symbolic of anointing being wholly set apart pure right our god is a consuming fire as it says in hebrew so and it is up to us to keep that fire burning right do not put out the spirit's fire let your light shine before men uh that they may see your goodies and praise your father in heaven right so some simple questions is are you on fire for more of god's manifest presence is your heart burning for the fire of his holiness set yourself ablaze are you on fire for evangelism are you burning to reach the lost do your youth see it in your life and then we see and we we help uh the youth uh to see the wonder of who this Jesus is and and the beauty of his holiness right and anytime we see them uh anytime they see Jesus for who he really is um their lives are forever changed amen and jocelyn jonglessly he says this uh when he preached he set himself on fire and people came to watch him burn okay may that be the way we preach may that be the way we each may that be the way we live right so if you want to see your teens and youth on fire it starts with you ask god to daily fill you with the holy spirit and empower you okay um i would encourage you to get your hands on this book called Unconquenchable Worshipper i will upload the pdf uh in the stream section for your to go through it it's a small 120 pages book which i would encourage you to go through okay uh and also mentioned some of the resources uh that will help you in your journey in youth ministry okay guys um right so that's uh the end of this course um but thank you and i hope uh you were able to learn uh something um that you can take away some wisdom and knowledge from introduction to youth ministry okay um thank you for joining and let's stop the recording now