Pastor Rick asked us each to submit our teaching/spiritual development plans for our areas of ministry – his desire was to refine the alignment of how we disciple from literal infancy to spiritual maturity as a graduate of high school. Here’s a little bit of the answer I gave in the profile of HSM. The answer for small groups was easy – we are going to exclusively use the LIVE Small Group material next year in life groups. Our weekend answer mostly revolved around these three categories of broad teaching topics:
Felt-needs. What are students dealing with we want to address? Topical teaching from God’s word. Topics are chosen that students want/need to hear about and practical instruction about how a follower of Jesus should respond to this topic. Example: the series we did this Spring called, “The Sex” about guys, girls, self-worth, premarital sex, marriage and more.
Doctrine. What do our students need to know about God and faith? What are the basic Christian doctrines essential to understanding God and theology? How do students define and defend their faith in God? Example: our apologetics series called Q from this Spring, or our current series called Trinity.
Bible survey. Survey of the books of the Bible. We want students to get holistic teaching and an understanding. Example: We’re doing a series called 5 Ways to be Awesome, which is really a 5-week chapter study on the book of James. Our summer Midweek program is an 8-week expositional study of Ephesians.
JG
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Josh Griffin has been in youth ministry for 16+ years in a small church and a big church. He currently serves as the High School Pastor at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, CA. [
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Geoff Stewart serves the Jr / Sr High School Pastor at Peace Portal Alliance Church in Surrey B.C.
Chris Wesley serves as the Director of Student Ministry at Church of the Nativity in Timonium, Maryland.
Colton Harker serves with Josh at Saddleback Church. He is currently in his second year in youth ministry.
We use this for our youth group. It’s been working very well.
A cursory overview of this schedule shows the absence of spiritual discernment. Simply sad! This is typical world-centric drivel with the name Christian stamped on to create the fa
So what’s your plan, Ken?
@Ken: So what’s your plan look like?
@Ken – Yikes! I’m also interested in what your long-term plan looks like?
Life of Mary? Why?
@Chad and @Luke:
OK, because you asked, I trust that your question regarding, what would I do was an earnest plea to understand why I oppose the posted program and how an effective program might differ. Taking in consideration that you are allocating 144 weeks total (36 weeks each year), endeavor to proclaim the Gospel message in EACH AND EVERY meeting weekly, being considerate to those amongst you who (like everyone else) must FIRST be justified before they can be sanctified (1 Corinthians 2:14) as well as realizing that the time of salvation is at hand. At least once each year cover/recap the veracity and inerrancy of the Holy Scriptures. Explain how God has given us His Word in the Old and New Testaments as the enduring promises and commandments of God [how they "alone" Sola Scriptura are the only and final rule of faith and obedience and all the issues of life are circumspectly congruent to them. They make us wise to salvation and richly furnish us for EVERY GOOD WORK 2 Timothy 3:15-16]. Take them through God’s Word (inductive and expository approach, contextually — discuss the author, theme, setting, purpose, occasion, background, history and literary figures). Phase 1 — Start with a study of the Chronological Narratives to give your class a firm foundation upon which to build. In the O.T. that will be Genesis, Exodus, Joshua, Judges, 1st and 2nd Samuel, Ezra, Nehemiah. The N.T. Narratives will be aimed at Chorological Narratives as well. That will be the Gospel of Luke and The Acts of the Apostles. Remember to highlight all of the “Portraits of Jesus Christ and His Redemptive promises embedded within the O.T.). Now that you have a Historical Biblical framework set, move on to Phase 2. Teach the “Minor Prophets” Amos, Hosea to acclimate your class to Biblical Prophecy. Also teach 1st Corinthians which provides an excellent overview of Church (ekklesia) issues and instruction of how we may work together for the advancement of the gospel. Now move on to Phase 3 — Wisdom Literature (teaching Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solomon). In phase 3 also teach 1st Peter, and 1st Timothy. In phase 4 teach the Major Prophets, Hebrews, and Romans. In phase 5 you now fill in the rest of the O.T. and N.T. books to round out and equip students with the full council of God. Presenting a 4-year study in this manner builds a foundation and presents the Word of God in a manner builds upon itself and leads students to maturity (and has nothing in common with the ineffectual man-made systems, philosophies, and surrogates for Scripture).
