A few weeks ago we started talking about how to grow our youth group. This week I was reading a book. And the youth pastor that wrote the introduction was talking about how he went to 2 youth groups as a teenager.
The first one had only 1 couch. They had 3 or 4 teens that came. And outreach and growing was never talked about our encouraged. Then, he said his friend invited him to visit his youth group once and they had about 200 teens at their youth group.
And he talked about the differences in the 2 youth groups. With the small one, he knew everybody. The youth pastor had a really good relationship with everybody. BUT… they never grew to more than just the 3 or 4 teens.
With the big youth group, he said that he never really had a good relationship with the youth pastor and only hung out with about 10 guys. BUT… the youth group was making a big difference in the community and new people were always coming and hearing about Jesus.
I thought this was interesting. 3 and 200 are kind of the extremes. There are positives and negatives to each extreme. BUT… I think that new Christians and teens making a difference are more important than everybody being best friends with the youth pastor.
I’m not saying that it is bad that we all have good relationships, but there is more to church than just having a good relationship with your youth pastor.
One way that this has been remedied is with small groups. I know in my youth group when we went to small groups; I had a really good relationship with Rob, my small group leader. And even though he wasn’t the youth pastor, he was an adult who I could go to if I needed some wise counsel.
But I’m not here to talk about small groups. I am here to talk about how we are going to grow our group, so that we CAN make a difference in the North Wilmington/Claymont/Delaware County area.
Right now, are we making a difference in our community? Are we doing anything that is helping the community or changing lives? Not really
And as a youth group (as a church), this is what God has called us to do. We are to be lights on a hill to shine for God. Does this make sense?
I am not teaching about growing our youth group just so we have more teens to play games and to fill up this room. I want to grow our youth group to make a bigger difference in our little corner of the world.
And so, we started talking about the three essential ingredients to growing our youth group. And the first was ME. Each and every one of us have to be committed to being here and committed to seeing God work in our youth group. If you aren’t here, then that is less of a difference that we can make.
Imagine that you are on a basketball team. And you don’t show up to the games or practices. Are you helping or hurting your team? Hurting them. It takes a whole team to win a basketball game. In the same way, it takes a whole youth group to make a difference. And so, you have to be here and you have to be committed.
Then, last week we talked about how God is our only hope. We have to pray and completely rely on God to grow our youth group. We NEED God to change lives. We NEED God to give us a passion for our friends and the boldness to invite them.
And this week we are going to be looking at the third essential ingredient to growing our youth group, and that is my friends.
I need to be honest with you about this one. For me as a teenager, this was the hardest possible thing. Inviting my friends to church (or really anything) was really hard for me. It still is actually.
I have a fear of inconveniencing people. It’s true. I don’t like to call people on the phone. Why? Because I think it is an inconvenience to them to have to talk to me. I hate asking anyone to do anything. Why? Same reason. I hate asking people for help. Not because I don’t think I need help… but because I think that it will inconvenience them.
It’s just this weird fear that I have. Ask Keyla; it’s completely true.
The weird thing is that for me… if someone calls me, it’s not an inconvenience for me. Or if someone asks me to help them with something… not a problem. I have just had this fear my whole life and it’s something that really does affect me.
So, when I teach today, I am talking to myself as much as I am talking to you.
Let’s open up our Bibles to Mark 2. And we are actually going to be looking at 2 stories that go back to back. First, we are going to look at 4 friends who dragged their other friend to Jesus, and then we are going to see 1 guy who invited all their friends to eat with Jesus.
This first story has always been one of my favorite stories in the Bible. Let’s start in verse 1. A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that He had come home. So many gathered that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and He preached the word to them.
So, Jesus and his disciples come back to their home area of Capernaum. And this is right after Jesus started his ministry (that’s why it is Mark 2) and He is starting to get really popular. He has been doing miracles and teaching and everyone is talking about Him.
So… He comes to this house and pretty everybody in the city wants to hear Him and see Him. So, they all crowd into this house, which is probably smaller than the room we are currently in. And the Bible says that it is so full that you can’t even get to the door. People are completely surrounding the house, peering in the windows… they are just trying to get a glimpse of Jesus.
Verse 3… Some men came, bringing to him a paralytic, carried by four of them. Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus and, after digging through it, lowered the mat the paralyzed man was lying on.
This is the part of the story I love. There is this paralyzed guy. What can paralyzed people do? Pretty much nothing. Lay there and have other people take care of all their needs.
And so, he hears that Jesus is in town. Everybody is talking about it and everybody is going. So, the paralyzed guy wants to go see Jesus to be healed. Makes sense to me. If Jesus can heal him, why wouldn’t he want to get to Jesus?
BUT… he can’t move, so he has to get his friends to take him. His friends carry the paralyzed guy to the house Jesus is at and can’t get in. Nobody is letting them cut their way through the crowd. So, one guy goes… IDEA!!!
They somehow get their friend on the roof. Maybe the tossed him up… hopefully their were stairs to carry him up carefully. But however they did it… they all got on the roof.
Now what? Let’s dig a hole through the roof. Now their house were made out of clay and stones and dirt, so it wasn’t like they were going through bricks or shingles or wood. Finally, they make a hole big enough to fit their friend through.
Now… I’m pretty sure at this point everybody inside is paying more attention to what is happening on the roof than to what Jesus is saying. Dust and rocks and dirt are falling on them and the sun is shining through. The owner of the house is probably ticked off.
BUT… these friends finally get the paralyzed guy to Jesus. Let’s go to verse 5… When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”
What an awesome thought. Jesus saw THEIR faith. Jesus healed the man not because of his faith, but because of the friends’ faith.
Wouldn’t it be awesome someday to look back at your life and see all of your friends who got saved because you brought them to Jesus? And that is what the church is all about.
As Christians and as a youth group, we exist to make disciples. Our faith and our dedication in getting our friends to Jesus is how our youth group is going to grow.
BUT… I said that the key is MY FRIENDS. And this is where I think a lot of us struggle. We want new people to come to youth group, BUT not my friends. Let someone else bring their friends. My friends wouldn’t want to come.
Guess what… it is YOUR friends that need Jesus. It is MY friends that need Jesus.
It gets me excited hear when one of you says “hey… I’m bringing a friend tonight.” That means you get it. You understand our purpose. You are trying to help our youth group grow. And that is all I can ask.
Ok… skip down a few verses to verse 13. Once again Jesus went out beside the lake. A large crowd came to Him, and He began to teach them. As He walked along, He saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax collectors booth. “Follow me,” Jesus told him, and Levi got up and followed Him.
This story is a story of all three essential ingredients to growing a youth group. Here we see numbers 1 and 2. Jesus says “follow me.” And Levi instantly leaves his job and old life and becomes a disciple. His name is also Matthew. He went on to write one of the gospels.
Then, we see number 2. What happened to change this tax collector (which is a job for the worst people… tax collectors would literally take as much money as they wanted from people and keep whatever was extra for themselves) into one of the disciples? What changed a thief into a follower of Christ?
Levi met Jesus. God changed his life. He left everything he had to follow Jesus. And from this day forward, he is one of Jesus’ 12 disciples.
Let’s keeping reading, verse 15… While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and “sinners” were eating with Him and His disciples, for there were many who followed Him.
What is Levi’s first act as a disciple? He throws a dinner party and has Jesus and the other disciples over AND all of his buddies. It says that there were tax collectors and sinners there.
What is Levi doing? He’s inviting his friends to meet Jesus? That is essential ingredient number 3. His friends needed to hear about Jesus. And that verse ends with “there were many who followed Him.” AWESOME!!!
So… what we need to grow our youth group is ME. Each of us has to be committed to being here and wanting to grow closer to God. GOD. If God doesn’t change our lives and change the lives of our friends, we will never grow. He is our only hope. And MY FRIENDS. If we aren’t growing, we are dying.
How many of you have ever seen a corn field that the farmer waited to long to harvest? Everything is all brown and dead. The corn stopped growing and what happened? It started to slowly die.
That is what happened to our youth group over last school year. We started the school year strong and there was a lot of excitement and we were growing. BUT… then slowly people stopped coming every week and eventually stopped coming at all.
We are coming up to this school year with the same kind of momentum. We have some exciting stuff going on with our youth group.
We are doing Project Reload, which we are voting on room ideas TONIGHT. There is a lot of excitement with the idea of redoing this room.
We are having the All Nighter in 3 weeks and it is going to be something that can continue to bring excitement.
These are opportunities to see our youth group grow and for our friends to come and have a fun time at church. That is why we have parties. That is why we play games on Sunday nights.
These are opportunities to bring your friends and your friends to just have fun with us.
Do you want to know why we died off last year? There was very little ingredient 1… we weren’t relying on God for ingredient 2… and because we never saw growth we started to die with little ingredient 3.
This school year, I see a lot of potential for growing our youth group. We have a solid foundation of a few teens that are always here. I am completely relying on God to grow us. And now we just need ingredient 3 to continue to keep the excitement.
