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Why Good Leaders Tell Stories

As a youth leader, are you ever scrambling for a natural way to introduce students to Jesus? How can we present Jesus to kids as the winsome, relatable Lord that he is?

why good leaders should tell stories

Leaders who understand the power of storytelling see transformation in the lives around them. By the end of this story series, I hope you’ll be able to practically use 3 specific kinds of storytelling in your ministry and witness their transformative power. To get there, we’ll unpack these 3 questions:

  1. Why youth leaders should tell stories
  2. Which stories to tell
  3. How to tell them

Let’s dive in! Why should youth leaders tell stories?

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Time to Get Creative! Share the Gospel (Orange Zone)

Imagine traveling to a place where you did not speak the language spoken there. What would you do to communicate so that you could be understood correctly? How would you connect with people? What strategies would you use to learn? You would not be able to simply speak your known language and expect people to understand you. This scenario would require you to
get creative!
Sharing the Gospel can be like cross-cultural travel into someone else’s life. Young people who are curious about Jesus, but do not know Him yet may not be able to fully understand the miraculous work on the cross in the language that Christians are used to. Youth leaders must be creative in communicating the Gospel in a way that young people can connect to and understand.
orange zone - creatively share the gospel
The orange zone of Full Spectrum Youth Ministry is representative of proclaiming the Gospel to those who are curious about following Jesus. Orange is in the middle of the color spectrum and this color symbolizes creativity. To inspire some creativity, let’s look at some ways Jesus communicated with others.
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5 Ways to Show Up for Non-Christian Young People (Red Zone)

WHERE ARE THESE YOUNG PEOPLE COMING FROM?

Youth group is full of young people. Where do these youth come from? How do they arrive to be under your discipleship?

 

Research conducted by the Pew Research Center (published in September 2020) examined the religious lives of US teens. It showed that most teens attend religious services with at least 1 parent, but the majority attend with both parents. Just 7% percent of the surveyed teens reported that they attend services with other family members or friends; only 1% reported attending services alone. a

It is probably safe to say that students who attend youth groups mostly come from Christian homes or have exposure to the Gospel. This is excellent news when thinking about discipleship, but there is a huge gap of young people who are not being shown an accurate picture of who Jesus is. How are youth leaders going to reach young people who are not Christians if they are not showing up to church?

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Discipleship: Think BIG, Focus small (Green Zone)

When we look at the call of youth ministry, it is easy to feel overwhelmed by the scope of such a calling. Before he ascended to heaven, Jesus called his disciples to, “go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation” (Mark 16:15). This is no small task! As Christian leaders, we too have been invited to proclaim the good news of Jesus to the whole of creation. Jesus asks us to think big. But how do we even begin such a giant mission? The only way to understand Jesus’s design for mission is to learn from his perfect example of life on earth.

green zone discipleship - think big, focus small

Photo by Jonas Wurster on Unsplash

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What Leaders Can Do to Help Those Who Feel Isolated: Four Lessons from the Berlin Airlift Of 1948

Joel Vermillion, Director of Wilderness Ministry Institute shares some incredible insight on how leaders can help others who feel isolated, a condition that is uniquely affecting the world at this time.

THE CANDY BOMBERS UNTOLD STORY OF THE BERLIN AIRLIFT

I’ve always had a fascination with WWII as one of my grandfathers was a chaplain in the US Army, and my Mom grew up in postwar Germany. You’ll often find a book about WWII or people from that time period on my nightstand. One of the books I’ve read during this quarantine is called “The Candy Bombers: The untold story of the Berlin airlift and America’s finest hour” by Andrei Cherny.
What Leaders Can Do to Help Those Who Feel Isolated: Four Lessons from the Berlin Airlift Of 1948
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Start Up Secrets: Lessons from the Early Days of Jesus (Mark 1)

I hope you found encouragement in my last post, YOUR LEADERSHIP VOICE AND THE HOLY SPIRIT to find your leadership voice and also be open to the Holy Spirit’s desire to stretch you. There are some valuable leadership lessons you can glean from Jesus in his early days of ministry.
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Your Leadership Voice and the Holy Spirit

As a leader who wants to successfully reach the next generation of young people with the Gospel, you may find yourself in a start-up situation with your church or mission organization.

NAME REALITY: WHAT’S YOUR “LEADERSHIP VOICE?”

Some of us are more natural “starters” and others are more natural maintainers or menders. That is reality. But if I could submit, from a discipleship perspective whether you are more of a pioneer-type on one end of the spectrum of leadership, or a guardian on the other end of the spectrum, we all need to be open to the Holy Spirit’s desires for our ministry. (As a side note, here is a link to take a really cool, free assessment looking at the 5 Voices of leadership: pioneer, creative, connector, nurturer, guardian).
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How to Lead Small Group Devotions at Home or Remotely

Over the years two of the greatest highlights in my life have been 1) leading morning devotions with my family before school, and 2) leading small groups of students in the city and the wilderness to study the Bible in order to help them get to know Jesus and grow as a disciple.

