Discipling the Next Generation

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Anna Meade Harris
Good afternoon. Welcome. We are so glad that you have joined us for effective, gospel centered next generation ministry in a post everything world. We are rooted ministry. Our mission is to empower and equip churches and parents to disciple students to lifelong faith in Jesus Christ. And you’re going to hear first from our founder and chairman, Cameron Cole. He is also the lead editor of gospel centered youth ministry. You’ll find that at our booth. Then we’re going to move into a panel that is going to feature Danny Kwan, who is our Director of Youth Ministry and cross cultural connections. Chelsea Erickson is our Director of publishing. Isaiah Marshall is our Director of ministry development, and I am Anna Mead Harris and I’m our Director of Content combined. We are parents to 15 children, ranging in age from two to 28 we have over 71 years of ministry experience, and we have authored and, or edited and or contributed to 14 different books, and I think two more on the way. So like you, we are deeply invested in ministry to the next generation. So with that in mind, Will you pray with me, Father God, by your Spirit, would you help us show the next generation their need for Jesus? And would you graciously allow your gospel to go forth in our churches and in our homes and bring many to faith in you? We love you, Jesus. Amen, a lot

Cameron Cole
of you probably don’t recognize her as Anna Mead Harris, but better as the team mom from the rooted parent podcast, and she wanted me to make clear, not the teen mom, but the team mom. My name is Cameron Cole and I’m so grateful that you’re here. And with rooted, we are just super passionate about next gen ministry, and we want to do anything we can to serve you in discipling young people, the lifelong faith in Christ and so to start, I just want to kind of ask, what is the purpose of next gen ministry? What is the language that we may use to describe what the purpose of next gen ministry is here and now? And we can look to Scripture, and we can find lots of good terminology, look to the Great Commission, Go into all the world, make disciples of all nations. So we could say the purpose of next gen ministry is to make disciples, or it’s discipleship. We could look to Colossians, one where it says to them, God chose to make known how great among the mentiles are the riches of the glory, of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom that we may present everyone mature in Christ. So we could say that purpose of next gen ministry is to lead kids towards maturity. That would be good, good language. We can look to the end of Scripture. We can see all the saints worshiping the Lord God in Revelation. We could say the purpose of next gen ministry is to create worshiper worshipers of the Lord God. But I think language that might be helpful and particularly concrete for the purpose of next gen ministry here and now is to form people of the word, to form people of the word. And that’s what I want to talk about today. I want to talk about the purpose of next gen ministry as first, the meaning of people of the word. Second, the challenges in forming people of the word in this day and age. And then finally, the way forward direction on how we form people of the word. And so the big point that I want you to get is that in order to be effective, in order to form people of the word in next gen ministry, we must reach kids early. We must reach kids very early. And the best way to reach kids early is to reach their parents early. So first, let’s talk about the meaning of what it means to form people of the word. I just want to look at five characteristics of a person of the word. The reason I choose this terminology is because we live in a hyper individualistic age where truth is subjective and people can define reality according to their own experience, according to their own thoughts and feelings. And so first, when we’re thinking about forming kids who are people of the word, we want them just to simply know the Bible. We simply want them to know the Word of God, to be Biblically literate, to know the people, the places, the stories and the items. Second, we want kids to know who God is. Us to know right and wrong, to know the plan of salvation, to know the redemptive story they live under according to God’s Word. We want them to look to Scripture as the place where we define these Ultimate Truths and these ultimate realities. Third, we want to form people who submit to God’s word to the entirety of the counsel of God. That is really what defines maturity of a believer, someone who even when it’s things that are difficult and costly, even it’s when it’s things that they do not like, with the help of the Holy Spirit, they repent and they submit to the Word of God. Now these first three, if I just stop there, it would be very dangerous. It’d be very dangerous because if you’re a person like me, you would think, Okay, I just need to make sure my kids know the Bible. Have the answers. I can exhort them to submit to God’s word, and boom, we’ve done our job. But the reality is that that would be dangerous, and that will lead to a lot of behavior modification and self justification. So the last two are critically important, fourth characteristic of a person of God a person of the word is that they are a person who knows their need for Christ. They know that they are a sinner and that they come to God’s word to receive His grace. They are a person who is starving for Jesus, and they come to his word to receive him through the Holy Spirit.

