Andrew Whitehead from Baptist Youth Ministries is talking about how to do discipleship from the viewpoint of a leader.
Formal Discipleship - Bible study
- Get one of the youth to open in prayer, give them ownership of the night
- Make everyone feel welcome, feel the love
- Don't be scared of silence, people need time to process their thoughts
- Don't answer the questions (if there's just silence) else they will always expect all the answers from you
- Consider the personalitites of the people in the study. Extraverts speak a lot (think outloud), introverts think a lot and speak much less.
- If you use a persons name for an answer you can put lots of pressure on introverts. Ask an extravert first, give the introverts more time
- Ask follow up questions if you get the basic fob-off answer to a question
- For questions, make sure you put them to the floor for everyone to answer
- Encourage people sharing
- Don't make stuff up. If you don't know, don't fake it. Say you'll find out for next week.
- Make sure you ask for verses to back up things said.
- Seek God's guidance on whether things need adding
- Ontrack/offtrack - if it's glorifying God then it's not a bad thing to go offtrack
- Take notes and ask how people went with the things discussed - follow up and show you care
Informal Discipleship - Everything else
- Don't underestimate the power of a txt/question as to how they're going
- Include them in your life - do some stuff together
- If you go out and do stuff with your youth you get more of a right to talk into their lives
- If talking to guys don't sit face to face - it's better if you're doing something like working on a car or surfing
- If talking to girls you can talk face to face because girls will talk whenever and they like face to face
- Informal is what really makes a ministry
- You have to live it yourself - young people can spot it miles away if you're not. It's not like a coat you can put on and off
- Once a youth pastor, always a youth pastor
- You have to stand and call people towards you, not try and move youth to where you aren't
- Don't sell your youth short
- Don't be afraid to ask the hard God questions
- Don't live with what if's - take the risk if God is trying to move you
- Don't confuse busyness with effectiveness
