0:08

It is . The past is hard and Dominic Steal in a SWOT

0:10

analysis of the changing youth

0:12

ministry environment A special

0:14

focus on better collaboration . Andy

0:16

Stevenson and Ruth Lee are with

0:19

us . The youth ministry environment

0:21

is changing . It is much harder

0:23

for Christian teenagers to be Christian

0:25

amongst their peers , and teenagers

0:28

just don't walk in the door of a church

0:30

anymore . It's not even that parents

0:32

decide that they want their kids to go to youth

0:34

group . The cultural changes

0:36

, the increasing pushback against

0:38

churches , are taking their effect . But

0:41

what is working , what are the opportunities

0:43

and how do we do youth ministry on

0:45

the front foot rather than on

0:47

retreat ? Andy Stevenson is

0:50

director of the Sydney Anglican

0:52

Youth and Children's Ministries and Special

0:55

Religious Education , and Ruth Lee

0:57

has served as the youth worker

0:59

at Cornerstone Presbyterian Church in

1:01

Sydney for 15 years

1:03

. Ruth , andy , before we come

1:05

to our topic , let's

1:08

start with your . Past is hard , and

1:10

just the other day there was a Gospel

1:12

Coalition article about long-term

1:16

youth ministers being unicorns

1:18

. And you , at

1:20

42 , are unicorns

1:25

.

1:25

How did it make ?

1:26

you feel being a unicorn , Ruth .

1:27

Because you've been doing it a long time . Yes , and even that

1:29

Andy and I are the same age .

1:31

Yes , we are

1:33

.

1:33

But yeah , it is really rare to find particularly

1:35

females as well to be in youth ministry

1:37

for that long . But I guess

1:39

for me I became a Christian when

1:41

I was in high school

1:44

, as a youth , and so I think that has driven

1:46

a lot of my love for youth ministry

1:48

and wanting to see youth just

1:50

come to know Jesus and stay being a Christian

1:52

.

1:52

Andy , when are you going

1:54

to get a proper job ? Well

1:56

, I mean , that's really the thesis

1:59

that your heart is against , isn't

2:01

it ?

2:01

Yeah , that's right . I think all

2:03

ministry is wonderful and

2:06

ministry to teenagers

2:08

, to children , is very special and very

2:10

privileged , and I think

2:12

it's where the action is a lot of the time . It's

2:14

where statistics will say I just

2:17

under 80% of people in churches became a Christian

2:20

in the teenage or children years , which is brilliant

2:22

, and so you get to see

2:24

a lot . It can be difficult , but

2:27

the rewards are beautiful and

2:29

I think my heart really is

2:31

that I've been involved in youth ministry

2:34

all my life as

2:36

a teenager . I became a Christian at

2:39

youth group in the youth group years . Quite

2:42

, personally , my mother passed away

2:44

in the teenage years and the people

2:46

that cared for me the most were the youth group leaders . Really

2:48

, yeah , they bought

2:50

meals around and they prayed

2:53

with me and , yeah , it really

2:55

showed me what youth ministry can

2:57

be at its hardest

3:00

times . Yeah , you've

3:02

seen that play out too , ruth

3:04

.

3:05

I think definitely in my own life

3:07

as well , having lots of youth

3:10

leaders care for me over the years

3:12

. My mum also passed away

3:14

when I was in high school , so

3:16

similar story in that a lot of

3:18

my youth leaders were the ones who tried

3:20

to follow me up . I probably wasn't that chatty back then

3:22

, but knowing that they were always there and

3:25

offering two drive-view places or

3:27

, yeah , offering to chat and pointing

3:29

me to Jesus , was really

3:31

encouraging .

3:31

I think now you've both been serving in youth ministry

3:34

15 years , but you were obviously in

3:36

youth ministry before that . How

3:39

has youth ministry , how is it different

3:41

now and what are the new challenges that we're facing

3:44

compared , the new context we're facing

3:46

, compared to 15 , 20 years ago ?