Cameron Cole
And then finally, a person of the word relates to and has communion with God through Scripture. They don’t just see engaging in the Bible as a cognitive or intellectual exercise, but instead they see it as an opportunity to fellowship with the living God. So that is the target. That is what we I think, is that the target and the purpose and the mission and next gen industry today is to form people of the word. But as a lot of you know, particularly if you’re a parent or you’re in the trenches with children’s ministry or youth ministry, it is extremely challenging today. And so that’s the second thing. I want to talk about, challenges of forming people of the word in this day and age, and so a lot of this, I’ll just, you know, I’ll talk about at a macro level, but I’ll also talk about it through my own experience. When I started in youth ministry in 2005 you know, I could get two or three appointments with a student after school. I could go to schools, you know? I’d go to the lunchroom and see students. Yeah, I would get tons of kids coming on retreats. I’ve had tons of Bible studies that had chemistry or going and as my youth ministry career continued on, it got increasingly challenging. And at first off, the first challenge was challenges of access could no because of school shootings and other factors. Could no longer go to schools because of travel, sports and dance and college admissions arms race. Kids were just so so busy. But this is not an exaggeration. As a person who has to raise money for rooted it was easier for me to get fundraising appointments, to ask people for money than it was for me to get appointments with kids after school. I know that some of you can identify with that. Not only was it hard to get access in those kind of ways, church attendance and attendance at youth ministry and small groups and things like that started to decline. So I would have a small group, and it would start up in August, and it was off to a great start. And there was chemistry, and we were studying the Bible, and it was great. And then two thirds of the kids would sign up for the A, C, T prep class, and it would torpedo the small group for the rest of the year because of these competing priorities. Third, you know, a big part of discipling young people is meeting with them and talking to them about the matters of their life and what’s on their heart and things like that. And I was finding it finding it more and more difficult to connect personally with kids, because their emotional vocabulary was down. They couldn’t make eye contact. Their ability to connect at an emotional level was stunted because of screens and social media. Next, the questions were getting harder, the LGBT the intensity of the LGBTQ movement, kids having access to YouTube and Tiktok and all kinds of anti Christian messages that were confusing for them, the questions they were bringing to me were harder. And yet, the kids that I was inheriting as a youth pastor in sixth or seventh grade, those kids had lower theological and biblical maturity. And so here’s the deal, the kids are asking harder questions. The issues are more complex. The kids that I have are less equipped to answer those questions or to receive the answers, and I don’t have as much access to them. They’re not coming to the program as frequently, and I can’t connect with them emotionally quite as well. This is a massive challenge, and there are three statistics that really paint the picture, first off of the situation, but secondly, they really give us a lot of direction on how. We move forward. And so a study that was published by Borna back in 2023 just a couple of years ago, found that only 3% of American kids had a basic biblical worldview. So that means 97% of kids did not. And you may say, Well, yeah, this is a post Christian world. This is America. This is a diverse place. You know? What does that mean in terms of Christian kids? Well, if you dial down into the numbers, you find that only one in eight kids who attend church regularly have a basic Christian worldview. One in eight is 12.5%

