 All right welcome to the youth ministry course. Hope you all are doing well. Thank you for joining in You get started. Can I request Kandan? Could you start us off with a word of prayer, please? Either Kandan can hear me or he's not there Hey Thomas, do you mind us starting us off with a word of prayer, please? You can hear me Can I have a prayer, please? Father God, we come before you, throw in once again Father God and we want to say thank you Father God to your promises and your word and you present Father God, thanking you Father God Give your wisdom and knowledge that we can understand the subject and notes Father God and apply to your kingdom Help us to understand the subject The timing and the all the students are meeting to your hand. Father God take care of every side Almighty Jesus name be pray amen Thank you for coming to our rescue Okay, let's just continue with where we left off in the youth ministry, right? In the last class we saw the important things in chapter one As to how the world defines youth, who are the youth Chapter one was all about why is youth ministry important And addressing that question, we saw who the youth are And what the world defines and describes them as And we saw why is it important, the importance of youth And their role and impact in our society Okay, and we saw that India is one of the youngest nations And it's going to be that way for at least another 15, 20 years And so we are rich where it comes to young people in our nation And that led to this last question What is the church going to do about it? And what is the Bible say about the youth And the importance that God gave to raising up young leaders And the heart that he has for young people, teenagers and the youth So that's what we covered in chapter one Chapter two is going to be about youth ministry with a vision That's the title of the chapter In youth ministry with a vision I want to check again if I am audible Everybody is speaking, I know Prince said I know Kiran can hear me but there is Kanan and Thomas I want to make sure that you Cool Great, so youth ministry with a vision So in your own words, what do you think What comes to your mind when you hear the word vision Why is it important? You know Prince, Thomas, Kanan, vision What comes to your mind when you first hear that word Learning for the future Learning for the future, okay In the dictionary, okay You know, okay Thanks Kiran What does it say? You don't have to give just one answer Vision, what is the difference between vision and sight? Okay, so youth ministry with a vision It's simple, it's like what Prince said It's planning for future and one thing is to look at it that way And all of you would have planned something about your life And that part of the plan could be getting a degree from the Bible college You could see the Bible college, right It's like, okay, I want to get there I want to become a pastor I want to pastor the church at so and so age Or I want to teach theological subjects And you know, in my city, et cetera So you have that vision that goes And so getting a degree, Bible college degree It's part of that, you know, it's a mission And to fulfill that vision Because you have a vision for your life You have planned ahead, you've seen, okay This is where I want to go This is where I want to be at Say in three years from now and four years from now And five years from now, okay So that's basically having like a long-term plan So that's interpreted as vision, right So, and if you look at the notes And I can share Okay, so we see here a simple definition for vision It's given as a vivid to imaginative conception Or anticipation, okay Let's conceive, conception, the word is okay There's an imagination in your head So you're seeing that's another vision, okay So I prefer to define it as a goal That you have set out to accomplish, right It's exactly what Prince said, okay To define it as a goal, like a future plan Okay, that you have set to accomplish That means you're going to fulfill it That's the dictionary definition So in our context of youth ministry Now this is applicable for every area of ministry Like a vision for the worship ministry and the church Etc, etc But since we are talking about youth ministry In our context, if you, as a worship ministry If the youth ministry of your church Does not have a vision, like a plan Okay, this is where I want the youth ministry to be at Like the young people to be equipped with so and so things This is what I want to do If you don't have that then it is going to be hard To guide your team, like your pastoral team Or your youth, your core team, etc In the direction you want them to go Look at those goals, okay Direction you want them to go, right So I mean, I'm sure you've heard this old saying A blind cannot lead another blind A blind person cannot lead another blind person Why? Because the blind person who is leading in the front Does not have vision So they don't know where they are going But because they do not know where they are going The person behind them or the people behind them Also don't know where they are going So they are blindly following So if you do not have a vision for your ministry For your youth ministry Then it becomes very hard to direct To lead your team So lacking a goal or vision Will also make it difficult to measure accomplishments Okay, what does this mean? Lacking a goal or vision Will also make it difficult to measure accomplishments Measuring is, okay, so you have these numbers So let's just say, okay, first tier Okay, you are my team I say, okay, you know, Kiran, Thomas, Hanan, Prince Okay, for first tier, this is what I want us to do With youth ministry I want to make sure we have some outreaches Every month there has to be a youth meeting Or every Sunday there has to be a youth meeting Every week, right, et cetera, et cetera So we have small goals, right, okay Every Sunday or Saturday We're going to have a youth meeting And every Wednesday we will have a youth Bible study And every fourth Saturday of the month We will