I’m working at a new church and realize that the youth don’t know that much about the God’s Word or Jesus. I’ve sat and scratched my head trying to figure out what approach to take. Many of the youth have been coming to the church as kids, but haven’t really learned about a relationship with Jesus. ….they aren’t interested and neither are the parents. The majority of the youth ….are moving on and the youth director assigned to their age group is clueless. They focus on events rather than ministering to the kids. I’m about to pull my hair out because I feel like I’m the only one who see’s the problem. HELP!”
If I had to answer you in one would, it would be: DISCIPLESHIP. The church today spends too much time and energy and money trying to turn out disciples through mass/large groups ‘events’ and what you describe is the results. “The proof is in the pudding” as the saying goes.
If you want to see the solution, you have to look no further than the ministry of Jesus. He did ‘large group’ ministry too – teaching on the hillsides, right? But what made the difference long term? He poured His life and spent the majority of His time pouring into just a small group of just 12 men. That is how I have modeled my ministry for over 20 years. Fantastic large group events that draw kids and families, yes! But pouring the bulk of my time and energy into discipling a small group of kids, and always discipling a small group of kids, and training teachers and leaders to do the same.
And guess what? It is those kids I discipled who are now strong Christians and many in Bible college or in the ministry today.
If you want to learn about my KC Krew, the small group of kids I poured into every year in my ministry, check out: Kids Church Cookbook – Part 6, and if you want to use the discipleship book my wife and I wrote that DiscipleLand publishes, check out: My Awesome Adventure.
But resources aside – the KEY is to start discipling kids ONE on ONE, and getting others to do so. Only RELATIONSHIPS will make a long term difference in kids lives. NO PROGRAM will introduce kids to Christ.
Let me repeat that:NO PROGRAM, NO PRODUCT, NO CURRICULUM will guide kids into a genuine relationship with Jesus that will last into their teenage years. Only a PERSON can do that.
—-> If a child doesn’t have a PERSON who PERSONALLY introduces them to Jesus and PERSONALLY guides them into getting to know Him (other than a parent) they will stray from Christ until such a time that a PERSON guides them BACK to Jesus.
It’s THAT SIMPLE – and THAT DIFFICULT.
Let me encourage you to listen to my PODCAST FROM TODAY where I dive into this topic: Kidmin Talk 037
You can get some FREE discipling resources as a result!I’m passionate about this stuff! (as if you couldn’t tell!)
If you typed in www.pastorkarl.com – you are at the right place, it just switches to Kidologist.com once you get here. This is my “home” on the web, and from here you can “jump” to all my different websites. I’ll be updating this post as I get more pictures and videos posted, so be checking back, but I wanted to get a post up right away, before I left camp!
If you want to e-mail me, here’s what to do. I don’t want to post the e-mail online, otherwise I’ll get a bunch of SPAM! (that’s junk e-mail) But YOU can e-mail me! Here’s what to do!
Just e-mail the name of the name of the cool Robot Puppet that I had at camp, followed by @kidology.org – and that will go right to me!
If you want to write a letter to me, just e-mail and ask for my address, and I’ll send it to you. Got that? For example, IF the robot’s name was BOB, the e-mail would be BOB@kidology.org Of course, it wasn’t BOB, but YOU know what it was!
I look forward to hearing from you, and I always write back! (But please be patient if it’s not instant!)
What a beautiful camp, and what a great place to connect with God!
JUST FOR FUN:
If you are looking for the “BEAR STORY” you can find it: HERE. But here is a sneak peek at the picture: (click image to see it bigger)
You can see other bear pictures of mine on my Yosemite Website: YosemiteSummit.org – They aren’t all in one place, the best thing to do is watch the highlight videos linked at the top, 2008, 2009, 2010, etc.
If you want to see me on CBS News, dressed like a Jedi, I’d rather you NOT watch it, but you can read about it, and watch it here: http://tinyurl.com/KarlonCBSnews
If you haven’t been to TOYBOXTALES.com – you for sure will want to check that out, and be sure to go back into the Archives where the Action Figure Movies are, especially the Star Wars ones, you will love them!