3:47

So , for me . I've been at Cornerstone

3:50

for 10 years now with

3:52

CY and back then when I started , nearly

3:55

99% I would say were private school

3:57

kids and also our

3:59

youth who were from our church . But

4:02

over the years , slowly we're starting to see more

4:04

public school kids coming along and

4:06

also more non-church youth

4:08

coming along , so friends of our youth coming

4:10

along too . So it's created a great diversity .

4:13

Although you were telling me , I mean , they've had more

4:15

public school kids you're telling me across the

4:17

board . That's not the case .

4:19

Yeah , that's right , particularly in

4:22

greater Sydney . But as I

4:24

talked to different youth ministry friends around the country

4:26

in the last 20

4:28

years the statistics say that we

4:30

kind of went from 80% public school , 20%

4:33

private or Christian school and that has flipped

4:35

to 80% private and Christian

4:37

school kids in the youth group versus 20%

4:39

public school kids .

4:41

That's a big change , that's very significant . I mean

4:43

. I think , though , we've actually gone I

4:45

mean in this time period we've gone up to many

4:47

more private schools , kids

4:50

just in general .

4:51

That's right , there's way more schools , way more private schools

4:54

in general , but that's

4:56

a much bigger shift in terms of the

4:59

youth group than yeah and

5:01

it's a reflection on society as well , perhaps , and

5:03

also a reflection on one of the other things that's

5:05

changed is it's harder for a young

5:07

person to be a Christian . The

5:10

I talked to grandparents , I talked

5:12

to people who've been Christians 50 years and they come up

5:14

to me with almost a tear in their eye and they say you

5:16

know , it's hard for a teenager to be a Christian

5:18

today . Compared to that , how

5:21

easy it was for them , where everybody went to

5:23

church and youth group was normal

5:25

and Sunday school was Just the done thing

5:27

. That's not the case these days .

5:29

I say that to you for the time . Yeah , they're

5:31

just . They're up against so much more than we

5:33

were about 10 , 15 years .

5:35

I mean you're doing a fair bit of if you're like the

5:37

umbrella man stuff , andy

5:40

, negotiating with secular schools

5:42

and that kind of thing for scripture , how

5:44

are those conversations more ? I mean , I remember

5:46

you and I talking about this kind of stuff 15 years

5:48

. How

5:51

is it different now to back

5:53

then ?

5:54

Yeah , I think the

5:57

perhaps society's view on religion is

6:00

has changed that . That is a broad

6:02

statement , if you will . I think you say

6:04

yes , it has , it definitely

6:06

has . But I would say

6:08

that sre was far more acceptable and sorry

6:11

is what we're an anti acronym ministry

6:13

.

6:13

That's right Is acronyms exclude

6:16

people .

6:17

Well and and very . Yeah , that's helpful comment

6:19

. Sorry , especially

6:21

diseducation , which is effectively being able

6:23

to teach the Christian faith in public schools

6:26

, which in New South Wales , is

6:28

quite unique in some

6:30

ways in terms of our legislation now Collaboration

6:33

and and moving forward .

6:36

You're seeing collaboration on

6:38

several levels or several layers . There's

6:41

a layer of cross city , your

6:44

cross the place . Collaboration

6:46

how does that work ? Yeah ?

6:48

Yeah , so in In

6:50

some ways there's like these large-scale

6:53

kind of camps , like a kick that

6:55

happens , which is another .

6:58

I know I realize that as soon as I'm saying a youth

7:00

conference .

7:01

It's called Katoomba youth conference Because it's in Katoomba

7:03

, but yeah , which is a part of New South Wales

7:05

. But people

7:07

come , youth groups come from all over the state , all

7:10

different denominations , to be together , to

7:13

be encouraged , to be in God's word and

7:15

to be on one large-scale camp that happens over

7:17

four camps really per year

7:20

and there's other camps like leaders

7:22

and what do you like about that ?

7:23

Yeah , it's good for our youth group

7:25

. I love it because it helps our youth see

7:27

above our own youth group . So also

7:29

, we're not an Asian church per se , but

7:32

a lot of our youth are Asian and

7:34

so to help them be able to see that being

7:36

a Christian is wider than our little circle .