go out into the city and do street evangelism Okay, so we've kind of set some targets Now, in January we started, we started doing this And at the end of the year, in December We will come together as a team And we discuss, okay, now we are going to measure Right, okay, how many youth meetings did we have In this month, in this month and so on and so on Okay, and how many street evangelisms did we do? Okay, and then you're going to measure and check Okay, just the numbers, the conflicts Okay, you know, we missed out a couple of months For so and so reasons Because of this, we could not do that And because of the COVID pandemic No, we could not do street evangelism Okay, whatever, you know You are able to measure, right At the end of the year But if you did not have any vision Okay, let's see how, you know As Christians, I think we can We have the tendency to use this You know, we'll go as the law leads As the law, you know We use that as an excuse Not to plan, okay That's just a lazy excuse basically Right, it's not to plan, not to, you know So having a vision For the youth ministry Will not only one help you lead your team Direct them, but it will also help you Measure the accomplishments, right How do you know if you are If you're ever reaching something If you don't have a goal Of having a youth ministry with no vision Is like running on a spiritual treadmill Okay, it's like running on a spiritual treadmill So we all know what is a treadmill, isn't it You've seen in the gyms, some people's homes They are running, but they are in the same place Right, okay So, you know, leading a ministry without a vision Is like running on a spiritual treadmill You're trying to do a lot of things You're doing something But then you're in the same place There's no growth, there's no Yeah, there's no growth, okay There's no real momentum, okay So that's the importance And I think we already kind of captured The importance of having a vision For the youth ministry, okay And that is the kind of question I asked when I started Taking over the youth ministry at APC I had to ask myself, okay What is the purpose of this youth ministry At APC And then you go and seek And you pray, father What do you want to see What do you want to do with the youth ministry In our church It's important to ask that question, right Why, why do we exist Why are we doing this, what is our purpose, etc And so I began this journey Of being a youth pastor with that question What is the purpose, right And do we just need for, you know Funding games, we come together Get together, spend time, laugh And go, is that the purpose of it, right Because we can do that anywhere We do that with our friends, we go to our relative soul And just have a time to get together, right But youth ministry is something more than that It's not just time of getting together And having fun and there is growth There's equipping, right There is discipleship, etc, etc So by starting with that question As to what is the purpose of the youth ministry We will begin by, you know Just coming to these five points These five pillars, so to speak No purposes that we could create on our own Be more complete than the five God Has already divinely created for us This is how we started at ABC But it doesn't necessarily mean It has to be your church vision as well Or this has to be the same approach that you do You can contextualize it See what suits best for your ministry For your church, etc So these were the five pillars What kind of divinely created for us Which is evangelism, worship, fellowship Discipleship and ministry So on their own, just ministry, discipleship They might not mean a lot Doesn't seem like it's too general To understand But let's start putting it in context And see where is all that coming from So those five purposes Are built around these two great scriptures One is the great commandment And the other is a great commission So let's take a look at great commandment From Matthew chapter 22 verse 37 to 40 What it says Jesus replied So if you read the verses before this 35, 36, you see a bunch of Pharisees People of the law coming and asking Not asking questions but questioning Jesus As to what is the greatest law And Jesus replies to them this way It says, love the Lord your God With all your heart, with all your soul And with all your mind This is the first and greatest commandment And the second is like it Love your neighbor as yourself All the law and prophets Hang on these two commandments Okay, that's Matthew 22 right But I'm just turning to the book of James What I'm saying very quickly Okay, so in James chapter 2 verse 8 James chapter 2 verse 8 This is what it says If you really keep the royal law Found in scripture Love your neighbor as yourself You are done right Now James is also quoting this scripture And from James chapter 2 verse 8 And now he's calling this great commandment Which is love your neighbor as yourself He's using another set of words that says That is the royal law A royal law simply is to refer to a law That has come from the king's throne When the king has decreed a law saying Okay, for example In the medieval period in England No one was supposed to hunt the deers of the forest All the deers of the forest belonged to the king And if anybody hunted the deer They were called as the outlaws Robin Hood is one of those stories So that was the law from the throne From the king Nobody is supposed to hunt the deers Okay, that's a royal law Now imagine how it would be If we were to treat this thing as the royal law Like James is saying The second is like it Love your neighbor as yourself All the law on top is hanging on these two commandments Let's move on And next we have the great commission Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations Baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit And teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you And surely I am with you always to the very end of the age 28, 29, 29 So we know these scriptures They're very familiar to us But when you translate it