Well I have finished both The Purpose Driven Youth Ministry and The Purpose and Mission of the Church. Both books were insightful in learning to understand how to both grow a youth ministry and understand the mission of a Church as a whole. Here are some more of my thoughts regarding both books....

The Purpose Driven Youth Ministry
As a whole I really liked this book. Doug Fields is definately on to something when he writes about youth ministry and the importance of its purpose and mission. I like how much weight he puts into the clarity of the youth ministry. I think that this is important today because it helps to be able to understand what the youth want and need and then remain at that same place of wanting to be able to give them all that they need. I like the emphasis on this book about there needing to be an idea or mission if you want to call it that of raising up leaders in your youth group. I think that all to often the youth ministries become about the leaders and not as much about the kids. By remaining with your goal on raising up disciples or leaders the whole purpose of the church moves from yourself to the church as a body of believers.

This idea ties in with The Purpose and Mission of the Church because it is in this book that the idea of the church and its whole purpose is defined. There are different definitions that are looked at in this book of what the Church could look like. But in the end it is basically said that the purpose of the church is to love God and then go out and serve our neighbors. I think that this can be tied into the Doug Fields The Purpose Driven Youth Ministry because to raise up leaders and disciples the first thing that they need to be taught is simply to love God. This is going to be the foundation on which to build. Just as Neighbur used this model to show how a good and healthy church could work so Doug Fields too decided that this would be a good idea. It makes sense. You raise up youth to first know and experiance the love of God. From this all else flows and you cannot have the love of God without being able to love a neighbot and vice versa. Its only from becoming a desciples and learning about the love of God and what that means to them and to us becomes the only way in which we can be disciples and also be able to love from the true love of God that we found.

Its only when we truly love God and have found that love that we can be able to love other people.

Reading: Purpose Driven Youth Ministry

I have been working my way through Doug Fields book Purpose Driven Youth Ministry. I agree with a lot of the things that Doug says in this book, such as defining your purpose and mission as a youth ministry. Knowing where you are going and what you stand for. I think that this is important in having a successful foundation and ministry.

There was one part in my reading this week about students and leadership within your students that I didn't agree with. Fields feels that it is important within his youth group to have student leaders which I feel too is important but I don't like the way in which Fields approaches it. He has students fill out a "student leader application" in which they are asked various questions about their own walk with God, what their friends and parents think of them, and they must have been using the different tools that Fields has for his student to grow closer to God (journaling, memorizing scripture, tithing, etc.). If they make it through the application stage then they must sign a commitment form for the group and the leading they are going to be doing.

I am completely for having student leaders. I think this is a very important part of any ministry, especially youth ministry. But I must say that I don't like the way that Fields approaches this. I would take more of a mentoring role instead of a application process. I feel that by mentoring the student myself as the Youth Pastor or having one of my adult leaders mentor the student and help present them with different opportunities they are going to gradually accept the position of leading.

I am afraid with a technique like Fields that more students would be scared away. I would make it a goal that I want to make all of my students leaders. Maybe not in the youth group itself but in their own lives as well. At home, at school, with their friends, with their sports, wherever they are at I would want to be able to raise up leaders.

Maybe my thoughts are not realistic but I think that by doing something like this you are leaving the doors open to more people who might be interesting in leadership.

Watching youth lead is amazing. Last week was one in which there were opportunities to watch youth lead within the group itself and within a worship service.

I guess this is something within ministry that I think is very cool to watch but harder to work at and to make successful. It seems sometimes that people just want to be led; all the time. They don't want opportunities to lead themselves. But in all actuality one person cannot always do all of the leading. They have to be able to have those around them also lead while they maintain leadership as a whole.

Sometimes it seems in youth this ability to have student leaders isn't always easy and sometimes don't seem possible. It was really neat to see students step up and take leadership last week. The youth group was leading a Lenten Service on Wednesday night in which there was a drama and worship. It was cool to of the students who I have always hoped would be able to step up and take leadership finally take that leadership. They both stepped up and did a great job in leading.

Its powerful to be able to sit back as a leader and see those who you are leading take the leadership and lead you. It made me really think about where I want to be able to shape my own ministry if I ever am able to be a youth pastor. I like the idea of focusing on raising student leaders so that they can not only establish themselves better as people but that they can also see the impact that they have on their peers.

There is something within leading itself too. I think that it is powerful for the youth leading as well. From my own experience as a college student I have grown so much by leading, learning from the mistakes and accomplishments. I can imagine this wouldn't be different for a high school student.

Within the service that the youth were leading it was neat to see the response of the congregation to their leading and to the things that they introduced within the service. There were different stations that were set up in the service to enable different kinds of worship. There was one station in which you could light a candle to represent what was holding you back from Christ and another station in which you could write on the back of a tile what you needed to lay down at the cross. After writing on the tile you would then glue it, writing side down onto the cross and leave it there, symbolising how we need to give Jesus different things in our life and leave them at the cross. The people responded well to this and you could tell that the congregation too was encouraged to see their youth participating in the leading of a worship service.