You’ve heard the mantra, “Go big or go home.”
These five words represent the ‘merican way of pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps (just what is a boostrap anyway?) and making it happen with a red, white and blue mixture of boldness and bravado. We drink Big Gulps, eat super-sized fries, watch Super Bowls and go to mega churches.
Because that’s the way we roll.
But Jesus had a different way of rolling. His wasn’t “Go big or go home!” It was “Go deep or go home.“
In John 15:5 he reminded his disciples, “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” With this powerful analogy Jesus made it clear to them (and to us) that apart from growing deeper and deeper in our dependence on him then all our efforts would amount to nothing.
Are we taking our teenagers deeper and deeper into their relationship with Jesus? Are we teaching them to pray with passion for the character of Christ to be formed in them and for the message of Jesus to be proclaimed through them.
Because here’s the thing, as our teenagers go deep the inevitable result is that God will do BIG things through them. Jesus made this as clear in John 15:8, “This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.“
When we plug into Jesus and the power of his indwelling Spirit souls will be saved, lives will be changed and youth groups will grow both spiriutally and numerically (becasue of all the new disciples being added!)
The real key to growing big is going deeper and deeper into Christ! Because if we and our teenagers are truly plugged into Jesus he will carry out his rescue mission “to seek and to save the lost” through us (Luke 19:10.)
I’d love to go deeper into this entire subject with you. I wish I had a full day with you and all of your adult leaders to really unpack how this could look in your youth ministry context. Oh wait! I can! Make the drive to one of our Dare 2 Share One Day events happening right now across the country and you’ll get a truckload of training and interactive workshop time with yours truly and a youth ministry veteran who is going deep and going big to the glory of God the Father!
Let’s go deep, go wide and then go home (exhausted but exhilarated!)
I can’t wait to meet you and your team there!
