Summary

This video discusses building a youth ministry based on the five vitals: biblical truth, spiritual transformation, healthy community, mission living, and leadership development. The video emphasizes the importance of producing quality disciples rather than having successful events or high attendance numbers. They suggest regularly evaluating whether the youth ministry activities align with the vitals and lead to spiritual growth. The video provides practical questions and examples for incorporating each vital into the youth ministry structure and programming. It also highlights the need to define 'wins' based on controllable factors related to the vitals rather than external factors like attendance. Overall, the video encourages a shift in mindset from event-driven to disciple-making, using the vitals as a framework.

Main Points

Avoiding Mission Drift

The video warns against the danger of 'mission drift,' where the tools or methods used in youth ministry become the primary focus instead of the mission of making disciples. It provides examples from the corporate world and personal experiences to illustrate this concept. The video stresses the need to regularly re-evaluate whether the youth ministry activities align with the vitals and lead to spiritual growth.

Building Around the Vitals

The video reviews the five vitals and provides practical questions and examples for incorporating them into youth ministry structure and programming. For biblical truth, they suggest ensuring students have access to grow in biblical literacy and fluency through sermons, small groups, and additional resources. For spiritual transformation, they recommend scheduling times for students to experience God's power through prayer, worship, and encounters with Jesus. For healthy community, they encourage creating opportunities for organic community-building outside of structured events. For mission living, they propose celebrating and enabling students to use their gifts to meet needs locally and globally. For leadership development, they advise sending weekly resources to help grow leaders and students.

Defining Wins

The video emphasizes redefining what constitutes a 'win' in youth ministry.Instead of focusing on external factors like attendance numbers, we suggest defining wins based on controllable factors related to the vitals. For example, a win could be offering students a chance to grow in biblical literacy or providing opportunities for missional living each week. We stress that wins should be within the leader's control and aligned with the vitals.

Action Items

• Evaluate whether the current youth ministry structure and programming align with the five vitals: biblical truth, spiritual transformation, healthy community, mission living, and leadership development.

• Identify areas where the youth ministry may be experiencing 'mission drift,'where the tools or methods have become the primary focus instead of making disciples.

• Incorporate practical elements into the youth ministry to address each vital, such as providing resources for biblical literacy, scheduling times for spiritual encounters, creating opportunities for organic community-building, celebrating missional living, and developing leaders.

• Define 'wins' for the youth ministry based on controllable factors related to the Vitals, rather than external factors like attendance numbers.

• Regularly re-evaluate and adjust the youth ministry approach to ensure alignment with the vitals and the goal of producing quality disciples.