Scale Up

One of the biggest problems I have when looking for youth ministry resources is one of scale. So often, a game or a lesson works perfectly for a group that is either way larger than mine, or way smaller. Sometimes a curriculum that is the perfect blend of content and questions for one group goes over like a lead balloon in another. To be honest, I am usually skeptical that any prepackaged youth ministry resource could work in my own context without serious editing. I tend to avoid them altogether.

But Engage is different. Engage isn’t a resource, it is a method. Talk - study - pray is a basic way for anyone to disciple someone else: Investing in the day to day life of someone, reading the Bible together, and praying for each other.

Engage works in any context. Engage is meant for either individual students or micro groups of 2-3. It can look different in different contexts - it could go shorter or longer than one hour; the mentor could be a grandparent, a parent, a rector, a youth worker, or anything in between. We have all kinds of best practices that we recommend in our training that equip ordinary Christians to mentor young people. An Engage training session means the students in your church will end up with adults who meet to talk, study God’s Word, and pray with them.

Engage is an incredibly useful tool for equipping adults to disciple students at small churches, where there might not be a fully active student ministry. But what if your church does have a youth group?

We want to emphasize how valuable all three of these components are for discipleship. You might think that, since you already do small group Bible studies, or have excellent teaching from your youth pastor, that Engage isn’t all that helpful. Don’t lose sight of the value of talk and pray! One to one mentoring relationships are where students can work out their questions and struggles with someone who can hear them, pray for them, and consistently show up and love them. In fact, larger churches may have a harder time creating those intergenerational connections for students, which are so valuable for faith formation. We all need relationships with more mature Christians who can help us grow in faith, hope, and love.

We hope that Engage can be a useful method for churches of all sizes and contexts, so that no matter what it looks like, students are able to talk, study, and pray with mentors who will point them to Jesus.

-The Rev. Andrew Unger