For as long as I can remember, I have struggled with what we should teach at Merge (our Wednesday night, multi-generational worship gathering). What we teach is a big deal. A REALLY BIG DEAL! We carry with us the ability to shape a given student’s Godview. Much of what our students will come to believe about God will come from what we teach them. What an awesome and scary responsibility! James said it this way, “Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness” James 3:1.
The more I have wrestled with the reality of what to teach, the more I have felt compelled to ensure that students are not getting some watered-down talk that was thrown together with little forethought or strategic thinking. As a student pastor, I have constantly lived in the tension of teaching stuff that I think students want to hear verses teaching them the things that I believe they need to hear. I have wrestled with whether to focus more on relevance (those things that seem most urgent to students right now) or on significance (the rich doctrines that sustain us and ground us). Unfortunately, I feel like I’ve never gotten it right. There have been times when I felt like we were too focused on the relevant and never got deep enough, but there have been other times when I have felt like we stayed too heavy for too long. I have longed for a way to discover balance in our teaching.
This year, we will be implementing what I am going to call the RED Strategy. My prayer is that the RED Strategy will enable us to give students an accurate, balanced picture of what is happening in Scripture. I hope it will allow us to meet the felt needs that we find in the youth culture and at the same time help our students establish a firm, doctrinal foundation which will allow them to thrive in the face of a skeptical and cynical world.
The RED Strategy breaks each message series down into one of three categories: Relevant, Expository, and Doctrine. Our goal will be to provide students with a balanced number series from each of these categories throughout the year.
Here is a brief explanation of each category:
Relevant – In these series, we are teaching to a relevant need in the lives of student. These messages tend to be more topical in nature. These help us to handle very specific issues through a thorough examination of Scripture.
Expository – In these series, we focus on a particular text over an extended period of time. Sometimes this takes the form of walking through one of the lives pictured in Scripture, and other times this is simply walking through a book or passage. This is a great opportunity for students to grasp a greater appreciation for the richness of God’s word and to uncover truths that are easily passed over with the naked eye. Expository messages are able to place students in the context of the passage so that they can sense, feel, and absorb the magnitude of what is happening.
Doctrine – A recent study by the Nehemiah Institute shows that 85 percent of self-described Christian students do not hold a Biblical worldview. The Barna Group has discovered that the majority of students graduating from local youth ministries are not able to articulate the basic tenets of the faith. In a doctrine series, we dive into the depths of these basic doctrines. It is the foundation of these doctrines that will allow these students’ faith to persevere through the skepticism of college and difficulty of life. Some of the basic doctrines we have already handled are: the doctrine of sin, God the Son, and God the Father.
Let me know what you think! Leave me a comment.
