Youth leaders are always asking me what are some practical ways of making the Gospel a bigger priority in their youth groups. Here’s an easy way…dedicate a wall in your youth room to the GOSPEL.
Years ago I started hearing about youth groups who used a youth room wall (or portion of it) to write out the GOSPEL message. Shawn painted the GOSPEL message on the back wall of his youth room so that whoever was giving the gospel in youth group could use it as a cheat sheet. Cameron put it on the front wall so that he, his wife or whoever was speaking could go through it point by point every week and that every person who came to that particular meeting would have an opportunity to believe in Jesus.
In response to these great ideas Dare 2 Share produced a large 4’x 6′ GOSPEL banner so that those of us who are less inclined to paint or draw (like me) can just hang it up. For those of you not familiar with the GOSPEL acrostic Dare 2 Share uses to train teenagers to share the whole story of the good news of Jesus here it is…
God created us to be with him.
Our sin separates us from God.
Sins cannot be removed by good deeds.
Paying the price for sin, Jesus died and rose again.
Everyone who trusts in him alone has eternal life.
Life with Jesus starts now and lasts forever.
Would you be willing to dedicate one of your four youth room walls to the greatest story ever told that’s not told nearly enough?
But don’t just paint the GOSPEL or put up a banner, set up a GOSPEL table underneath it. On this table put evangelistic tools you can point teenagers to so that they can initiate GOSPEL conversations with their friends. These tools can range from tracts, to Gospels of John to evangelistic books.
At Dare 2 Share we just developed a brand new resource called Life in 6 Words outreach books which are highly illustrated evangelistic books which use the GOSPEL acrostic, the Life in 6 Words spoken word poem by Propaganda and a clear, simple explanation of the Gospel to make the message clear and compelling to unreached teenagers.
At Dare 2 Share we have a table in our offices stocked full of these Life in 6 Words books. Every week in our chapel services we hear stories from our staff who are engaging friends, neighbors, family members and teenagers with the good news of Jesus. I’ve encouraged our team to go to the GOSPEL table, pick up a book, write down their name and the first name of the person they are trying to reach with the good news (so we can pray for them) and initiate Gospel conversations.
If you have a youth room you should be able to easily do this in your youth group setting. Every week in announcements you can say, “By the way go to the Gospel table right over there (Point to the GOSPEL wall), pick up your book and write down the first name of the person you’re going to give it to so that you can kickoff that Gospel conversation. Does anyone have any stories from this last week?” (then pause for THE Cause and let teens share their stories whether their stories are are good, bad or ugly! Sometimes it’s the ugly stories that encourage us to pray harder for those who are resistant to the good news.
Making a GOSPEL wall in your youth room, setting up a table with evangelistic tools for your teens and reminding your teens to use those tools every week is a simple way of making the life changing message of Jesus Christ and the mission he gave us of spreading it a bigger priority in your youth group culture. This simple, little addition to your youth group strategy will stretch your teens spiritually and fuel the right kind of growth in your group (disciples making disciples!)
“I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ…” and neither are you. So what’s holding you back from doing this right away?
If you have a GOSPEL wall in your youth group take a picture of it and send it to my Twitter account (@gregstier). I’d love to see it!
