Last week 200 Family Church high school & middle school students made their spring breaks count. Our Student Ministry team has designed a fabulous program that develops leadership in high school students and fosters discipleship for middle school students. Over the course of the program (we call it “Advance”), students build spiritual habits such as having a personal quiet time, engaging people in gospel conversations, memorizing Scripture and holding each other accountable. The program culminates in a week-long, spring break mission trip.
This year the trip was to Jacksonville, Florida where our students helped connect people in the community to 4 local churches. They went out in groups, door-to-door, ready to put their training into practice. They were handing out invites but rather than just leaving them, they knocked on every door. When someone answered the door, the student issued the invite and then asked him or her how their group could pray for them. If the person shared a problem, issue or concern, the student would attempt to turn that conversation into a gospel conversation using our 3 Circles tool. This resulted in our Family Church students having nearly 600 gospel conversations and seeing about 100 people repent and believe in Jesus.
This is what Family Church is all about—disciples making disciples. Our goal is to train everyone who attends our church to see themselves as missionaries to the places they live, work and play. We want to see the church multiply disciples. We’re after generational growth.
As a Dad I have personally benefited from the training the teenagers in my home are receiving. It’s a great joy to see them participate in generational kingdom growth. It did my heart good to see this on my son’s Twitter feed:
I love seeing our Student Ministry lead the way at Family Church – it gets me fired up as a Pastor. These young people are making their lives count for the kingdom of Jesus. Let’s all go and do likewise.