Cameron Cole
so this is pretty startling. This is these are, excuse me, these are kids at the age of 12. Kids at the age of 12. Okay, so there’s some good news and some bad news on this. Here’s the good news. It’s what you find if kids at the age of 12 who have a basic biblical worldview, 83% of them will remain in it or grow in it through young adulthood. So it is if a child is established well in a biblical worldview at the age of 12, it is, it is rare that they will deviate from it. However, if a child is not in that biblical worldview, there’s only a 2% chance that they will grow or evolve into that basic biblical worldview into young adulthood. Okay, so, so this, this is, this is showing us that the stakes are really high in terms of investing in kids from the age of zero to 12. Now the here’s the next statistic that is pretty daunting and pretty scary, and that is that only 2% of American parents have a basic biblical worldview, and so there’s obviously a strong correlation between those two. And so this is why I say that the focus, in terms of practical level on next gen ministry today is to reach kids early by reaching their parents early. And so let’s spend the rest of the rest of this, of my time, which is about, as I see down there, about 13 more minutes talking about how we practically move forward that I’m going to warn you, this is going to be a dump of concrete, practical information. Your risk, you might be a little overwhelmed. Your risk might be a little sore. So first, let’s talk about, let’s talk at two levels. Let’s talk about what churches can do to be effective in action ministry. And then let’s talk about what happens at home. And so the first thing I would say at the church level is it is pivotal for churches to integrate Children Youth and Family ministry. Historically, nursery and children’s ministry and youth ministry tend to kind of exist in silos. The youth pastors look at the Children’s ministers and they’re like, I’m so grateful for what you do, because that is not something I want to and then you the children’s ministers, look at the youth pastors and say, I am so grateful for you, because I do not know what to do with a teenager, right? And so there tends to be this silo or this bifurcation between the two, and there’s like a handoff around sixth grade. And that just cannot be children’s pastors. And youth pastors must be collaborating. They must be communicating so that what is happening from zero to 12 informs what’s going to happen in youth ministry. And not only that, not only at a programmatic level, a programmatic level, but also children’s pastors and youth pastors need to be united in engaging parents from an early age. So here’s the thing, let’s think I would encourage you to think in four categories as you collaborate. One, biblical literacy, kids knowing the people, the places, the items and the stories. Two, theology, theological literacy, kids knowing the basic foundational truths of scripture and of the Christian faith. Three, Christian practice. What are the practices that enable a child to receive the grace of God and to engage in fellowship with the Lord, prayer, reading, scripture, worship, stewardship, and then finally, Christian life. What are the missional and moral imperatives of being a believer. And so with those four categories, here are the three things I would say today that are critically important, that three emphases that I would have in children’s ministry. First thing I would say is biblical literacy.

Cameron Cole
I when I in 2015 when I my church integrated Children, Youth and Family ministry, I kind of made this shift from youth to being over children, youth and family. I went up to the mothership. I went up to Redeemer Presbyterian in New York City. This is Tim Keller’s church, right? This is, this is the mecca for gospel centered churches. And I went to talk to Brent bounds, who Tim, Tim Keller had recruited for years to be the family pastor. And I am expecting a really sophisticated answer. On, hey, Brent, what do I do about children’s ministry? And Brent said, Bible stories. I was like, Come on, man, you’ve got a PhD. This is Redeemer. We’re in Manhattan. And he said, concrete knowledge of Bible stories. He said, You cannot a kid. Cannot. Grow a theology theologically cannot grow in Scripture unless they know the people, the places, the items and the stories. So the first thing is to focus on biblical literacy for kids in children’s ministry. Second would be theological literacy kids growing into a basic biblical worldview. And I would just say that the Catechism resources that we have today, or that you may have in your tradition, are a fantastic place to start the New City. Catechism is an outstanding resource that has great music, but that you can use in a church and can use at home to move towards a child just knowing the basic foundations, and that’s all we need. We don’t need a child to be fluent in pre tribunal dispensational premillennialism. We just need the basics of who Jesus is and who God is, and right and wrong is established in the Bible, and what is the way of salvation. And then finally, knowledge of the gospel, knowledge of the basic gospel of grace, that they would know that the message of the Christian faith is about God’s grace and redemption for flawed sinners through Jesus Christ. Cara Powell, who is the head of fuller Youth Institute, an expert on the spiritual lives of young people, she was asked 10 years ago by Christianity day, if you were to distill all of the research into one indicator of whether or not a kid will stick with Christ in the church after high school, what would it be? And she said, if they know Christianity in terms of grace, they know Christianity in terms of grace, what Jesus has done, and God’s unconditional love that flows out of that. And so we want kids to know the gospel. And a good tool is something that rooted is published, called the gospel catechism. And it just is these questions that we do at my church, we would do at the beginning of every children’s ministry lesson, and we do this in all of our curriculum with rooted it starts with the gospel catechism. What does gospel mean? Good news? What is the good news? Jesus died for my sins. Why did I for my sins? So I can have a relationship with God who loves you the most, God who loves you the second most, Mommy and Daddy, what can you do by God’s power and grace, hard things. All right, so that is children’s ministry. Now, in terms of emphases for youth ministry, in terms of forming people who are forming kids who are people of the word, here are the three things that I would emphasize. First thing I would say is the study of whole books of the Bible, working from beginning to end, working into that discipline at Sunday school and small group and Sunday night, so that they can have that in their own life. There are very few things that will mature a Christian than the hard work of going through the good, the bad and the ugly of entire books of the Bible that forms a very strong personal, systematic theology.