7:39

Yeah , the more homogenous the ministry that

7:41

you work against , that homogenous .

7:43

Yes , yes , and to see there are lots of other

7:45

youth out there who are Christians .

7:47

Yeah , yeah , you're telling me . Collaboration

7:49

, though here it's actually got to do with

7:51

expository Bible , preaching that

7:54

the exposition of the scriptures is at the

7:56

center of it . Why is that important to you , ruth

7:58

?

7:58

It's one of our fundamental principles for

8:01

our youth group , so going along

8:03

to events like Keegan LIT , where

8:05

we know that they'll be .

8:08

Leaders in training was the one that he did say so , which

8:11

is one of those another that high-level camp .

8:13

But yeah , so we do go to those because we know

8:15

they'll be faithful , great Bible teaching

8:17

at them .

8:18

Which is a warning to those organizations

8:21

to stay Prioritizing

8:24

the expository Bible teaching . Yeah , it

8:26

builds trust .

8:27

Yeah . So I think I was sharing

8:29

with you earlier that Ruth and I have

8:31

known each other for about 15 years , partly

8:34

because we're unicorns Can

8:37

be said that seems so strange but

8:39

also because we've worked in

8:42

different combined church , regional

8:44

, state level Conferences

8:46

. And we've done that because there's been a

8:48

trust of one another , as we've talked

8:51

about who we are as Christians

8:53

, what we believe a reformed evangelical

8:55

we believe in Expository

8:57

page preaching of the Bible and that

8:59

being core to what we do in our youth

9:01

ministries . Talk to us about trust , ruth

9:03

.

9:04

Yeah , that's been a big key , I think

9:06

, in doing collaborative ministries . I

9:08

remember Andy calling me one time years ago To

9:11

talk about kick and their program

9:13

and what they were wanting to change and whether or not Would

9:15

that be something that we'd be on board with if you did

9:17

make those changes To help

9:20

build that trust and kind of go yep

9:22

, the program's changing slightly but it's actually

9:24

for the better and it's still based on

9:26

the Bible . So over these just having

9:28

incidental conversations running into Andy

9:30

at conferences , at camps , I

9:33

think has helped because I don't know , youth

9:35

ministry it's busy . Youth pastors

9:37

all have lots of things on in their calendar

9:39

. So then to be able to carve out time to be able to

9:41

go to these camps Does

9:44

it takes effort and you want to make sure

9:46

that if you're carving out that time it's going to be worth

9:48

it ?

9:48

Why is a big thing like a big convention ? I

9:51

mean , is it just bigger is better ?

9:54

It's a good question , isn't it ? Often

9:57

we go , we look at it , you know , kicks numbers very

9:59

thankfully through the roof , bigger than they've ever been , things

10:02

like leaders in training camp as well . Similar

10:05

. Does it make it better ? No

10:07

, just because it's big , it doesn't mean it's

10:09

better . It's what happens at

10:12

those places . Together , that

10:14

is the better thing . So the better

10:16

thing is saying okay , ruth

10:18

, myself and a whole bunch of other youth ministers

10:20

, we bring our combined experience , our combined

10:23

resources , our different skill sets

10:25

and we put those together to

10:27

be able to train young people In

10:29

the gospel , to be able to teach them God's

10:31

word , to be able to help them be Christians wherever

10:34

they are . And collectively , we

10:36

think we can do a lot more together

10:38

. In one sense , give a a

10:41

better kind of all-round

10:43

ministry really to

10:45

young people and for churches

10:47

, for youth ministries , which you

10:50

can do by yourself , but you're limited , because

10:52

you're only limited by what you can do personally and

10:54

your own strengths and weaknesses .

10:55

And I think the key to those big events is that you

10:58

are pushing people back into churches , yeah

11:00

, and youth groups to do the week to week .

11:02

So my , my big passion , my heart is Local

11:05

church partnership is the key to all of these

11:07

things . They're only big because of the local

11:09

relational trust that we have .