God doesn’t promise to promote, protect, or honor the vain imagination or teaching of men and worldly wisdom (he says quite the opposite of man teaching vain philosophy and error, Matthew 22:29, 1 Corinthians 1:21, Proverbs 14:12, Proverbs 16:25, John 3:11-12…). In contrast to secular, postmodern, seeker-sensitive, emergent, and all other things that impersonate sound teaching, it is ONLY God’s Word that endures (1 Peter 1:25). God has promised that His word will not fail and that it will be effective to accomplish His will (Isaiah 55:11). His Word in Hebrews 4:12 proclaims “For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” It is His Word that is effectual and it is the means by which we preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ and make disciples of men (1 Corinthians 1:18-21 and Matthew 28:20).
Blessings!
Ken
I think Ken’s program is far more Biblical then Josh’s. Bravo Ken!
awesome. JG
“we are going to exclusively use the LIVE Small Group material next year in life groups”
Yikes, at $500.00 a pop you’d better be usng it exclusively!
$500 a pop? That’s for however long you want to use them. You can use it twice through (eight years) for $500! How is that not an amazing deal? What do you do, right your own?
In defense of Josh and HSM’s plan:
1) For starters, let’s all calm down a bit. Let’s all remember that we’re brothers and sisters in Christ, and that we should be building one another up, not blasting a teaching program because it doesn’t meet one’s own standard of what should or shouldn’t be taught to young people.
2) Let’s also give Josh the benefit of the doubt that, even though every series isn’t expository teaching on a particular book or group of books in the Bible, that each lesson in every series will be founded upon and rooted in scripture. Having purchased quite a bit of material from Simply Youth Ministry, I can say without question that it is all firmly rooted in God’s truth revealed through scripture.
@Ken – Honestly, brother, I appreciate your dedication to scripture and to teaching our young people scripture. I would encourage you, though, to remember what Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 13:1-3: You can have all the answers, do all the right things, but if you don’t do it all with love, it’s just noise. You need to understand that, at least to me, the substance of your first comment was completely lost in the noise of what sounded like a rant. And because of that, I wasn’t really interested in listening to your idea on how to teach the Bible. You passed judgment not just on the teaching plan, but also on Josh and his ministry. Remember that mercy triumphs over judgment!
Josh, I’d be curious if you all are planning on tracking all grades together and following the yearly LIVE schedule or if you are assigning a grade to each year (e.g. 9th graders do year one). Thanks!
Love your approach Josh. Also, I loved your “More Than Dodgeball” book that came out recently. I am a young guy in Youth Ministry, 27 and have been in full-time youth ministry for just over 3 years. I appreciate your perspective and heart for youth workers. I was approached a local Christian Liberal Arts college and was asked to teach an Intro to Youth Ministry class as an adjunct prof, and I am going to have them write a paper on your book because I found it so valuable to young youth workers. Anyway, trust wanted to say thanks.
and by trust, I mean JUST. Freakin’ auto-correct.
Thanks, Dave. Means the world to me — so awesome! JG
I plan on just showing up for the next 5 years and let the Spirit guide me and hope I have something to share at least 2 minutes before youth group starts. (please note hint of sarcasm although I have known some who take this approach)
I love the fact that you have that planned out. Honestly I’m trying to lay out where we are going this summer after we finish our current series. Hoping during the summer to plan out the next year. But like you we mix it up with felt needs, doctrine and Bible survey. And it’s all from the Bible which is a huge plus.
Thanks for sharing.