Cameron Cole
That is why, with rooted in terms of our youth curriculum, we have 26 books of the Bible, and we’re trying to enable churches to go from beginning to end to see that the whole council of God’s Word. And we want to also empower kids to do that in their own personal spiritual life, their own devotional life, which takes us to our second point. Second thing I would say is an emphasis is that helping a child have their own personal devotional life, helping them giving them the tools to read the Bible on their own, to pray on their own, to relate to the Lord in that way. And the last thing I would say, in terms of emphases in youth ministry, is that kids are using their gifts to serve the church, so that when they are in the 10th grade and beyond, they are functioning like contributing adults in the church. That was our mentality. We wanted to form kids from zero to 16, so that they were 16 years old, they had enough spiritual, theological and biblical maturity that we could trust them to partner with an adult and teaching children’s ministry, to partner with an adult, to teach a middle school Bible study, to serve alongside adults in the music ministry or in the mission field, and so for their last three years, last three years of high school, that they are functioning like adults in the church, using their gifts. Everything I’ve said so far is all about consuming right? We want them to know. We want them to know. Know the Bible, know the truth, know the gospel. That is not discipleship, if it ends there a person of the word responds to the Word of God. True. Discipleship means that the things that you know the truth and the graces you’ve been given by the Lord, you convert and translate into living a life for the glory of God, and that translates into the advancement of the kingdom. Okay, so now that’s that’s at the church level. So now, what do we do with parents? What do we do with parents to equip and empower them? And this might be the most important thing to hear, and this might be the most handy thing you’re going to hear, and that is, I’m going to say a few things that we can do with can do with parents. And that is, start as early as possible. You are not going to find a more receptive audience in the world than the person who has just had a baby. They are looking for support. They are looking for guidance. They are looking for direction. They are mad. Valuable. And so parents who have children in the nursery are ready and willing and eager to be led. And so here’s what I would say in terms of working with parents before kids reach kindergarten, five things you can do. First thing I would say is cast a vision for the next 18 years that does not have to be fixed. Fancy. It does not have to be any more detailed than the two previous slides of this is what we emphasize in children’s ministry, and this is what we emphasize in high school. But for you to sit before a parent and say, Hey, we got a plan for the next 18 years, gives you a lot of credibility and engenders trust from those parents. It engenders buy in I would meet with the parents of every two year old in the church, and I would do this pitch with them. And the second thing I would say is, you want to show that the interest of the parents and your interest are aligned in the sense that what is it that parent wants, that parent wants their child to flourish? And what we believe is that that child will flourish most in a personal dependent relationship with Jesus Christ. The best life they can live is found in relationship with Christ. And so we want to show parents that we are on the same page, and we have a dream for their child to flourish, and it is to flourish in Christ.