11:11

Mm-hmm and I'm just thinking

11:14

because I've heard this in little bits and

11:16

pieces from around the world People wanting

11:18

the big event but not actually doing

11:20

the grassroots . No wait , how

11:23

do we encourage that personal

11:25

Bible reading , individual nurturing

11:28

in Christ Of young people

11:31

?

11:31

themselves . Yeah , that's right . So I think , uh

11:33

, one of the best things I've

11:35

noticed that these big kind of conferences is

11:38

when a young person gets up and shares

11:40

how they're going in their own personal devotional

11:42

life . Uh , so I was talking to

11:44

a young person just the other day and they were saying

11:46

at the leaders in training camp , they'd learned

11:49

a framework of how to read the Bible and teach

11:51

the Bible . And I said , oh , how's that going

11:53

with the children's ministry ? You do ? And they said

11:55

no , no , no . Well , that's been great , but it's

11:58

helped me . Just to read the Bible every day , to

12:00

be able to share that with everyone else , is

12:02

unbelievably encouraging . So

12:05

I think taking the , the , the

12:08

Christian habits , if you like , the

12:10

discipleship Life

12:13

, and being able to put that

12:15

as the focus of what we're doing at these big

12:17

things is crucial .

12:19

Yeah , that's what I think , ruth agree

12:21

, I think when the

12:24

we did an inner west youth combined event and part

12:26

of that Was getting youth up there

12:28

to share their testimony . But we also had another

12:30

testimony of youth sharing about being

12:32

in a youth group and what that looked

12:34

like on the ground for them to be Christian Mm-hmm

12:37

.

12:37

So tell us we'll move from big city to more

12:40

local region than you're

12:42

in the inner west , just up the road from us .

12:44

And there was a night just

12:48

a month ago that your church was involved

12:50

in .

12:51

Yeah , but I was out , it was great

12:53

, I didn't go .

12:57

But tell us about it . Your youth group was there

12:59

. Well , I think it was a few years

13:02

in the making to say so

13:04

. It started last year with three

13:06

Presbyterian youth groups who had done a trivia night together

13:08

in the inner west , a smaller

13:10

kind of youth group . So we're like , let's pull some

13:12

resources together , do something together

13:14

, did the trivia night . But

13:17

we're like , well , let's take it to the next step

13:19

, let's do an evangelistic where we can share

13:21

the gospel of Jesus to

13:24

youth in the inner west . And so they invited our church

13:26

along . I knew some other churches who we'd

13:28

done a few collaborative things together before

13:30

. So we had eight youth groups come together last

13:33

year and we went okay

13:35

, I think all of us would say it was an okay event for

13:37

a first go because we didn't quite all know each other

13:39

too well . But

13:41

then this year we ran it again with 16 youth

13:43

groups . So we brought along the Anglican

13:45

inner west youth network along

13:47

to that and there were 600 kids

13:49

or something , I think 600 all up , so I

13:52

think about 470 or so youth

13:54

.

13:54

Right and the young leaders With 130

13:56

youth leaders Right .

13:57

Which , interestingly , this is a reflection

14:00

of the last couple of years . We

14:03

didn't think we'd get that many , no , and

14:05

the last couple of years there's been a big appetite

14:07

towards these regional sort of you

14:10

know , 20 odd youth groups together , working

14:13

together . What's changed ? Why

14:15

is that ? I think in

14:18

the past , let's say 20 years ago , that occurred

14:20

. It died off a little bit . I think people there

14:22

was lack of resources , perhaps some

14:25

churches feeling like the youth groups were shrinking

14:27

, those sort of things , and maybe how do we do

14:30

this ? It looks daunting , covid

14:32

. It happens , which brought

14:34

lots of hard things , but then also some opportunities

14:37

, right , and I think a lot of youth groups

14:39

went . Our kids need to get together

14:41

with one another . They crave relationship

14:44

and friendship and connection

14:46

. Let's try and do what

14:48

we're doing locally in our own youth group , but do

14:50

it with some other youth groups as well , and it's very

14:52

much taken off . Also , covid

14:55

, you know it's a crisis , right , and a crisis brings people together

14:58

. I know across the youth ministry network

15:00

of Greater Sydney and even beyond

15:02

, a lot of churches said let's work

15:04

together again , let's train leaders

15:07

better together , let's combine

15:09

our resources , let's do combined evangelistic

15:11

events together , let's

15:13

help get youth ministry out there

15:15

, let's help get the gospel of Jesus back out into the

15:17

community , and

15:19

so that's a big change there wasn't a season , if you

15:21

like , of almost suspicion .

15:23

I think you that's gone

15:25

.

15:26

Yeah , so that's one thing I've really noticed

15:28

is that , well , you were going to

15:30

say something there Well we were going

15:33

.

15:33

I was chatting to Andy before and we were saying the

15:36

beauty of doing that in a West Youth Combined event

15:39

was that I got to know some of the other youth pastors

15:41

in the area . So we were chatting

15:43

or planning our next thing and one of

15:45

their youth had visited our youth group and

15:48

I was just saying as a passing comment to say

15:50

hey , if they weren't there on Friday , that's , they were

15:52

at our youth group and he was like , well

15:54

, no , she's actually hasn't come to our youth group for a while

15:56

. So if she lands at your youth group because

15:59

she's got a really good friend at our

16:01

youth group , then that's great . So , thinking

16:03

bigger picture , gospel generosity

16:05

, our big picture is that we want

16:07

youth growing and maturing Christ

16:09

.

16:09

That's right , because and that's all off the back

16:12

of the relational trust you have with that other youth

16:14

pastor means that there's

16:16

an understanding of okay , sometimes

16:18

youth will go to youth groups where their friends

16:20

are . That's a changing thing as well . No longer

16:22

do they just go to locally where their

16:24

youth group is . Lots

16:26

do , and we want to encourage that because

16:28

we believe in local youth ministry , obviously . But

16:31

transport has changed , dynamics

16:34

have changed . Friendships are very , very , very

16:36

important for young people and so

16:38

if they go to the youth group down the road but

16:40

perhaps still go to their church with their family

16:42

or whatever the combination might be , the

16:45

communication getting on the phone hey , this

16:47

is what's going on . Great , there's somewhere

16:49

is very important . And that that

16:52

has really taken out the suspicion of what

16:54

is happening in that youth group down the road . I don't

16:56

know . So I don't want my youth to ever

16:58

end up there , and if they do , then that's that's

17:01

bad on . And so there's this competition

17:03

. That's really just gone .

17:05

But that build up of trust between youth

17:07

pastors .

17:08

I think , has is the key to that . Yeah , that's right

17:10

.

17:11

So doing it on that leadership level and then bringing

17:13

it .

17:13

Yeah , yeah , because in the inner west the youth

17:15

group there's . Churches are pretty close to each other , right

17:17

and people leave .

17:19

We're 1.4 kilometres to the church .

17:21

That's right and people live in or wherever they

17:23

can , and so

17:25

they'll my drive past three youth groups to get

17:27

to the youth group that they've always gone

17:29

to . I think we need to be not fearful

17:31

of that , but then work together and

17:33

go . Okay , what are all the youth groups in this area ? Okay

17:36

, you know my city , ruth . My dream would be that

17:38

imagine if there was this giant youth database

17:41

that we all you know some amazingly powerful

17:43

data . We all knew where every

17:45

kid can track everyone .

17:46

Oh yeah , there's issues , but forget

17:48

the issues .

17:49

We all knew where every young person was , so we could follow

17:51

them up collectively together that

17:54

way beautiful

17:56

Training of youth group leaders

17:59

, because there's actually been .

18:00

I mean , it used

18:02

to be that everybody in Sydney

18:04

outsourced it to the Katerima

18:07

Convention and the Next Gen Leadership

18:09

Conference and that spittin'

18:12

the dust . And so

18:14

how do we work

18:16

together to collaborate to train youth leaders

18:18

and kids leaders in this new

18:20

era ?