When you break it down It's sentence by sentence, line by line This is what it means Love the Lord your God with all your heart With all your soul and all your mind It simply can be replaced with the word worship That's what it is Loving the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind and strength That's worship And then love your neighbor as yourself Ministry Love your neighbor as yourself And remind you of another scripture Please bear with me I'm going to Hebrews Yeah, okay I forget the words of my apologies But in Hebrews, I think either chapter six I think it says I've seen the way how much you love me By the deeds that you were doing for others Okay, I'm paraphrasing it This is God saying You have shown me how much you love me By serving others Okay, that is translated as ministry Ministry simply means serving, isn't it? Right? So love your neighbor as yourself It is so important That's a royal law It says if you serve one another That means you are expressing How much you love me Okay, so that's ministry Are you ready for the thing? I hope you are Okay, so that's two things from the first verse The great commandment And now from great commission we see Go and make disciples Go and make disciples That's translated as evangelism Baptizing them What does baptism mean? Baptism simply means immersion Okay, that's covered completely Okay, so that's what happens when you go on The water is your immersed, isn't it? When you take baptism So bringing them in In other words, that's what it is So baptizing them simply means After you evangelize to them You are now bringing them into the covenant Into the fellowship of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit Okay, and then teaching them to obey That is discipleship Okay, so you see how beautiful it is That it doesn't just end with evangelism With evangelism is followed by fellowship That you are bringing them in And that is followed by discipleship So there is a clear progression Right? Worship We love God But always And then minister to one another Serve one another That is communicated with loving your neighbor as yourself And then go and make disciples Bring them in and teach them to obey Okay, so with these five things It was like the five pillars That kind of giving us the youth ministry At APC, a purpose to work towards You know, to progress To grow in these areas Okay, now with just a few pointers And you can go through these scriptures And I'm just elaborating it a little bit more for us You know, and we've studied quite a bit On worship in our first years, right? And there are so many things It's not just about song and music But celebrating God's presence And honoring him with our lives And his worship, praying his worship Hearing the word, reading the word Meditating on the word of God Is worship, right? Baptizing, giving, communion All of that is part of worship Okay, in all these ways we are expressing And telling, I'm loving the Lord With all my heart, soul, might and strength And then we see ministry, right? Meeting needs with love Okay, God has blessed every believer With special gifts to be used for ministry The student youth ministry shouldn't have to wait Until they are adults to minister, okay? It's very important that we choose in our churches We don't wait for them to become adults For them to get them to start serving Okay, get them young Okay, he teach them to serve in the church Okay, whatever it is, right? And I'm sure most of us can relate to it, right? In my teenagers, me and so many of my friends We were the first ones to be a church on a Saturday Setting up sound and whatnot And the last ones to be on a Sunday You know, so we don't have to be wait Until you are a professional or whatnot Until you're old or adults to start serving But get them young, right? The healthy youth ministry will constantly encourage The youth to discover their gifts And put them in practice through ministry And mission opportunities Mission strip, okay, that's another thing We'll talk more about it in just a bit When the purpose of ministry is applied When the purpose of serving, in other words Is applied, we will graduate youth students Youth ministries rather than program attendees Okay, when the purpose of ministry That's serving one another is applied You will graduate so the youth are no longer People who will come to your programs But now they are youth ministers as well Okay, student ministers won't graduate From their faith when they graduate From the youth ministry, okay So ministry is super, super important In other words, serving Is very important in ministry In youth ministry Evangelism, sharing the good news of Jesus Christ With those who don't yet have a personal relationship with Him We all know what evangelism is all about, right? Pay attention, this is the most Weekly expressed purpose, right? Why? Because it is difficult to fulfill On a program level, now we can just say We are going to have an evangelism outreach We don't know how many of them are going to Give their lives to Jesus We just can't have a certain number, right? And then it is very threatening, okay? On a personal level, especially now With all these anti-conversion bills coming up It's very threatening, isn't it? How do we go about and share the gospel? Right? So, as challenging as it is It's always been challenging during the gospel farming Jesus' time We continue to ask God for wisdom and guidance And the other leadership must model the purpose Of evangelism, okay? When this purpose is evident in a youth ministry Growth will happen Not because of an evangelistic program But because of evangelistic students I hope you are paying attention, right? When this purpose is evident When the heart of evangelism is caught By every individual Growth will happen The numbers will increase Not because of one evangelistic program Not because you had one evangelism outreach program Or a conference But the growth will happen Because of evangelistic students Or young people who are coming Who are part of youth ministry Who are youth