Oh, and did you see my awesome hiking stick?
Oh, and I’m sure you miss my cool Transformer hand, so here is a picture of it to show your mom and dad:
But one of my highlights – besides seeing some of you make important decisions for Christ and many get baptized – was going on the hike to the water fall, and joining the Elite Polar Bear Club! If you didn’t get to experience this bone chilling event, I have good news for you… I video taped it and posted it on YouTube!
I had a lot of fun getting to know all of you! It was a great week – I hope you learned a lot and that you experienced God transforming you as we looked through the Bible at different people that God transformed in the Bible.
If you liked my stories, you’ll love my novel that I wrote for kids your age! You can check out the website for the book here: It is called The Order of the Ancient. You can order it here: BUY KARL’S BOOK! SPECIAL DEAL: If you use the coupon code: skymtn when you check out, it will take $2 off the cost of the book, how’s that? AND mention you are from Sky Mountain Camp in the comments, and we’ll make sure it is shipped from my house and I’ll auto-graph the book and personalize it for you – be sure to put your name too, so I can put your name in it for you!
I will be praying for you as you head back home and back to your regular life situations that they transformation you experienced at camp will ‘stick’ and that you will continue to see God working in your life as you follow Him!
I’ll be adding more to this page later… so be sure to check back! I look forward to hearing from you! Follow the instructions at the top for e-mailing me, and don’t worry about how to spelling the puppets name, I’ve set up several different ways – so you can’t go wrong!
UPDATE: Here is the 2012 Sky Mountain Camp Picture:
Click on the image to see it BIG (2 MB!)
Can you find me? If you were at camp, can you find yourself???
My sister posted this to my Facebook Wall. For some odd reason, it made her think of me…
My reply was:
No way! You’ve got to tweet it, post twitpic images, update your Facebook status, check into Four Square friends to see if any of your friends are in the building too, post a video of the fire to YouTube and do a blog post discussing your thoughts on the cause of the fire and the general lack of safety in the building, and THEN exit!
But it did make me laugh, (and think). Truth me told, I might try to pull off a tweet on my way out of the building. (If I could do so safely, of course! And if I could do so without endangering anyone else, of course!)
But do we tweet and facebook too much? Certainly! I sometimes wonder if when Jesus returns, Christians will miss it because they will all be looking down at their cell phones Tweeting:
Jesus is here! #secondcoming Betcha wish you’d accepted Him? #heaven #hell #salvation #toolate #John316
Jesus will be yelling, “Hey! Look up! I’m here, time to put the cell phones down!”
Ten bucks, there is no Internet or cell coverage in heaven. We’ll have to just walk around actually talk to each other.
I watched the world unite last night as Will Smith blew up an alien space ship that came to destroy the earth! What a great flick that was fun to watch again after so many years. It took a threat from beyond our world in that movie to cause not only all political parties, but all nations to set aside their differences and unite against a common enemy.
In our current political climate, I wonder if even aliens could distract us from the current strife that besets us. Times are troubling – and I’m not one that believes we ought to just all hold hands and sings Kum-Baya. I do believe the very future of our Great Nation hangs in the balance with this next election – but on this 4th of July, I won’t take the time to point out how or why as I suspect most my readers share mu values and concerns, and agree that while we ought to be engaged as citizens of this Great Nation – and try our best our turn back the tide toward what our founding fathers intended…
As a Christian, I am also a citizen of another Great Kingdom. And so on this day, while I celebrate American’s Independance from the tyrany of the past, and hope to fight off any potential tyrany in the near future – I also celebrate my Dependance on my Sovereign God who determines the Rulers of the world, their rise and their fall, according to His Grand Purposes. So even if and when things don’t go as I would like in the affairs of men, my trust in His Plan is solid, so I celebrate Dependance Day first, and Independance Day second.
For I am a Citizen of Heaven first, and an American second, but proud to be FREE to be BOTH!
I am personally convinced that one person can be a change catalyst, a “transformer” in any situation, any organization. Such an individual is yeast that can leaven an entire loaf. It requires vision, initiative, patience, respect, persistence, courage, and faith to be a transforming leader.
~ Stephen R. Covey
