• 1) FRIENDSHIP EVANGELISM – We want our teenagers to know the gospel, seek to live the gospel and share the gospel with their friends in whatever way they can. We equip them in at least 3 ways: Two Ways to Live, The Jesus Bridge, Telling your Jesus Story. The first two tools are more about understanding the gospel than how to share the gospel. The 3rd is about giving your testimony.
• 2) FRIDAY’S ARE FRIENDLY – We want any week of youth group to be a good week to bring a friend. We recognise that outsiders are present each week – we want to present the good news of Jesus every week. We also don’t want to use insider language and jokes all the time – we want to speak about Jesus often and clearly and in a way that’s not boring. Friday’s should be fun!
• 3) DOUBLE UP ONCE A TERM – While any week is a good week to bring a friend – one night a term we have a night where the talk is specifically geared toward someone who doesn’t know Jesus. The aim is to double our numbers on this night. We haven’t yet done that, but this year there have been many non-Christian teens come on those nights.
• 4) FOLLOW-UP SMALL GROUP – We’ve got 2 follow-up courses called simplyJESUS. The junior youth material is similar to Tim Hawkin’s Discovering Jesus (God, Man, Jesus, Jesus’ death, Our response). The senior youth material is based around the two ways to live structure.
• 5) WEEK LONG MISSION – Currently we run a week long program in January – this is a heightened period of bringing friends along to events that we put on for juniors and seniors. The juniors program runs closely with our family mission in the mornings. Seniors runs a bit more independently in the evenings at a local hip youth centre (very cool space!).

What do you think? Would love to hear some feedback as I rework all this stuff.

In the end – we want our teenagers captured by Jesus. That honours him. And they are going to be far more effective at evangelising their peers than I can be by handing out flyers in the local high schools. (Note to self – get rid of Christian school so there are more Christians in gov’t schools!)

If you don’t know what I mean by the gospel… check out this.