ministers themselves, right? As we read in the previous point So that's evangelism And fellowship God did not intend for Christians to live in isolation We know that, right? We were built We were made for community And I think God made that point very clear When he said, it is not good for man to be alone, right? So we need each other God did not intend for Christians to live in isolation Isolation means all by yourself You know, I don't want anybody else I just want to be by myself We were not made for that, okay? But in fellowship with other believers And to be identified as the body of Christ To be identified as the body of Christ, okay? And then discipleship So the building up or strengthening of believers In their quest to be like Christ Now we can talk an entire month On just this topic Or more than a month On just the topic of discipleship, right? The importance of discipleship And how discipleship was During the time of Jesus Okay, it was a huge moment During the time of Jesus Especially in the town called Galilee Okay, where every town would have a synagogue And every synagogue would have a head rabbi And every rabbi will have disciples Okay, and it's wonderful Like I said, we can talk about discipleship a lot Like the foundations of the background The history of discipleship How it came to be And how it was during In their culture, in their context It's wonderful And no wonder Jesus stressed On the importance of discipleship Why he took those people under his wings To change the world Okay, so if Jesus chose discipleship And the disciples And the process of making disciples And building them is called discipleship, isn't it? And so if Jesus chose the method of discipleship To change the world How much more do we need to understand The importance of discipleship, yes? So it's important to have all these five folds In a ministry In a youth ministry, right? So I hope you guys are with me And listening But so the challenge was Okay, now we have these five purpose As mentioned, in a God-given purpose Worship, ministry, evangelism, fellowship And discipleship, okay? How do we make it a little bit more interesting? How can we be a little bit more creative And communicate what this is all about To not just to the core team But also to the youth who will be joining Who will be attending your youth meetings, etc So we did this exercise With all of the above How do you come up with a purpose or a vision statement? With all of the above Using, you know, worship, evangelism, ministry, etc We wanted to come up with a vision statement Right? When we come to APC or watching it online You know, every Sunday we play the vision of APC The vision of all people's churches To be the salt and light in the city of Bangalore And the nation of India and the nations Right? That's the vision statement Okay, so it's very clear We are called to be the salt and light So now that we have the purpose in youth ministry Worship, evangelism, etc, etc We want to come up with a vision statement Now, we have to be very careful Not to come up with a vision statement Just for the sake of coming up with a vision statement And, you know, kind of separate the whole thing From the church's main vision It had to be in line with the church's vision Right? It had to be in line with the church's vision Just because we are another wing of the church Let's say youth ministry We can't just take off and say Okay, that's the vision of the church And we are on doing something else You know, how do we plan and bring it together? So, we use this a few key pointers And I think it's wonderful for you also To work with your core team To come up with a vision statement Do it as an exercise It's important for you all to come together And brainstorm So, a few pointers on how you can come up With your own vision statement First thing, keep it simple I think fancy doesn't have to be complicated Keep it simple and make it meaningful It should be action oriented What is that? Action oriented? It should be done It should make me want to do Word became flesh The word became flesh It became, that's a verb So, there has to be action involved It should be action oriented It should be compelling So, I am called to go and evangelize I am called to go and make disciples So, it should be compelling It should make me want to do things So, these are the four things to keep in mind You can add more, this is just a few pointers On how to come up with a purpose statement Vision statement And now that we have these five words For worship, evangelism, discipleship ministry You can look up something called The alternative words for worship You can start to go to the dictionary Online and say, what are the synonymous words Similar words or alternative words That can be used instead of worship Evangelism, discipleship, what not We listed out a few synonymous Alternative words for worship We can put, okay, you can also use the word Exalt or passion or offer Or fellowship, we use enjoy Encourage, care or evangelism We can use the word expose or exposure Spread, reach, discipleship Equip, share, develop ministry In other words, that can be used This experience, service and serving Okay, now there can be more words guys I'm just putting a few things in So, now that we have all of this sorted This is the exercise Me and my core team did Okay, now how do we use all of these How do we use these pointers How do we keep it simple How do we make it meaningful How do we make it action oriented And how do we make it compelling Using all these synonymous words How do we do it, okay For example, we have all these words It can look like this The goal of our student ministry Or youth ministry is to expose What is expose? See evangelism, okay So we are using evangelism Without using the word evangelism So the goal of our student ministry Or youth ministry is to expose Okay, evangelize Teenages to God's love To equip To equip In other words, we are saying Discipleship to disciple them Or to equip them to exalt God To worship God Enjoy other believers here Enjoy