18:23

Yeah . So for myself at YouthWorks

18:25

, we've been really working

18:27

in partnership . We've been doing this for a long time , on and

18:29

off . But in the last couple of years

18:31

, particularly coming out of COVID , there was this as

18:34

we surveyed the youth ministers , there was this dramatic need

18:36

for an upskilling of new

18:38

leaders because some

18:40

other leaders had finished after a period of time

18:43

. And so as we identified that we

18:45

in our youth ministry networks all over

18:47

Greater Sydney , we said okay , what

18:50

do we need to do to train leaders , to get

18:52

them at least to you

18:54

know kind of a basic

18:56

bar of good youth leadership

18:58

? And so we said let's try and make sure we

19:01

work together . And in working together , the

19:03

bigger churches had the resources to be

19:05

able to train their leaders and they were still doing it , even

19:07

through COVID . But a lot of the smaller churches

19:09

are saying training we'd love to , but we just can't . And

19:11

so how do we work together , use each other's

19:14

resources to train the whole and

19:17

even even see some of the

19:19

bigger churches share youth group leaders with the smaller

19:21

churches to help them out , because there's no

19:23

good in just having one or two youth groups

19:25

in the whole in a West that everyone goes to , even

19:27

though there's 20 something churches . We

19:29

want to see each church with a thriving youth ministry

19:32

, but that's going to take work , sometimes partnerships

19:34

, sometimes sacrifice . So

19:36

part of that was let's train together so

19:38

we can use all our resources again . Get all the

19:40

youth pastors . If there's 10 youth pastors in a room

19:43

, they can all run a different training workshop

19:45

. How good is that ? We can train each other , train

19:47

all our leaders together , so those

19:49

training days are really taken off . This year

19:51

we've trained nearly 2000 youth group leaders across

19:54

training days all over Greater Sydney , which

19:56

has been brilliant . Next

19:58

Gen still happens online and people sometimes download

20:00

those resources .

20:03

But that getting together really it's gone from 800

20:06

people doing a week to

20:08

a handful .

20:09

Yeah , that's right .

20:11

Online is nothing compared to what it was . Yeah

20:13

, I mean it was formative . I

20:16

remember for somebody like me taking

20:19

on 1992

20:22

, being given a youth group to lead and

20:24

there's no idea what to do , and learning

20:26

about how to do expository

20:28

teaching in a youth context .

20:30

Just how to actually teach the Bible in a small group

20:32

. That was what I learnt when I went

20:35

yeah , what do you do ? Ruth what do , we do

20:37

.

20:39

How have you navigated this ?

20:40

Well , we found also over the years too . The

20:43

Australian Fellowship of Evangelical Students run

20:45

their .

20:46

National Training Event in Canberra .

20:47

Previously a lot

20:50

of our leaders would do all those and it's kind of ebbed

20:52

and flowed . A lot of our leaders do go through

20:55

those stages now

20:57

to do that , but we do our own training

20:59

, that's kind of collaboration with the students

21:01

, yeah , with the universities . So

21:04

we're a fairly large youth group for

21:06

Sydney and in the Presbyterian world . So we do

21:08

have the resources to run our own training . That

21:11

we do do once a term but we also do . Last

21:14

year we started going to leaders in training for

21:16

the first time . Particularly , we saw that gap

21:18

for our high schoolers in particular to be trained

21:21

in reading the Bible , in teaching the Bible . So

21:23

for us again , that outsources

21:25

it out to Andy and his team to

21:27

be able to do that for us and we send some

21:29

leaders as well .

21:31

What are the highlights of collaboration

21:33

? As you look across the place , Andy ?

21:35

Yeah , I think at

21:38

a real grassroots level , seeing

21:41

teenagers become friends with one another across

21:43

the youth groups . I've seen that

21:45

and I've seen then those

21:47

guys . They might be in different youth groups but

21:49

at the same school and they're running a lunchtime

21:52

group together but then later on I've

21:54

seen over the years that they then might go to some university

21:56

together or they're helping run

21:58

some conference or those relational

22:01

benefits for the young people to

22:03

encourage them in their own Christian faith , to help them

22:05

feel like they're part of something bigger , and

22:07

then to do gospel ministry together now

22:10

as teenagers , which is brilliant and

22:13

then in the future as well , has been a

22:15

real big benefit .