A TOOL FOR PARENTS AND SMALL GROUP LEADERS 

If you are a parent who wants to have a tool for leading devotions in your home, this is for you. If you are a Small Group leader looking for a way to effectively lead your group either in person or remotely through Zoom, this tool will help.
Below is my “PALS 10 Minute Devotional” format. It’s designed for a short devotional but of course, could be expanded to a longer Bible Study format.
lead small group devotions

P – PRIME the pump

I usually come up with some sort of question to help everyone open up. Similar to that rush you get when you take your first few drinks of coffee in the morning, sometimes it takes a little somethin’ to wake up your group. So you may want to ask a question first to prime the pump (below I’ll give examples of each of these parts of the study).

A – ALIGN with God’s heart

To get hearts engaged, ask a question that helps the group realize how much we are like the person in the passage. Most of us are encouraged by reminders that we are more “like” other people than we are “different” from them. When we realize how similar we are to other people it gives us hope and compassion.

L – LEARN the meaning of the text

Next, read a short passage together and discuss a couple of questions that help us understand the meaning of the text. You’ll need to invest some time to write good questions. If you’d like to learn more about how I write well-crafted questions that create good open discussion you can read my post, 5 Bible Study Tools to Improve Your Small Group Meetings | The VISION Inductive Study Method. This resource goes into more depth but I use the same principles and techniques to come up with 1-2 good questions for my PALS 10 Minute Devotionals.

S- SERVE your friends

What does it really matter if a group learns something cool from the Bible and then makes no effort to be salt and light to their school or at work? So here we need to get to an action step. Simply ask a question or present a challenge to the group to talk about ways we can serve others better. Don’t be shy about encouraging bold action steps with groups of Believers or non-believers. Serving can get our hearts engaged with God whether you are a Believer or non-believer.

SAMPLE: PALS 10 MINUTE DEVO on Mark 2:1-12

P – PRIME the pump

  • Before we jump into this study, “What is one of the hardest things about being a student?” Or depending on the group you could just rephrase it to say, “What is one of the hardest things about being a student, a single, a parent, grandparent, etc.?

A – ALIGN with God’s heart

  • Read together the passage of Scripture: Mark 2:1-12

  • Do you think that you are more like the paralytic or more different than him? What are some things that all of us have in common with the paralytic?

L – LEARN the meaning of the text

  • What are some reasons why Jesus might have spoken to the paralyzed man about sin before dealing with his physical need?
  • Is forgiveness of sin a need you have experienced in your own life?
  • Why is it sometimes hard to confess our sin and seek forgiveness from God?

S – SERVE your friends

  • Do you extend forgiveness to people who sin against you as freely as Jesus extended forgiveness to the guy in this story?
  • How would it change the culture of your school (or workplace, neighborhood, etc.) if you were as forgiving as Jesus was to this guy?
  • Invite everyone to pray together and either confess their sin openly or in the quietness of their hearts so that we can get up and walk in the freedom of forgiveness like the paralytic.
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Full Spectrum Youth Ministry: The Full Picture Jesus had in Mind for Making Disciples

FULL SPECTRUM YOUTH MINISTRY? WHAT IS THAT?

On a recent trip to Finland, I had the opportunity to come alongside some Finnish youth workers who have a passion for reaching the young people in their communities.  I was asked in an interview what the term “Full Spectrum Youth Ministry” meant because I use it a lot while teaching groups how to develop catalytic and effective youth ministry.  I’ve been involved in youth ministry for about 30 years and have been involved in a variety of organizations like Young Life, Cru, YWAM, Intervarsity, Navigators, as well as lots of church-based student ministries.
As I have made observations, learned from many skilled leaders, and worked on a theology of youth ministry, we landed on the term “Full Spectrum Youth Ministry” to describe what others have referred to as relational youth ministry or incarnational youth ministry. When I was living and serving in New Zealand years ago, a friend of mine, Duane Major introduced me to the term “Full Spectrum” as a visual way to describe a biblical theology and practice of disciple-making student ministry. In other words, Full Spectrum Youth Ministry is a way to help leaders understand what Jesus had in mind for developing disciples.
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PSALM 119:98-100 | A LIGHTHOUSE OF HOPE TO THE YOUNG

Young David wrote a staggering number of jazzy beats in his lifetime. Three lines from one of his 70+ songs (a.k.a. Psalms) stood out to me recently. His lyrics shine like a lighthouse for young people the world over who are navigating the boat of their life through treacherous waters. Many “serious” voices fill the air with claims of authority. Although they claim to have the high ground, we know that worldly wisdom is just strings of empty words parroted from talking heads, spewing half-truths. David’s Psalm 119 calls this out.

lighthouse of hope, wise, wisdom

Photo by Evgeni Tcherkasski on Unsplash

 

When you are about to crash into shore, a dim flashlight won’t help you. You need a beacon that shudders the darkness. This kind of hope can be found in David’s Psalm 119. The whole song is amazing, but especially for young people, these three lines burn off the fog: