Jesus-Focused Youth Ministry ONLINE

Session 1: See The Big Picture

Essential Truths

Jesus-Focused Youth Ministry really is about Jesus—who He is and what He came to do in and through you!

Looking through the Gospels, we can see that Jesus followed a dynamic pattern of ministry. He explained it after the Pharisees accused Him of healing on the Sabbath and after He made matters worse by making Himself equal with God.

“I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what He sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.” John 5:19

In intimate communication with His Father, Jesus got His instructions from His Father, and He followed them. That made what He did every day not only dynamic but also unique. One thing we can say for sure about our ministries: God wants them dynamic and unique, based on an intimate relationship with Him. The result of going through the Jesus-Focused Youth Ministry equipping process is not to create a ministry that looks the same as everyone else’s ministry, but to build something unique and dynamic, driven by a passionate pursuit of Jesus. For us that means applying the same essential characteristics in our ministries that Jesus applied in His ministry. That comes from a heart that desires to see what the Father is doing and then doing it.

Jesus looked to the Father. And we look to Jesus. When we look, what do we see? We see a pattern that occurs over and over in what Jesus did. We discover principles—essential characteristics—by which Jesus operated that give us direction for how we are to operate our ministries. Never rigid or rote, never putting His Father in a box, Jesus, nonetheless, had a strategy. What did it look like?

Jesus Obeyed his Father. The incident of Jesus suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane shows clearly His obedience to His Father. This very difficult experience for Jesus challenges us to obey.

Jesus invested in His disciples. With only casual observation, we can see the investment Jesus made in the twelve disciples. Over three years, He took them through the most intensive leadership training ever devised. He led them to empty themselves of self and to be filled with His Spirit. He took them with Him to experience ministry and then supported them as they tried their hand at it. In doing so, He led them to preach the good news, heal the broken-hearted, and set the captives free. Ultimately, He empowered them to carry out the ministry they had seen in Him, and to do it in their own unique way. As a result, He built a team of leaders who turned the world upside down.

Jesus’ disciples, in turn, invested their lives in others. The dynamic multiplication effect of investing in the lives of others through discipleship was the heart of the ministry of Jesus and, thus, of the early church. People invested in people for the Kingdom of God. That propelled the church forward as a powerful force that changed the people around them and eventually changed the world. Investing in a small group of “Jesus followers” to disciple them to become “Jesus ministers” is still the best of all possible ministries. And, if done like Jesus did it, discipling others will not only change the people involved but, in time, will also change our world.

Changing their world with the good news of the gospel became a life-dominating priority for the disciples in the early church because they saw how important it was to Jesus. He ripped down all the fences and created a level playing field by hanging out with the prostitutes, the lepers, the poor, the lame, and the blind. For us, like Jesus, discipling others always moves people toward maturity and from maturity into ministry outside the walls of the church.

For Jesus, that ministry drew a crowd. Teaching, healing, preaching, casting out demons, feeding five thousand with five loaves of bread and two fish—it really didn’t matter what Jesus did, He was the focus of attention! It was not about the disciples or the method of making disciples. It was not about the amazing miracles, the profound teaching, or anything else. It was all about Jesus! Who He was and what He came to do were the core. That is what we need in the church today—Jesus-focused youth ministry. Any other kind of ministry will leave us empty and unfulfilled and with little to no impact on those we want to reach. But if, like Jesus, we desire to make a mark for eternity that will never be erased, then we will make Jesus the focus.

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