22:17

As you say that I think of my youngest son

22:19

, who I mean as

22:22

we started out here we were a little church

22:25

and my

22:27

kids were the oldest kids in the youth group

22:29

and

22:32

so we worked really hard to send

22:34

them to Christian camp , to other Christian

22:36

camps where they would have

22:38

those peers and people from other churches

22:41

, and they

22:43

did make Christian friends . And

22:45

then Earlier

22:48

this year , one of the

22:50

kids from one

22:52

of those camps , now grown up

22:54

, living in Wollongong

22:57

, asks my son to be a Grimsman . And

22:59

I just thought , wow , here he is at 24

23:02

, being asked to be a Grimsman by

23:04

a guy he met at a Christian

23:06

camp from collaborative

23:10

it

23:12

just helps them to feel connected and

23:14

part of God's Big Kingdom , God's Big Family .

23:16

I don't know , they're not the only Christian at their school

23:18

.

23:19

So I think at that grassroots level , that's a big benefit

23:22

of strength , if you like , a highlight

23:24

of collaboration . Another

23:26

highlight is utilizing those resources across

23:28

the churches . It

23:32

can be hard for a bigger church sometimes

23:34

to share their resources , but

23:37

when I've seen bigger churches share their resources

23:39

with smaller churches , the benefit is tremendous

23:41

. Actually , I think they

23:43

grow in their own leadership and ministry

23:46

themselves and

23:48

they grow as a church because they're

23:50

not just thinking of themselves but they're thinking of others

23:52

, which is a great principle really .

23:55

What do you want to say to senior pastors

23:58

who are watching , listening to ?

24:00

us now , I said . I think the

24:02

main thing I want to say is don't be fearful

24:04

of working together . The

24:07

fears of losing kids to another youth group

24:09

they might be real if

24:11

there's no trust or understanding

24:13

of the youth group next door . But

24:15

get to know one another . I

24:18

think the benefit's far outweigh

24:20

the weaknesses , if you

24:22

like . I

24:25

think that sometimes I think it's difficult for

24:27

senior ministers to . They've

24:29

got so many things to think about and

24:32

so sometimes churches working together

24:34

on all manner of projects can

24:36

be hard , whereas in youth ministry

24:38

it's relatively simple . They're age-specific

24:41

programs that are being run . There's

24:44

lots of good options out there of things

24:46

to do . If

24:49

you're a senior minister , a bigger church , be generous and

24:52

you'll be surprised at the benefit that you'll receive

24:54

. I think back to the early

24:56

2000s . I know that Sennives did this . Sennives

24:59

had a big youth ministry and

25:02

they deliberately sent out teams of youth group

25:04

leaders to smaller churches across the North Shore . Some

25:07

of them have stayed in those churches and are now pillars

25:09

of those churches . Those

25:12

churches may not have survived if Sennives didn't

25:14

do that . That is brilliant .

25:17

What do you want to say to senior ministers ?

25:19

I'd say , yeah , talk , network

25:21

, get to know the person down the road and

25:25

just , yeah , not be

25:27

fearful , and do

25:29

it , even just for mutual encouragement , I think too

25:31

, Because we're all in it together . We're all wanting to see

25:33

youth come to know Christ . So

25:36

if we're all in it together , we're praying together , we're

25:38

supporting one another , and it's for the benefit

25:40

of the Kingdom .

25:42

Thanks so much for coming in . Thank you

25:44

my guests on the Pastors Heart Ruth

25:46

Lee . She's a youth worker at

25:48

Cornerstone Presbyterian Church

25:50

in Sydney and Andy Stevenson , director

25:53

of the Sydney Anglican Youth Children Ministries

25:56

along with special religious education

25:58

. My name's Dominic Steele . You've

26:00

been with us on the Pastors Heart . See your

26:02

company next Tuesday afternoon

26:04

.