Family-Based Youth Ministry Chapter 6

The title of this chapter is "Stacking the Stands." I absolutely LOVED this chapter!!! (I've really loved the entire book, but this chapter gave me more clarity to a vision that I've been developing.) In this chapter, DeVries took the first few verses of Hebrews 12, and applied it to what we need to do to help our youth today when ministering to them. Statistics show that when there is an extended family involved in the faith maturation and development of a youth, there is increased success. He continues to tie in the fact that when you use the term "extended family" in relation to growing to a mature faith, it doesn't necessarily mean that you are talking about your relatives. The church is the body of Christ and the members of this body are brothers and sisters. Taking this image and applying it to the faith maturation through the lens of Hebrews 12, DeVries paints the picture from which he titled this chapter. Every student needs to have their "stands" full of supporters and "witnesses" if he/she is to develop longevity in his/her faith. These "fans/supporters/witnesses" are brought in through interaction between youth and mature Christian adults.

"... in the long run, the teenagers in our churches will be affected by significant experiences with adults much more than by the mountaintop youth-group experiences that we spend so much energy creating." (pg 90)

Successful family-based youth ministry, in fact successful youth ministry in general is determined by the relationships between the youth and the mature Christian adults within the body of Christ. Once these relationships develop, they mean something and they last. One of the ideas that came to mind as I was reading (and DeVries touched on later in the chapter), was the development of discipleship relationships. Planning meetings where adults and youth can sit down and just talk about anything that they want. Later these evolve into something even deeper, where youth and adults serve alongside each other, doing service projects or simply praying for people. These types of experiences leave lasting impressions on youth as they are developing physically, emotionally, and spiritually. As DeVries mentioned in the quote above, these memories and relationships have more impact and last A LOT longer than any kind of cool program that we can entertain the youth with for one hour each week.