Cameron Cole
Second thing I would say is in a humble way, a humble, kind and patient way. You want to help instill and shape life patterns for parents. Any youth pastor in here will tell you the number one thing, there are two things in the world. They hate they hate Snapchat and they hate travel, sports. Sorry if I stepped on some toes, but it’s true. We all hate them. But here’s the deal. We see that a lot of these extracurricular activities that a lot of times start as early as kindergarten and first grade, the parents who get engaged in them, we see it disintegrate their families, and we see it lead them away from Sunday worship. A lot, I would say the majority of the parents who get into that have no idea what they’re getting into. They don’t. They do not know. They do not know how intense and extreme the commitments are. They do not know how demanding a lot of these activities are. And so one of the things I would say in a humble, patient and kind way, I would warn parents to be very, very careful about their commitments that they make to anything extracurricular, particularly in elementary school. And I would also emphasize, and I say this from the bottom of the heart, the single most important thing I can do for the long term welfare of my kids is to be at corporate worship every single Sunday in person, the single best thing you can do. And man, I got to tell you, you have a parent who is wanting to do their best with their child. That is, that is giving them God’s honest truth about the best thing they can do for their child is to make Sunday worship an unviable commitment, a priority in their life, and to not let anything stand in the way of that. All right, last two more things. Three more things provide concrete direction. You have to be really careful with this, because parents want a formula. We want control. We want to believe that we can control the spiritual outcomes of our kids. Every parent wants that, so you have to offer concrete direction with the disclaimer that you cannot control, that only God can control, that that’s between the Holy Spirit and the child. All we can do is be faithful on our side of the street. And with that being said, here are some concrete things you can do in our church. What we would say is, we would, we would say, in these years, these are the children’s Bibles we want you to read through with your child. Try to try to read the Children’s Bible twice a week. We all know there’s no way that we can build the kind of biblical literacy that a child needs just by what we do at church. It has to happen at home. Has to happen at home and praise the Lord. This is the golden age of the Children’s Bible. There are so many good children’s Bibles, so giving them concrete direction on reading children’s Bibles, giving them concrete direction on Hey, listen to the music of the New City. Catechism in the car. That’s helpful. Pray with your kids, pray at dinner, pray when you put them to bed. And then finally, we had so many parents do this. We’d say to our parents, every time you drop your child off at mother’s day out, or school, or whatever it is, do the gospel catechism. Maybe if you home school, start out the day with the gospel catechism. Those are the concrete things we want you to do. Have to be careful. We don’t want to promise a formula. But it is helpful to have concrete direction, not these abstract platitudes. Fourth thing, help parents grow in their own faith. Help parents grow in their own faith. You may be a person. You’re 24 years old, you’re a children’s minister, you’re a youth pastor. You’re like, Look, I’m not a parent. I don’t even have a girlfriend. I don’t have a boyfriend. How can I do that? I promise you, you can open up the Word of God and sit around the table with four parents and read scripture, and you can use a curriculum, and that. Is going to move the needle that is going to positively contribute? I you find i i needed to train leaders in my church, since my ministry was growing, and so I’d use the training material that I used for for training new employees and training interns. I started doing that with lay people. And at the end of those courses, I would say, Hey, what did you get out of this. And what I heard over and over again was people saying, you know, I just feel a lot more confident talking to my kids about Jesus. I just feel a lot more confident engaging my kids in their questions and so in basic, achievable ways, help parents grow in their own faith. Last thing I would say is bathe parents in the grace of God. We, said this over and over again, we said all the time, on the root of parent podcast, bad parenting comes out of fear and control. Good parenting comes out of peace, wisdom and love, love and wisdom, sorry, peace, wisdom, love and something like that.

Cameron Cole
Anyhow, basically, a calm parent who’s grounded, a calm parent who is grounded in the Gospel, bathe them in grace, because the last thing we need is hyper controlling, hyper afraid parents the gospel of grace, the knowledge that that God loves a kid more more than the parent does, knowing that God has a plan for that child’s life and his sovereign grace that calms a parent down and enables them to parent out of peace. And so with that being said, I know that for some of you, if you’re in next gen ministry, it is tough sledding. I know that it’s super discouraging. It’s hard to connect with kids, but I would say like the Lord has not forgotten our kids. The Lord has not forgotten you. And I would just say that there is a way forward. There really is a way forward, but I think that way forward requires that the whole church, particularly children’s ministry and youth ministry, are collaborating together to reach our kids. And with that, I’ll hand it over to Mr. Danny Guan, actually. Dr Danny Guan,

Danny Kwon
you thank you, Cameron. We’re talking about some probably monumental shifts in the way we think about youth ministry for next gen ministry. And so the first question I have for all of you is very important. Who’s going to be the next pope? Just kidding, just kidding, just kidding. Chelsea, you were a youth pastor before you came on the route as director of publishing. How would you suggest a youth pastor work with their children’s pastor and break down some of these silos.

