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Join the Youthworks Ministry Support Team as they discuss how to have an effective youth and children’s ministry in every church in conversation with local ministry workers as well as national and international voices.
Get in touch - effectiveministrypodcast@youthworks.net
Welcome back to the
effective ministry podcast.
The podcast that helps you have
an effective youth and children's
ministry in your church.
And this week we're jumping into
the second half of a series we're
doing on fostering, a love of God.
In youth ministry last week, we heard
an edited version of a seminar, which
I was able to run at rich Australia
conference in may on that topic.
And this week we're going to be
hearing from two churches, people
in two different churches in Sydney.
Reflecting on how they help
young people love God in youth
ministry in their specific context.
In a moment we're going
to hear from Sam foster.
Who's at Richmond Anglican church,
but first we're going to hear from Tim
schooler and Mickey Sinfield at Norwest
Anglican church in Sydney, Northwest.
AL: Uh, so we, uh, Youth Pastors at
Norwest Anglican, uh, in, in Sydney.
Uh, and so I've been there for
just over ten years overseeing
youth for that time, and Mickey's
been there for just over one year.
Um, but yeah, we have a great, uh,
great time doing that together.
And, um, yeah, it's, uh, all, all the
fun and all the, the quirks and all the
craziness of youth ministry is, uh, you
know, like you, your guys experience is
what we, that's what we have as well.
Mickey, do you want to kick us off?
What evidence are we going to see of, um,
in the youth space of, of love for God?
And maybe if you can think about
that sort of in an individual life,
but then also sort of corporately
in the, the youth gathering.
, I'll start with Corporately first.
Um, I think Corporately, what we want to
see is a kid, the kid's hunger for God.
And so that means that they want to go
deep to ask questions about who God is
and what does that mean for his character?
And how does this passage fit with
this passage and how we understand God?
Um, so they actually have that
hunger to know more about who
God is and, um, how he works.
But also kind of combined
with the joy of doing that.
It's not just a head knowledge
of knowing the information.
It's We want to go deep because
God matters, and Jesus matters,
and the Gospel matters, um, so I
think it would be the hunger and
kind of the joy put together, um.
I'm thinking of one girl in particular.
She, um, has kind of really wrestled
with this in the last 12 months or
so, and she's really realized that
she, um, doesn't have the language for
God's attributes and character as much.
So she's put a lot of time and effort
into actually learning about God's
character and who he is, um, so that
she can have the language to know how
to love God and express that to him.
So.
That's been a pretty good one for us.
Um, Tim, for you, what language
do we kind of use in our youth
ministry and how we teach, um,
about what it means to love God?
What does that look like for us?
So we've got, um, six like value
statements as a youth ministry that
sort of fill out flesh out for us.
What does a disciple look like?
And one of those, um, is
essentially, uh, this kind of space.
And the full value is they're
all a little bit wordy, right?
So bear with me.
It says, we love seeing youth so
stunned by Jesus, they joyously get
rid of everything to be rescued.
And so the sort of the verse behind
that is Jesus in Matthew 13 and
talks about, you know, the kingdom
is like treasure hidden in a field.
The man went off and sold everything
he had and in his, yeah, in his
joy, he went and bought that field.
And I think that the, the joy is something
that That is just so, so critical and
you know, when you think about the kids
in your youth ministry, you know, the
kids where there is actually like an
underlying joy, uh, in their walk with
Jesus and it's not necessarily the kids
with the happiest, but there's just,
there's something about, you know, some
of those kids that you, you want to see.
So that's language that we think of.
Uh, joy is a key word for it.
Um, but with, you know, uh, Jesus talks
about treasuring, you know, where your
treasure is, that your heart will be also.
So helping kids to think
about what do you treasure?
What do you really like?
What are your fears?
What are the things that you would
fear being taken away from you?
That's, that's what you treasure.
You know, that's an indication
for you as to where your heart is.
So we want to be thinking
about those things.
Um, and yeah, some of the words
we've talked about today, desire,
affections, um, the heart as the,
the core of who we are as people.
Um, yeah, it's interesting that we had,
we have been thinking about, um, was
the, the passage that Al mentioned.
Mark 12.
Um, you know, love the Lord your God.
And, you know, it's just,
it's Jesus reciting the Shema.
He's saying, I love the Lord your God with
all your hearts, um, soul and strength.
Um, in Deuteronomy six.
And it's just this sort of all of life,
uh, all of person kind of thing that,
you know, we're, we're looking for.
Um, and that's the sort of
language that we're using as well.