fellowship other believers And experience the work of the ministry And experience the work of the ministry Experience, right So this is just an example This is not yet a vision statement So this is an example that we put together But so using the same exercise This is the purpose statement We came up with the ABC team The ABC youth ministry exists to equip Equip and empower, that's a discipleship there Equip and empower young people To become true worshippers of Jesus Who love people Love is the alternate synonym That was used for evangelism That's another word we came up with And spread evangelism Spread his love in the city of Bangalore And the nation of India Okay, you see, it is pretty much in line with The church's vision as well So the youth ministry, the ABC youth ministry Exists to equip and empower young people To become true worshippers of Jesus Who love people and spread his love In the city of Bangalore and the nation of India Okay, so now there is a vision There is a direction Okay, now we know what we're going to do And so every program that we plan Every youth meeting, weekly youth meeting Monthly youth meeting, youth camps Youth retreat, youth conference, et cetera Any program that we want to do Will revolve around these things Okay, that's our question Now, I want you to listen to this very carefully And we will talk about this in the next chapter too As well, but I thought I'd mention it right away Is you cannot achieve all of these five things In one program It will become a very chaotic program Right, you can't try to So you plan a program according to Who your audience is Like I said, we learn more about it in the next chapter But I just want to make that Put that out here We have a clear vision and a direction And so it's not enough For us to have a vision statement It's not just enough to have You know, to have a clear idea of what we want to do And it's not just enough to Even just explain it to your youth In your church This is our vision, this is what we want to do Okay, now the next question is How are we going to do that? Right, we address the why We address the what And the next question is, okay So how are we going to do that? How are you going to equip me? How are you going to empower me To become true worshipers? How are you going to equip? How are you going to teach me to spread his love in the city? Okay, so to communicate that To our young people We tell them, okay We have some of these platforms Or events or programs that happen in church Where all of this can be addressed Like all of these five purposes Not can be addressed For example, we have something called A platform called worship nights Where you can come and be part of Where you can just worship Jesus And become his worship by spending time with him That's one platform When we have a weekend school of praise and worship You can come and be part of it And learn about praise and worship And what it's going to do It's going to equip you Empower you to become true worshipers Of Jesus, right? Okay, where's the other platform For me to serve? To serve one another How do I love my neighbor? So for that we have so many Volunteering teams We have at least 19 Volunteering teams at ATC Where you can be part of The ushering team, the connect team The member care team And the list goes on, right? The set of team, etc, etc And some of you have been part of it So you know, what are you doing there Is you are serving one another That's a platform where you can You know, love people, isn't it? And then mission strip When we go on a mission strip We go to a different church So other people there It's another perfect platform to To learn about ministry and serving Right? And then evangelism We have platforms where you can Go and spread his love In our city is one of Couple of platforms is campus elevates That's where we go to schools and colleges In my hand I have these programs Again, you guys have been part of it And have some outreach programs And When it comes to fellowship We have platforms like life groups Monthly youth meeting Pit stoppers, combined youth meeting Youth camps, right? Life groups, some say Is the life of the church Is the life of the ministry That's where, you know Weekly church happens That's the time of fellowship And growth, etc, etc And then you have discipleships Where you equip and empower Once again, that happens in life groups And Not just that We have so many resources Available on our church website We have a church app Where you can watch videos Listen to 5 minute Devotionals We have ABC Publications So all of those resources Can be used to Equip and empower ourselves We are sitting on a gold mine As what I tell my Young people is that There's so much of resources Abundance of resources If you just dig deeper and search And meditate and make use of it Okay, so after We've addressed why and what And how, you know, we've communicated To our young people saying this Okay, these are the ways In different ways that you can come And be part of And be part of this vision And be part of this purpose Etc etc Okay And so, you know, let's not just Be an ordinary ministry Just, you know, getting things done Going with the wind, you know, just one day at a time And whatnot But get a vision for your area of ministry And take it to another level Yeah Just leave with this thought Now This is probably 2019 Where there is no vision That people perish MS37 The sovereign Lord does nothing Without revealing His plan, right? Revealing His plan to His servants The sovereign Lord does nothing Without revealing His plans to His servants So what does God want Our ministry, organization Team to look like In three to five years from now What does He want to look like? So that's the question that you can probably Try and write And ask yourself What does God want you to do In this area of your ministry And I think that will be a very good place For you to start Okay I hope you guys are doing well And any questions I'll stop the recording And Just a second Thank you all for joining And tomorrow Yeah