Chelsea Kingston Erickson
Great question that can be complicated. If you don’t have the title of family minister or family pastor in your church, it can be hard to know where to begin doing some of these things in cooperation, I think, with other members of the team. And I would say the first thing is just to really be a cheerleader for the other members of your team, to champion them to learn about what they’re doing in their area. So if you’re a youth minister, to reach out to the children’s ministry staff and get to know what they’re doing for the kids, become really familiar with their ministry model, and just encourage them in the places that you see fruit and the places that you’re aligned and start to look for ways and kind of move the conversation forward toward partnering. So I think you can do that organically, even if you aren’t in a family Minister role. And then as you build that that rapport, hopefully you’re doing the same thing with parents, right? But as you build that rapport with the children’s ministry staff, or with, if you’re a children’s ministry, with your youth ministry staff, look for ways that you can start to partner rather than duplicating work for parents, team up. Maybe you can, you know, commission some seasoned parents in your ministry to run a chill to run a parent Sunday school class or an evening gathering where they’re either studying scripture or they’re going through a book together. And you may not actually have to run that, but if you can link arms with other staff members, it just becomes an easier lift. And everyone’s kind of rowing together. You could do the same thing with a newsletter. You know, if you team up with the Children’s or the youth ministry staff, sending out a monthly newsletter to all the parents in the church with some articles or some resources or the gospel catechism books or Bibles that you recommend, it just becomes an easier lift. So I think those are some really organic ways you can partner. And then, as Cameron talked about the sort of the the hope of having our high schoolers, especially, be integrated in the life of the church, one thing that we found really, really helpful in my church context, most recently, was developing milestones. And so that looked like from birth all the way through graduation. Different churches call it different things, but just having some concrete rites of passage that we drew children and teenagers and their families into to kind of celebrate the different developmental stages they were walking through. So you might have a class for the parents of a newborn or two year old, as Cameron was saying. In our church, I noticed that our children’s minister was doing this beautiful little ceremony for new readers and giving them their first Bible. And as we talked about it, we said, this really needs to be on a Sunday morning before the church. And so we implemented that. We just took what she was already doing and put it on a Sunday morning. And it was so encouraging. So you can look for those of course, there’s lots you can do with high schoolers. Get schoolers, getting them serving, and then, you know, commissioning them at a high school graduation. But I think that’s a great way to team up and do some of what Cameron was mentioning.

Danny Kwon
So Cameron your role at your church. You started out as a youth pastor, but you eventually moved into a family ministry role. What would you say? Like, like we’re talking even the talk today was not called Youth Ministry, but next gen ministry. How do you go from a youth pastor to more of a role that you’re working together with your children’s ministry pastor, and you’re not seeing the children’s ministry pastor as a spawn of Satan.

Cameron Cole
Yeah. I mean, first off, you had had to have the buy in of the leadership of the church and so, and it was a little easier, because we kind of built credibility through our youth ministry in the years, you know, the years forward, but, but honestly, it, it was just really effective, you know, to have, you know, a plan and nursery and children and youth ministry just have a basic scope and sequence. And what we found was particularly getting together with parents early, being able to show them that we just got a lot more buy in and participation from the parents, because they said, Hey, these people have their act together and and they we started with this is we literally said, this is our dream for your child. They would have a joyful, purposeful, worshipful, moral, eternal life. That’s our dream for your child. And so when a parent hears that, they are crystal clear that you are in it for their child. And any parent who hears that is going to be more prone to commit and to buy in. Yeah. And so I just think that the notion to the leadership that children, youth and family were all going to be integrated that nursery to 18, there was going to be a scope and sequence, there was going to be a plan, I think, that they could see that it would not only benefit the kids, but it would very much benefit and engender the buy in of parents, yeah.

Danny Kwon
But sometimes it is hard to convince the senior leadership, I mean, at rooted we have a family ministry mentorship. I mentor some of these pastors, and the first thing they do in the first two months is sell the vision of family ministry, or integrated ministry at their church to their leadership. And they, a lot of them find it hard to sell it to their church. I mean, Chelsea, you were going to comment a little bit about kind of selling it to your senior leadership.