Uh, Mickey, uh, how might you go
about getting a sense of a youth's
personal Uh, all the whole youth
groups, corporate, love of God.
I'm also the membership guy at church.
Uh, membership is like the
easiest thing to measure, right?
You sort of work out how people
are sort of tracking along.
Really easy to sort of measure it.
This space, far harder to measure, right?
So, how do we, how do you
go about that, Mickey?
Yeah, we definitely don't
have all the answers.
Um, but something we have been kind
of trialing out with our leaders this
year is actually getting them to have
real ownership over their kids and
an awareness of where they're at in
their faith and in their love for God.
Uh, so we've been actually getting our
leaders to jot down where their kids
are at, whether they're not a Christian
at all, whether they're loving God now,
whether they're going through a crisis.
Um, whether they're really firm in their
faith and just have the leaders have
an awareness of, of where their kids
are at and, um, asking them to kind of
find out what that information might be.
Um, so that would be one thing.
Another thing I think would be, we know
our teenagers are very, uh, emotional at
times and so they have their ups and their
downs and so I think you see a sense of,
uh, a teen's love for God in some of that
enthusiasm and in that excitement, uh,
and in the sadness of different things.
Um, and I think I think that applies
to the sanctification of our emotions
as well, that as teenagers grow
and as they, um, love God more.
They will love the things that
God loves and hate, hate the
things that God hates as well.
And so we want to see, as they
love God more, that they're super
excited when their friend comes
to youth or becomes a Christian.
Uh, we're going to see them, I
think, you know, angry at their
sin as they're loving God more.
And we're going to see them, you know,
sad at the state of people who are
far from God and at the, at the loss.
So, um, I think as they're growing in
their faith and in their love for God.
We'll see that played out
in some of their emotions.
Yeah.
What about, uh, team?
What do we need to kind of stop?
What do we need to tweak?
What do we need to change?
What do we need to foster
with our teens love for God?
What does that look like for us?
Yeah, this is the question for us, right?
Like, what do we need to change?
Like, this is our debrief right now.
You know, what do we need to change?
What do we need to do better?
Because the stacks of that out
of this, um, out of this week,
um, and I've been convicted this
to pray more for this stuff.
Hey.
Like, you know, God is the one who
does it and if, if God's not working,
then, um, nothing's going to happen.
And so we've got to be on our knees
before, before our God for this stuff.
And so praying for this, um,
you know, praying the long game.
I was talking about, you know, playing
the long game with the affections and
just, you know, there's, there's a
few kids who I've been praying for,
for, for years and years and years.
Um, and yeah, you just,
they're not with Jesus anymore.
Or at the moment, they might come back.
We're praying, they're praying they
come back, but just, you know, it's,
prayer's all we can do for those
kids who've walked away, uh, but it's
a, it's a massive thing we can do.
So praying for that is really significant.
Um, I, it is a conviction of mine in,
in, in ministry that I, we, we need to
have an answer to the question, how are
we trying to change people's hearts?
Um, like, yes, it's God who is the
one who does the work of heart change.
But we influence that and we need to be,
I think, intentional about doing that.
Uh, and so for us, when we think about
a youth ministry, we, you know, um, it's
a, it's about teenagers having conviction
of sin and then that sort of wounds for
their heart being remedied by the gospel
of like the gospel being like a bomb
that sort of soothes their wounded heart
having been convicted of CNN and the more
conviction, uh, and There's more room
for the gospel to be that balm and to
be that, that, um, that healing element.
And so, um, we, uh, yeah, we're
really encouraged when we see
kids, um, being convicted of sin.
Uh, it's, it's, that's
amazing grace, right?
T'was grace that taught my heart to
fear and grace my fears relieved.
And that's what we want to
see our teenagers be doing.
And so, um, which is not to
say that we're yelling at them.
But it's to say that when we're, when
we're coming to, we're handling God's
word, we're thinking for ourselves first
and then for others, how, what, what
does this expose in me about my inability
to be obedient to God and inviting
kids into that reflection as well.
Um, and then I think, yeah,
you've got to give kids
opportunities to show these things.
And so this is what a lot of
hours been talking about the
active participation and things.
Um, for those who are familiar
with family systems, uh, in terms
of like the psychology where
they'll talk about the, uh, uh.
One of the unhealthy patterns of a family,
you know, growing up is where there's
sort of, uh, over functioning that's
happening from parents for their kids.
So, like, parents are doing
things for their kids that
the kids could do themselves.
