The Book of Acts tells how the early church spread of the message of Jesus. Christ followers were so excited about their faith that this movement could not be contained. In contrast, many teens today often fear sharing their faith. Given this, how can youth workers best reach young people with the transforming power of the gospel and equip them to share it with others? To find out, we asked four experts.
Chris Hill has been devoted to spreading the Word for 25 years. At The Potter’s House of Dallas, the church’s youth ministry grew from a few people to 3,000 under Chris’ leadership. He’s now the senior pastor of The Potter’s House of Denver.
At age 15, Fred Lynch began going door to door, sharing the gospel with all who would listen. Since then, he’s served as the urban ministry coordinator for the Josh McDowell Ministry and is now planting a church, Tha MYX, to reach the hip-hop community in Dallas.
One of the most respected apologists of our time, Sean McDowell currently is pursuing a Ph.D. in Apologetics and Worldview Studies from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Sean is author of the books, Evidence for the Resurrection and More than a Carpenter, written with his father, Josh McDowell.
Raised in a tough, urban family, Greg Stier’s life was transformed when someone shared the gospel with him. Greg is now the president of Dare 2 Share Ministries, an organization that mobilizes teens to reach their generation for Christ. Greg’s also the author of Outbreak: Creating a Contagious Youth Ministry Through Viral Evangelism and Dare 2 Share: A Field Guide to Sharing Your Faith.
YouthWorker Journal: What is youth evangelism and outreach?
Fred Lynch: Youth evangelism is allowing students to participate in the mission of God. It’s producing and promoting youth who make a difference among their peers. It’s not getting a youthful evangelist to deliver a sermon on Youth Sunday.
Greg Stier: Evangelism is part of our Christian duty. It’s the proclamation of the message of Jesus with our life and lips. It’s teens relationally and relentlessly pursuing people with the gospel. Teens are walking, talking, outreach meetings. Everywhere they go, they should be engaging people, starting with friends and concluding with strangers. Evangelism is not standing on the corner with a bullhorn. It’s loving and caring for people.
YWJ: Have concepts such as evangelism and salvation gone out of favor in light of trends such as relativism and tolerance?
Chris Hill: If salvation is out of favor, then we might as well pack up our collars and go home. The churches that are exploding are extremely evangelistic. The ones that think evangelism is out of favor are dying.
Fred: Absolutely, but light is more important the darker it gets. What I’ve constantly heard as I’ve taught evangelism is, “I didn’t know God would go with me and give me what I needed. I didn’t know that it would be hard but rewarding.” The reward is not that you get a bunch of souls saved, notches on your belt; the reward is that you obeyed God.
Sean McDowell: One of the casualties of our culture is less of an emphasis on evangelism. In our culture, there’s profound confusion about what truth is and why it’s important. When we talk about morals or religions, people approach the subject as if we’re dealing with personal preferences that help us cope with life. When it comes to religious truth, everyone’s truth is equal. People’s identities are wrapped up in what they believe. To challenge what someone believes is to challenge who they are.
Greg: It’s the postmodern challenge: Can you really know truth at all? John 14:6 bucks right up against this. What we’re facing now isn’t that different from what the early church encountered.
YWJ: What’s the relationship between discipleship and evangelism?
Chris: They’re connected. Youth ministry is inreach and outreach. Inreach is the discipleship part. Inreach builds young people to a place where they can be a witness to their faith. Then we create outreach opportunities to strategically and safely allow them to share their faith. We don’t have to bring in the hugest bands. Kids like to see their peers lead. They expect excellence of adults but passion of themselves. A beautiful youth event showcases the kids’ artistic abilities and their love of God. That way they’re inviting their friends, which solidifies them in their faith and outs them as a Christian in their peer groups.
Sean: Everyone is called to be a disciple, and everyone is called to make disciples. The process of sharing makes something real in your life. When students go out and bring a friend who decides to come to church or become a Christian, it creates an enthusiasm and excitement that I cannot replicate.
Greg: Evangelism is the trigger to the discipleship process. Evangelism puts teens in a position of absolute risk. What means most to teenagers is what their friends think of them. Evangelism forces them to put that on the altar and say to God, “I’m willing to lose my friends because I love You this much.” If we want kids to grow deeper, then we have to get them sharing the message. If we want to be like Jesus, we have to be on a desperate search-and-rescue mission to share the message of hope with those who need it.
YWJ: What role does apologetics play in youth evangelism?
Chris: Apologetics too often falls into fighting and arguing with people. That doesn’t really work. If you have young people who are versed in the doctrines of Christ, love God and worship God, they attract their peers in ridiculous numbers. Instead of teaching people how to argue with others, ground them in their own faith. Teach kids theology. Then when they encounter other arguments, at least they know our truth.
Fred: Apologetics is simply the readiness to give an answer. It’s the Word of God, relevant and powerful at all times. Different types of apologetics work at different times.
Sean: Apologetics is the defense of the Christian faith. It’s the field that involves responding to questions pertaining to evolution, the problem of evil and making a positive case for the resurrection of Jesus. First Peter 3:15 says, “Always be prepared to give a reason.” Reason refers to those times when we’re called to give a legal, rational, intelligent response. Apologetics builds up the confidence and faith of Christians so they’re willing to step out. Apologetics clears away the objections people have that prevent them from seeing the truth of the gospel.
Greg: Rather than load your gospel gun, we need to approach apologetics as, “How do we find common ground?” When you love and care about people, the walls come down. Once they’re down, then use apologetics in ways that people will hear truth. The things that work are love, prayer and the power of the gospel.
YWJ: How can we equip teens with the vocabulary necessary to share their faith?
Chris: Get versed in the faith and communicate it to teens so that when they walk away, they’re encouraged, and they’ve learned something. Go through the tenets of our faith. Then when kids hit 17, they’ll know what they believe. They may not know the big words such as substitutional atonement, but they’ll know that Jesus took their place.
Sean: Teens lack the ability to express their faith because many don’t have a genuine faith. If we can’t articulate something, then it lacks reality in our lives. I spend a lot of time talking with students, forcing them to defend what they believe. I do assignments in which I have students teach things to their parents and friends. We learn something best when we articulate it.
YWJ: If you were to design a strategy for effective youth evangelism and outreach, what would it include?
Chris: It would be marriage to the church. Give young people a platform so they can show their faith. That’s where the power is.
Fred: Impression, expression and reflection. Get kids to get with God and find out what breaks God’s heart. The more we get impressed by God’s Spirit, then when we go out in culture, we’ll gravitate toward those things. Get youth to express their hearts and faith in groups, as well as individually. Then reflect. Do what you can do, and live a great life.
Sean: Help kids learn what they believe and why they believe it. Get them out of their comfort zones so they can talk to people with different worldviews. Get students together and do conversational surveys on campuses to engage with other students. Bring in people with other worldviews to talk to students. Teach students how to dialogue with someone respectfully, ask good questions, recognize poor thinking and get to the truth of issues.
Greg: Help kids look at evangelism as the cause. Help kids find their passion fuel. Some are motivated by compassion, others by their love for God. Others don’t want their friends to go to hell. Whatever motivates kids to share their faith is great. Help them find their style. In the New Testament, Paul’s a talker who can bring up the gospel in almost any way. Barnabas is a buddy who comes alongside others to listen and encourage. Then there are brains such as Luke, who make a case for Christ. Train kids in a full message of the gospel: creation, fall, redemption and consummation. Train kids to make the message clear, to strip out the Christianese.
YWJ: What else should we know?
Fred: We all have to struggle with the commands of Jesus. Being a kid doesn’t exclude you from struggling, but it’s a beautiful struggle. A person blossoms when he or she struggles, and evangelism creates struggles. A good analogy is the video game, “Mario.” “Mario” had shortcuts to the next level, but if you used them instead of going through the hard way, you didn’t get the powers you needed for the next level. You were in arrested development. This is why we’ve got to let kids get out there. We’ve got to let them get hurt so they can develop a dependency on God.
Sean: Modeling is powerful. Youth pastors need to do evangelism and talk about their successes and failures. If we define success as converting someone, most evangelism ends in failure; but that’s not how I define success. Success in evangelism is sharing the gospel clearly and compellingly, backed up by a life that’s living it and trusting God to do the rest.
Greg: Never look at evangelism as the end. It’s the beginning of a new journey. When someone comes to Christ, get them plugged into church and sharing their faith.
Resources for Youth Evangelism
Our experts recommended these resources:
The Forgotten Ways by Alan Hirsch
Practicing Passion by Kenda Creasy Dean
Toward a Prophetic Youth Ministry by Fernando Arzola Jr.
The New Conspirators by Tom Sine
Tactics by Gregory Koukl
More than a Carpenter by Josh McDowell
Apologetics for a New Generation by Sean McDowell (SeanMcDowell.org)
Dare 2 Share Conferences
EverySchool.com
