welcome
to the Gospel Advancing movement
You’ve taken the 5 Stages Assessment, and now you’re ready to dive into building your ministry on the power of the Gospel and the potential of teens. Read on to find out more about your starting point.
it’s a journey
Building a dynamic, energetic youth ministry with real Kingdom impact doesn’t happen overnight. We’ve found it’s a journey that typically goes through five distinct stages, as a leader integrates the values of Gospel Advancement into their life and ministry:
- Commit: Decide to be a Gospel Advancing leader, paving the way for your students.
- Align: Cast this ministry vision to your leaders and help them become Gospel Advancing leaders themselves.
- Prioritize:Integrate the 7 Values of Gospel Advancing into your ministry programs, training, and events.
- Accelerate: Experience growing excitement among your students and momentum within your ministry, as the Gospel goes deeply into and widely out through your students.
- Multiply: Take Gospel Advancing ministry to other leaders within your network and circle of influence.
As with any journey, it will take time to reach your final destination. But don’t get discouraged! God will honor your efforts to Gospelize your ministry.
your starting point
Below is the road map for your Gospel Advancing journey. You’ll find insights, action steps, and tools that will help you along the way.
In addition, you can tap into more encouragement and ideas by joining this group of youth leaders who are also on the Gospel Advancing journey.
your roadmap - ALIGN
The fact that you are praying for the lost and personally sharing the Gospel makes for a strong foundation as you progress in your Gospel Advancing journey.
The alignment stage is where you focus on getting your leadership team – both adults and students – on board with the Gospel Advancing mindset.
As your rally your leadership team around Gospel Advancing, the first area to focus on is the mission that Jesus Christ Himself gave all believers: to seek and save the lost. That should be at the center of every youth ministry—especially a Gospel Advancing one.
What’s your bold vision for your ministry? Greg Stier tackles this question in this podcast:
Every teen, everywhere, hearing the Gospel from a friend.
With more than 1 billion teenagers on the planet, it can feel like the mission is too big to take on. But God hasn’t called you to reach every teen—that’s the job of the whole Church.
But how many teens live in your community? That’s definitely a more manageable number. In fact, God has you right where you are, because He wants you to do something about reaching those around you.
Your bold vision should include the number of teenagers in your community that your group is trying to reach.
Action Steps
- Do the math. Work with your leadership team to determine the number of teenagers in your community.
- You can do this by finding out how many students attend each of your local middle schools and high schools.
- You can even Google: “How many teenagers live in [your city, your community, etc.]?”
- Keep the vision front and center.
- Make a list of the middle schools and high schools in your community, and display them in your youth room.
- Display in your youth room the total number of students in your mission field.
“There are 14,000 teens in the Arvada area, where I live and work—14,000 students! There are also a lot of 14,000-foot mountains in Colorado, so when we hear ‘14,000 students in need of the Gospel,’ we know we’re asking God to move a mountain. 14,000 students! Every one of them has a name. Every one of them has a story. And I believe every one of them matters.” Morgan M.
Now that you have a vision for your youth ministry, you can get more specific. What do you want a student who graduates from your ministry to look like? How will you measure fruitfulness in students’ lives and in your ministry?
Greg Stier talks about how to determine what outcomes we should aim for:
Action Steps
- Create a list of biblical outcomes your ministry will focus on.
- Start dreaming with your team about how to achieve these outcomes.
moving to the next stage
Prioritize
You’re growing and thriving as a Gospel Advancing leader. Now that you and your leadership team have created your ministry’s vision, it’s time to start building programs that support that vision and generate the desired biblical outcomes.