And I think that we do that all the
time as leaders in youth ministry.
Like, there are things in youth
ministry that kids can be doing
for themselves and for one
another, in discipling one another.
But because we've got, you know,
keen uni students who are there, we
say, okay, now we'll do it for you.
And so we'll do sort of everything.
We'll run all the games, and we'll do
all the teaching, and we'll take care
of it, and you just sort of do it.
You know, enjoy.
Teenagers can do these things and
actually it's really healthy for them to
be the ones who are doing these things.
Um, so I think, uh, yeah, having
teenagers, uh, take part in whatever
ways that is appropriate in the program
is, um, is just, is part of their
discipleship and a really important part.
Um, Mickey, final question for us now.
Is there a shared sense of this among
youth, kids, whole church at Norwest?
Yeah, that's the million
dollar question, isn't it?
Um, I think it's hard to kind of think
about that on a whole scale, but I
could tell you a story of an individual.
We had a couple of, a married
couple in their fifties start
youth leading this year.
Their kids had kind of been all the
way through youth group, and they've
decided to jump back in this year.
And they were pretty terrified
at the beginning, but now we're
in kind of a term or two later.
I think Uh, from speaking to them, they've
grown so much in their love for God from
seeing the kids and their love for God.
And so, that's been a really beautiful
thing to see that as the kids are asking
questions and wanting to go deep, we've
got people in their 50s who are growing
in their love for God because they're
witnessing the beautiful, um, work
that God's doing in these young people.
And so, I think that's just
one story of like, the fruit
that we've seen in that space.
But church wide, I'm sure you guys will
have lots of different answers and ideas.
Yeah, I'm one of the real gifts for us
as a, as a youth ministry has been we
had a, um, uh, we've got a current mag
guy who's great, but the previous guy
who was sort of a full time worker,
part time overseeing mag at church.
And so, you know, gathering space.
He was really passionate about there
being a band, you know, a youth band
that was made up of teenagers to lead us.
And so he really drove that and,
um, because it's an area where I
have absolutely zero ability at all.
Um, and so, uh, and he was keen, he
was thinking about, you know, how
can we have big songs that our kids
are singing in Sunday gathering?
How can our teen, how can we be growing
a singing culture amongst our teenagers?
Um, and so.
So we do have, hopefully, we do have
help outside of our youth team to
help us think about these things.
And part of being a healthy church
is asking other people, whether it's
volunteers or whether it's staff members,
to say, hey, can you help us with this?
Because this is healthy for all of
church if youth grows in this area.
And so that's been a real gift for us.
So,
What I want to do now is I want
to invite, um, Sam Foster up.
Uh, you can give him a round
of applause while he comes up.
And, um, Sam is going to share a
little bit about his thinking around
this idea of fostering a love for God.
Sam, tell us, uh, what
church are you from?
Uh, I'm from Richmond Anglican Church.
Right.
Uh, the Richmond in New South
Wales, not the one in Victoria,
Queensland or Tasmania.
I'm sure there's one in England as well.
Yeah, probably.
They're all over the place.
Um, and, uh, tell us a little bit about
your church and your youth ministry.
Yeah, uh, so we're a pretty small
church, uh, under a single minister.
So we run a We have a pretty
stock, standard congregational
model with like an 8 30, uh, more
traditional service and then a 10 a.
m.
family service and a 6 p.
m.
Uh, just ends up being a more
contemporary service based on who's there.
Uh, and you can probably guess
from that model what kind of
people are attending each of them.
Uh, we're a pretty old
church for Australia.
It's about like 180 years old.
Uh, and then we run, uh, kind
of, again, a pretty standard
approach to youth ministry.
And then we have a Friday night program.
Uh, and then we meet together,
uh, closer with, uh, different
demographics of our youth kids.
Um, mostly we call them connect groups.
You can call 'em growth groups.
It's pretty much the same thing.
Uh, but we meet those on Sunday and we
are just in the process of figuring out,
uh, what we want from those groups really.
Some of them are in kind of early
stages of making some big changes.
Um, I've asked Sam to reflect on
a couple of questions in the realm
of, um, fostering love for God.
So I'm going to, I'm going to let
you work through those to clarify
this, I got the questions yesterday
afternoon, so I'm going to throw Al
under the bus a little bit for that one.
So this is, uh, after a day of
reach, what I could think through.
Yeah.
Uh, so I think in terms of, uh, some
of the questions that Al sent through
to me, it was really interesting in the
lead up to reach, to think through what
loving God looks like in a youth ministry.
