The following are reflections by students studying youth ministry via email through the Baptist Theological College in Johannesburg South Africa. They share their thoughts on implementing Outside In ministry in their youth groups.
Ingrid Brooks
My suggestion towards moving our youth group into an Outside In ministry is as follows: The local recreational area (Emmarentia Dam) is generally packed with unchurched young people over the weekends. Our youth has taken to organising (infrequent) volleyball days at the dam and I have noticed just how many of the unchurched youth are keen to join the game. I also noticed the unity felt within these teams as we played (as mentioned by Mark in his report - "We got to know the youth better and developed a sense of unity in our each teams."). In the context of a volleyball game it becomes very easy to form friendships with the unchurched.
Although the Outside In approach has never been considered by us, I am confident that regular volleyball days at the Dam will enable us to form relationships with the unchurched and lead us into a position where we can minister to them.
On a personal level, I've been giving extra-lessons to high school students for the past two and a half years, and I've found this an excellent opportunity for inside-out ministry. Because we (the pupil and myself) spend the time "alone", the friendships tend to develop very quickly. I'm also able to support and encourage these young people in areas where they desperately need it - the pressure to achieve in school is usually great which creates frequent ministry opportunities.
At the moment these are the only thoughts that I've had, however I'm convinced that there are many other ways we can (and will) use to reach the youth - we just need to find them.
Ricardo Machiné
I found the "Outside in and Inside Out" article fascinating - it is obvious that an enormous amount of effort is being poured into this very vital area of reaching young people for Jesus. But I found myself getting progressively more despondent as I read on, because I know that there is no way that the little church where I work can run the normal youth group (inside out), and embark on a meaningful Outside In ministry as well.
There are two principal reasons for this conclusion. First, we do not have the staff at present. The group is led by a young couple, both of whom hold down full-time, fairly stressful jobs in Johannesburg. Between deacons' meetings and a mid-week Bible study, they really have no further time to commit to the church. Secondly, we do not have the physical or spiritual maturity necessary among the members of the present youth group to attempt something this bold, and I don't believe we'll be there for a while yet. Even the suggestions on pages 4 and 5 of the article, where possible solutions to this very problem are outlined, do not go far enough to solve the situation in this particular church.
If we try any form of Outside In ministry (and we are putting together a mall programme as was mentioned in the last assignment), then it will need to be led and coordinated by people who are not presently involved in the church's traditional youth work. Who the Lord is planning to raise up for this task has, however, not yet been revealed to us!
Having read the other article on the College Students' ministry in the rave club, the blade park and the shopping mall, I was a little more encouraged. I agree that we need to participate in the actual subculture, like roller blading, in order to gain acceptance and form friendships, but this needs to be done on a weekly basis (or even more regularly). The question now arises - do we cease our previous, regular Friday evening youth meetings and take the youth roller blading instead, in order to build up relationships? If we decide to try to do both types of ministry, i.e. Inside Out and Outside In, and make roller blading a once-a-month thing, the relationships will not be built up as easily, if at all.
The survey in the shopping mall was another excellent idea, but it is a once-off activity. How does the youth worker/youth group establish a presence in the mall? How do we ensure that we have some contact with the same youth on a regular basis? Do we just hang out there and hope we bump into the same people week after week?
I'm sorry if I sound negative, but I really do have more questions than answers at the moment. This whole concept and model of ministry is very new, and signifies a radical departure from what we are presently doing (and have always done in the past). We are not a mega-church with mega-bucks, and there are very real limitations which seem to prevent us from doing Outside In ministry at present. We can, however, make the church and the leadership aware of this model of ministry, so that much prayer (and, hopefully, some budget!) can go into getting this off the ground.
It is an exciting model, it is what we really need to be focussing on, but at present it is not feasible to implement it at our church. It is something we must aim for, and I see our mall programme in the coming term as being the first springboard towards an effective Outside In ministry. We have committed ourselves to trying the commitment level model of ministry (as outlined by Duffy Robbins) in the coming year, and we will work primarily with the youth we have, trying, by God's grace, to raise them to a level where they too can be involved in reaching their peers for Christ.
It seems pointless to begin ministering to outsiders now, when most of the young people who faithfully attend the group week by week do not claim to be in a personal relationship with Christ themselves! Once the commitment level model is up and running (hopefully within 12 months), we can broaden the base to include "the 99".
We would love to be kept up to date with Outside In ministries which have been attempted (I think Ingrid's volleyball days at Emmarentia are brilliant!). In this very new area of ministry, it is only by the pooling and sharing of ideas that we will be effective in reaching the "humanity level" with the Good News of Jesus Christ.
Micheal Wong
I must admit the article was very interesting. Certainly it has never being put to me like that before. But I agree with Ricardo that as I read on, I get more and more discourage as how a church like mine where youth leaders are a premium can mount such a program. I totally agree that traditionally we have being an inside out church. Just last week, we started a regular brain storming session for ideas to put the commitment level of youth ministry to work. This one certainly throw the spanners into the works!
I like the shopping mall idea by Mark. In some ways, we will be able to achieve that. Perhaps focussing on purely Humanity level as suggested by Mark. The 'Lepaks' are known for hanging around shopping malls. By doing interviews with them, maybe later identify the regulars at a certain place and work out some way to visit them regularly. The bowling alley may be another place to work on. Generally, our programs uses teenagers to do the ministry work, so maybe it would not be as effective. Parents are also very sensitive about their kids going to the bowling alleys and cinemas and shopping centres too. We are a conservative lot!
I think it would be a good idea for the adults (over 30s and 40s) to experience. They might come to a greater appreciation of the unchurch youth and (hopefully!) inspire them to be enthusiastic about ministerial work. While the article talks about most churches can't afford two youth workers, we can't even afford a part-timer! I see this model of ministry benefit (for our church at least) as a program to encourage more adult churchgoers to get active (perhaps doing together with their kids). I'm sure there are many other applications as well, including the most important one of incarnational youth ministry to the unchurched.
Marijke ten Krooden
I found the article very interesting and it has certainly been an interesting topic of conversation recently. I think in some sense we seem to have things a bit backwards at the moment as when youth come to church they get involved in the youth and make friends etc, which is good but they gradually lose their contact with the unchurched world and I am not sure that this is healthy. I was discussing this with my current bible study leaders and we realised that we needed to go out and make friends and join in other peoples friendship circles, and we too found that sport was a great way to do this. We thought it may be a good idea to enter a team into the touch rugby league in Summer as this would give us a chance to do this kind of ministry and meet people. This has both male and female participants and it is great fun. Our Surfing ministry at the church which many of the guys are involved in also engages this kind of outside in ministry. I guess the crux of the matter is we need to rub shoulders with un churched youth sharing common interests such as sport. Ballroom dancing is also great for this. That means we need to get out of our comfort zones and church huddles and try something new.....like touch rugby!
For me personally I find been at varsity a bonus, and I have to make an effort to talk to people otherwise it become easy just to hang with my Christian friends. But I have made some really precious friendships over the past years. But as I go back into full-time ministry I need to be careful that I do not remove myself from the world, and retreat into a comfort zone.....so guess who is going to take up touch rugby?
I think outside in ministry certainly works, but it is an area we need to focus on a bit more...I will have to think hard for this semester ahead with my young adults!!!
Return to: Contact Strategy
Return to Model of Youth Ministry