A Right Approach to The Bible in Your Youth Ministry
Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.–2 Timothy 2:15 (ESV)
I love the imagery of this verse. I like the image of presenting ourselves and our work to God. It’s humbling, and scary, and wonderful. I like the image of us as workers for the Lord, laboring for God. And I like the aim of this verse: that being a worker approved is tied to our right handling of Scripture.
Are you a right handler of Scripture? Do you or your volunteers teach the Bible to teenagers in a way that is right in God’s eyes?
How do we define what it means to handle Scripture the right way in our youth ministries? Here are a few broad thoughts:
- Accuracy–Just a few weeks ago, I listened as a guy, a pretty intelligent one, made a point about the freedom from legalism we have in Christ. He quoted Paul’s words from 1 Corinthians 6:12, “Everything is permissible for me.” The only problem, of course, is that Paul was quoting a phrase commonly used by the non-believers in Corinth. And Paul refutes this thought in the rest of the verse! It’s not enough to know Scripture if we aren’t able to correctly use it. You can’t take Scripture out of context. When you do, you arm a teenager with information that is simply not the truth. And there is no telling how it will impact their actions.
- Reverence—Are you making enough time to prepare for your Bible study lessons or talks? If you are consistently not allowing a proper amount of time to craft a message or study for a lesson, you’re actually not giving the Bible the reverence it deserves. If we fully grasp how transformational God’s Word is in the lives of our students, we will make (not find) the time to spend in preparing to teach it.
- Focus—Your youth ministry should be Bible centered and Bible focused. It sounds easy enough. But too often, we aren’t strategic enough in our concept or our planning to be as effective at pulling this off as we could be. It’s important to have fun. But your students get “fun” from many other sources. It’s important to build relationships. But most of your students realize meaningful relationships from a variety of sources. For many of your students, the time they spend in your youth ministry may be the only time they get exposed to God’s Word. The focus of your youth ministry should be for students to experience a deepening relationship with God built on a knowledge and application of Scripture.
Paul calls Timothy to be a worker approved, one who handles the Word in the right way. If we do this, in Paul’s words, we have “no need to be ashamed.” What this implies is that we are misguided if we are not teaching the Bible correctly. But it also applies a certain assurance that if we are teaching our students Scripture in a way that is accurate, and leading them to apply its precepts in their lives, then we can be confident in our service of the Lord.
Andy Blanks is the co-founder of youthministry360. Andy has worked in youth ministry for 12 years, almost exclusively writing, designing, and developing curriculum. Andy is a teacher at heart and loves to challenge teenagers and youth workers alike through his writing and speaking.
Share your thoughts with the youthministry360 community:
- How do you define what it means to handle Scripture the right way in our youth ministry?
- If you have the time, share with the ym360 community how you make sure Scripture has a foundational role in your youth ministry.
Thanks for this post. I do think that your 3 thoughts are important and while reading them, I thought of possibly a 4th: “Discussion”. As a youth worker, I think we can almost spend too much time focused on our presentation of scripture and forget that our youth can sometimes learn even more from an open discussion about it.
Each week our youth workers fascilitate open discussions within student small groups and we welcome questions about scripture, it’s validity today, how it applies to our lives, as well as any doubts and concerns that our students might have. Our students are thinking about all of these things anyway, why not let them be voiced within a safe environment?
In the end, I think welcoming open discussions about scripture allows it to become far more tangible to students and the outcome we have seen is that our students wrestle with what they believe and they begin to truly own their faith.
Couldn’t agree more, Jacob. A great addition. Allowing for thoughtful discussion regarding Scripture is a huge aspect of having a youth ministry that deals with the Bible in a right way. If you think about it, this type of learning was present in the rabbinical traditions and in Greek culture. It’s an awesome way to help students connect the dots.
My experience has been that many youth workers shy away from this type of open questioning because they fear they do not have the answers. In my opinion, it’s no excuse. First, we take the power out of the Holy Spirit’s hands when we shy away from these discussions. And second, there is nothing wrong with telling a student, “You know, I don’t know the answer to that. But I’ll find out.”
Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts, Jacob. You make the ym360 community stronger with your voice. Stop by again, soon.
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“I like the image of us as workers for the Lord, laboring for God. And I like the aim of this verse: that being a worker approved is tied to our right handling of Scripture.” I can really relate to that quote from personal experience.