Uh, and I think one of the things
I've been wrestling with at Reach
as a whole is what Al started
us off with, which is, what does
it, what does that actually mean?
Like it feels really wishy-washy
to just say love for God, right?
And so I think it's, it's helpful
as we did to think through.
ways of thinking about love for God
that are not using that word, like
an adoration for God, desiring God
within ourselves to, uh, to use the
word itself, to genuinely love God.
And I think when we see that in a
youth ministry space, the evidence that
we'll want to see, uh, I think kind of
contrary to what my gut instinct was,
I think early on we see actions, we
see youth doing the things that we're
telling them that they should be doing.
But then over time, those actions
inform affections, as Al was so
eloquently put with that diagram, right?
Affections to actions.
Um, and then those
affections lead to desire.
Uh, and so we see them doing good
things and then eventually wanting
to actually do those good things.
And I know that's, that's true within
my own personal journey, right?
Like we, I grew up in a Christian family.
And so coming from the perspective
of Okay, my parents are telling
me this is how I should live.
But then eventually through building a
personal faith and a personal relationship
with God, you learn that actually,
no, this is how God wants me to live.
Uh, and, but then why would I want
to do what God wants me to do?
Oh, it's, it's because he
loves me and I love him.
Um, like I, I'm recently married
in the last couple of years.
And so learning to love my wife
is like having to think through
why I should love my wife.
Uh, and part of that is because of
what she gives to me, but mostly it's
because of my choice to serve her.
Uh, and so wanting our youth
to express that in themselves.
Uh, and one thing that I found
really helpful was blending
some of the content that's been
feeding into my ministry lately.
Uh, quick plug for House Conference.
Uh, they haven't paid me or
anything for this, if they want to.
Um, But house conference in the last
year was all about, uh, emotions.
And one of my big takeaways from that was
helping youth to not squash their worldly
loves, but to order their loves correctly.
So that as youth approach a relationship
with God, they learn not necessarily
to squash their love for the things
around them, but to rightly order their
love for God above all other things.
So trying to figure out what that
looks like in a youth ministry space,
I imagine like a lot of you guys, uh,
coming along to Reach, you end up in
a headspace where you're like, oh,
I'm not doing that well, I'm not doing
that well, I'm not doing that well.
I'm firmly in the same boat as all of
you, uh, our youth ministry is very
much a work in progress, uh, and I can
think of a million things that would
be so good if they were just running
a little bit differently, uh, and a
million little tweaks, uh, and so, uh,
Thinking through how we actually do
this, just to be honest, you know, in my
youth ministry, probably not very well.
I think we very much take a
teaching modeling and inviting
approach to love for God.
So we, we teach faithfully God's word
in our youth ministries and in our
connect groups and at church on Sundays.
Uh, and we choose carefully and work
closely with our leadership teams.
So that we know that they have a
love for God, and they encourage
them to model it well to our youth.
Uh, and then creating spaces to
invite youth to participate in that.
Um, we've done that well, I think,
in the past with, like, trainee
leadership programs, inviting
teenagers to actually have a go at
sharing Jesus with other people.
One of the fun tricks about that
is you can't do that if you don't
know about Jesus yourself, so it
forces a little bit of, kind of,
panicked learning from some kids.
Um, And then how might you
actually know if that's working?
Uh, again, this is me just
thinking through things last night.
Um, I think you have to
actually talk to kids.
You have to actually talk to them, have
to have conversations with them to figure
out what's going on in their lives.
But, uh, and this is a real struggle
for me and a personal battle is
listening to what they have to say.
Rather than just talking at
them and going, Oh yeah, they're
saying the right words, tick.
Um, cool, that kid's all good, he loves
God, I can, I can make eye contact with
his parents and feel okay with myself.
Um, yeah, listening to what they're
saying, but then, like, kids can be
great misdirectors, they can be great
liars, uh, unfortunately, and so learning
to observe them was something I picked
up from Ray Galea's talk yesterday.
Uh, like actually looking at what
they're doing, paying attention
to what's going on in their lives.
And I think, uh, helpfully, Andrew
Stevenson over lunch saying, uh, I
think in his call to build relationships
with kids, you can't observe them
if you're not in their lives.
Uh, so creating space for, uh,
to actually be in kids lives
as something really helpful.
Uh, one of the things that I've been
battling with lately is the desire
to want to do that all myself.
Uh, and figuring out what it looks
like in my ministry to actually equip
my leaders to be getting in the lives
of the kids in my youth ministry.
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