This seminar is all about personal involvement and I am expecting folks to input very heavily! No answer can be wrong I am expecting your own personal reflections! I am applying the term discipleship in living in close quarters with your disciples. they will get to know all your feelings, faults, happiness, etc….
Be Prepared
Aim is to help the delegates ‘become’ and to help them get in touch with any feelings, prejudices they might have about a variety of issues. Role play four possible scenarios. The room will be split into four groups or more if necessary:
Sex You are invited to attempt to talk one person into having sex outside of marriage. How would you advise a teenage girl/boy when friends are encouraging her/him to have sex?
Drugs You are encouraged to attempt to get someone to smoke or to take some drug. What is the current ‘trendy’ drug? How do you advise? What information do you know about drugs? What information do you need?
Family You are to split into a family unit and ‘discuss’ the latest school report of your children. What issues can you think of that are relevant to families? Do you support parents or young people? Does this mean conflict with parents?
Peer Two people will be removed from the group and directions will be given about what to do next! In what ways are peers positive or negative? How would you respond to the bullying issue?
Feed back on how the groups felt doing the above and then debrief to deal with any tensions or hurts that might still be felt.
We will now role play some of the world’s worst approaches to discipleship and then work out a strategy to deal with them. You will be encouraged to make the most irrelevant, uncreative and abysmal approaches as possible! (Let’s try to get it out of your system!)
Know your feelings around certain issues. I can only offer advice and I hope that that is what we have achieved today. It is up to you to start to think about these and other subjects and reflect on them so that when they arise you are prepared!
When advising people on these issues…. DON’T PREACH. Use phrases like, “I have found that….”
Dress People
How do people identify one of the first identity responses is… dress. Let’s look at dress. We will split male and female and ask groups to ‘dress’ stick figures (both groups will dress figures of different gender and different types.
Ask yourself:
What clothes will they wear?
What magazines/papers/books will they read?
What music will they listen to?
What TV will they watch?
What will their families look like?
What education would they have or had?
What jobs will they do?
Where will they live?
What Motivates You?
This part will help you look at your own understanding of what evangelism and relationship building means in the context of discipleship. Is your motivation to win souls or love unconditionally? What tensions exist in evangelism and loving unconditionally?
Brainstorm the words detached, outreach, open and closed.
Within the small groups discuss how relationships and evangelism affects youth ministry. Look at the following verses and talk about the tensions involved.
Great Command
“Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’” Matthew 22 v 37 39
Great Commission
“Therefore go and make disciples of all cultures, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” Matthew 28 v 19
What is Detached Youth Work and Developing Action Plans
Detached youth work is working detached from a base, centre or church! (As opposed to outreach where you leave a base to meet with young people and then return them to a base or centre based where you work from the centre). Yes it is that simple! The sort of location you might find yourself in are streets, cafes, pubs, parks, playgrounds, outside schools, shops, launderettes, pool clubs, nightclubs, arcades, McD’s, etc…
“Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it.” Habbakuk 2 v 2
There is nothing wrong with planning and being directional about