Chelsea Kingston Erickson
Yeah. Well, you know, it’s not easy to lead from the second or third or fourth spot. And so first, we just want to say, if that’s where you are, we see you. Many of us have been in that position and trying to be faithful and do what we can do to influence those in leadership, you know, and trying to be in step with their vision, while also sharing what we see boots on the ground in our areas. So just want to encourage you that you’re not alone. I think one thing that can be really helpful is to find the people of peace in your community. So if there’s a real like you know this mentioning about the Sunday school class, if there’s a really seasoned couple that wants to equip parents, and you don’t do this in a manipulative or a triangulating way, but you seek them out and try to build vision with them and try to get them involved, I think that can be really compelling when they’re lay leaders who are bought in, are saying, Yeah, we’re doing this Sunday school class, and it’s so impactful, and we want to see more of this, and we want to partner better. So that’s one thought. Isaiah made,

Speaker 1
yes, well, you know, the role of family ministry is to really come alongside of parents, to equip and empower parents to be the primary discipleship makers of their of their students, to disciple them towards a lifelong faith in Jesus. And I think, as Dr Danny mentioned, is that we have to communicate the vision to our leadership, because in my experience, and it may be yours as well. If you don’t have the buy in and the support of your senior pastor or your senior leader, it’s going to be hard to make this shift towards this family ministry model, but communicating that vision that is about coming alongside of parents to equip and empower them to faithfully disciple their their students.

Danny Kwon
Yeah, and I think Cameron did a good job of talking about trying to really work with parents too, and it’s not only trying to convince your senior leadership, but trying to convince your parents. And Anna, can you talk a little bit about what parents might need from a good youth and family and children’s pastor,

Anna Meade Harris
yeah, so the first thing I would say is I want every youth pastor in here and every family pastor in here to understand that the work that you do matters tremendously. And I know it can be discouraging, and you often, you may not see fruit while they’re actually in their ministry. You might see some, and then they go, they leave your ministry, and they kind of seem to to disappear from from the faith. And I raised three sons as a single mom and the youth pastors and the lay leaders in my church made an enormous impact on the lives of my sons. So every baseball game that you go to, every ice cream you eat, every you know, last piece of pizza that you get for your dinner on Sunday night, the following their sports teams with them, sitting through debate meets. People did that is really love, right there. People did all of that, not just the pastors. Some of the lay leaders did it too. They did that for my kids, and it has impacted them enormously. They have felt the love of Jesus through the people in our church. So the first thing I would say is the work you do actually really does matter. The next thing I would say is that parents are so afraid and so overwhelmed, and we saw the surgeon general issue a warning about raising kids this year. I mean, that speaks volumes like they they issue warnings about things like cigarettes, and that just gives you an idea of how hard the job of parenting is if you’re not a parent, hopefully that helps you have some patience and some grace for parents who are flailing and do not maybe you see them doing things that you don’t agree with, or you think are foolish or unwise, like travel sports, which my kids did do, and have some grace and some patience with them as they are navigating those waters, because they’re really searching for answers, and you really can help them in that. And the third thing I would say is to the extent that you can advocate for continuity from that birth to 18, Bible teaching in your church, be an advocate for your children’s pastor, your nursery workers and your youth pastor to get that continuity so your kids are really getting the Bible at church, and be an advocate for training the parents and encouraging them to know that they really can disciple their children. It’s not rocket science. They read the Bible, they pray with them, and they rely on the grace of Jesus to help them raise their kids.

Danny Kwon
And Isaiah as a long time youth pastor. What are some things that you did, not only with your teenagers, but with your parents in your ministry?

Speaker 1
Well, for me, I think it’s important to really come alongside of parents and organizing. And I used to do it like once a quarter, where I will organize different gatherings for parents. One is, you know, I’m in the trenches with the young people, and so the young people will communicate things that they have struggles with, and they have struggles with talking to their parents about and so oftentimes in these meetings, we will come alongside, I will come alongside, hey parents. Here’s what I’m hearing from the young people, and that this is a chance for us to kind of come alongside of each other, partner as we, as we serve young people and then help them facilitate conversations around the dinner tables with their with their children as well. And so my hope was to encourage and to help those dinner table talks for parents, between parents and their young people, to be a normal part of their of their routine and their families, and so that is one thing that I would do, and I would encourage you to

Cameron Cole
do as well. I think, I think one of the things you’re saying there is a is that and something, particularly if you’re a young person, understand that you are most likely the expert in the whole congregation on the everyday lives of teenagers. And you are probably. The person who’s perhaps most equipped at communicating spiritual things to young people. And those are assets, no matter what your life station is, that you can leverage to equip, to bless, to serve the parents in your congregation.

Danny Kwon
Cameron, as you kind of spearheaded our workshop today, as we’re all sitting here, and we’re talking about almost like a new paradigm for the way we’re doing youth, Family and Children’s Ministry, how much of it is a radical new way to do it, some of us might be feeling overwhelmed. We’re already struggling in our church ministry. How much of it is a step by step process, a matter of perseverance? Well, how do you see it?

Cameron Cole
Yeah, I mean, I think it’s probably, I think you’re right, Annie, it’s probably a process, because churches are, by nature, very status quo oriented organizations that resist change and but here’s what I would say is, I think that one of the things that’s most helpful is coming to the table as an educated, very educated on the realities of the situation. If you look at Christian Smith’s book, handing down the faith, you can see that it’s very clear that parents have more influence over their kids than any other source by far, not the internet, not social media, not their peers, not even the church parents, by far. So it makes all the sense in the world based on research, to be equipping and empowering and educating parents to spiritually invest in their kids, you know. And I think if you can point to academic research like that, that kind of helps your helps your calls, and helps your case. And then you can also, like the research we talked about today, you know, it makes sense to be really focusing a lot of attention on zero to 12. And so I think, you know, I think if you come with half baked plans, you know, into a status quo dynamic. It’s probably not to be very effective. But you know, when you, if you come as a person who’s prepared and with a plan that tends to tends to be more efficacious in terms of changing the paradigm?

Danny Kwon
Yeah, I know a lot of us are talking about the Netflix show adolescence, and I watched that my boys are now in their early 20s, but I watched that and I said, 13 is too late, you know. And you know. So this emphasis that Cameron, you’re making on zero to 12 and youth ministry, partnering with children’s ministry and parents is such an important new way of thinking about Youth and Family and Children’s Ministry.

Anna Meade Harris
Well, Danny, you followed this path just like Cameron did. We’d love to hear from you, what were the most helpful things you did to support parents and to support kids and to move into family ministry.

Danny Kwon
Yeah, I mean, I was a youth pastor for 29 years at my church. I’m still here somehow. And I think halfway through, I said, I’m going to go from a youth pastor to a Youth and Family pastor. And what was key in that, and what Cameron and art we’re talking about on our workshop is really making that connection with parents, and it’s a both end, I still did the lock in somehow and retreats and fun things with the teenagers, but on Sundays, I still I went out and was a pastoral presence with parents. I greeted them. I said, Hey, I’m going to go have coffee with you. And when Cameron was talking about having a hard time meeting with kids. It was also an easy way to meet with parents, and so finding ways to connect and meet with parents. We do discipleship for teenagers. Well, we found ways to do discipleship for parents. We found ways to do workshops and seminars and so it does take a little bit more effort, but there really, slowly but surely, must be a way to resource and equip parents as part of the youth workers role. And I think that’s really important. It’s going to be hard. It’s going to be a lot of work, but it is now, as Cameron talked about, it’s more important than ever.

Cameron Cole
Yeah, and I don’t want to sound like a salesman here, but that is why we started the mentoring cohort for family ministry. It is built on, how do you start up a family ministry at a church? And even though we’re not there in terms of this. Notion of integrating Children, Youth and Family over the next five years, that’s something rooted hopes to be increasingly helpful for churches with

Danny Kwon
and so, you know, we invite you to come talk to us at our booth. We know we only had 45 minutes today, but we really believe in this next gen ministry, the integration of youth, family and children’s ministry, and so we hope that it was a great benefit to you. Please come to us. Ask us questions. Come talk to us at our booth, and we’re going to close in a word of prayer. Let’s pray together, Lord, as we think about effective gospel centered next gen ministry in a post everything world, we pray that Your gospel may go forth, may be with our parents, may be with our children, our youth from zero to 18, be with our church leadership, and Lord help us to think about and endeavor in this new paradigm of ministry to young people and their parents. We pray in the name of Jesus. Amen. Thank you for coming. You. You you.