Student Ministry has been done. We’ve seen everything from simple home meetings to multimillion dollar, high-energy production driven experiences. In my time as a Student Pastor I’ve had the privilege of being a part of almost the entire spectrum. So as we begin to discover what Student Ministry will truly look like at Elevation Church we aren’t interested in having yet another ministry environment. We want to see students who are far from God become filled with life in Christ.

That is our goal. That is our motivation. That is our vision. If that means we create an incomparable worship experience in a flashy building we’re okay with that. If it means we wipe out student specific worship experiences and focus our energies into getting students serving and connected with each other, we’re going to make it happen. Either way we’re not going to spend a lot of sideways energy creating something that works for a small percentage of the students of Charlotte and will only be “cool��? for the next year and a half.

There is no formula for a revolutionary Student Ministry. There is however a formula for seeing students changed by the revolutionary love of God. Our vision will push us to introduce as many students as we can to that love. As Pastor Furtick said, “Our Vision remains the same but our Strategy will be fluid.��?Â

Phillip McCart, Family Pastor

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If you ask me, it makes very little sense to jump in your car and to start driving if you have no idea where you’re going. Where do you start? How different would you prepare for a cross-country trip versus a 2-minute run to Chick-Fil-A for a Cookies and Cream shake (love those, love my washboard abs)? That’s what it feels like when you have no idea who your audience is.

When you take the time to find out who you’re serving, ministry gets easier, trust me.

It probably sounds so intuitive, “What do you mean figure out who you’re serving? How can you not know who you’re serving?� Well, you can. Here’s what it looks like at the student ministry level.

You’ve got a history in student ministry, and more than that, you used to be a student. So you obviously know what’s hot and what’s not, right? Wrong. Don’t assume anything. I’m 30 years old and that puts me 12-18 years removed from some of these students. I can pretend that everything I like is still hip and students love all the same things, and some of it might be true, but that’s a big risk to take. Or, I could actually do what it takes to learn who I’m serving. I could get to know my audience.

What influences students today? What’s important to students? Where do they spend their time? How do they spend their time? Who is speaking into their lives? Do you know who “Mims� is? And do you know why he’s hot? What’s a “dime bag�? Are guys still wearing girl jeans? Just some questions that we should probably have answers to in order to have a handle on the world our students live in.

The scary thing is most of us know about something young and trendy like myspace.com, and we think that’s enough to bring us up to speed. It’s not. Don’t quit learning about your audience, just because you know something about them.

How do you do it? At Elevation we try to creatively build the education process into our program. We realize stats are stats, maybe they apply to our students, maybe they don’t. But no one knows our students better than our students. So we try to capture all the data we can directly from them.

For example, we try to get creative in how we survey students to collect data. We ask a couple questions on paper every week at the front end of our middle school service and use the survey as a registration for a weekly raffle. It’s not the only way, but it’s been a creative way to ask things like, �What’s your favorite website?� or “When was the last time you did something nice for someone else?�

If we’re strategic and creative about how we ask and what we ask, we prepare ourselves better to serve the very audience we’re getting to know. After all, if most of them aren’t athletes, why would I constantly use sports illustrations? If half the students in your particular ministry are tech geeks, it would probably help if you could carry on a basic conversation about that.

When you know your audience, it helps you makes decisions with an educated perspective. And we don’t have the time to waste doing things with mediocrity that we should be doing with excellence.

Larry Hubatka, Student Pastor

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To take a creative approach, doesn’t mean everything you do has to be brand new. The way I see it, it means you give yourself the freedom to do what works.

As the student ministry begins to take shape, it’s been important that we don’t settle and let tradition creep in just for the sake of it. Here’s what I mean:

Because we’re a young church (only 14 months old when I wrote this), we have a great advantage over most established churches. But the challenge is seeing it that way. Think of it this way, little companies don’t have the benefits of most big companies, but they still have plenty of benefits. They can move, flex, change and adapt faster. The decision making process is quicker. They can mobilize people faster. They’re relationally tighter. They aren’t bound by process. And that’s just the beginning.

The key is to begin to recognize what you have as a young student ministry. And the freedom to do what works, to be creative, is one of the greatest assets you have. Embrace the freedom as one of your greatest strengths.

I don’t think the decision is hard. I actually hear over and over from staff at larger churches, “you’re so lucky to be where you’re at.� They say it because so often they’re stuck in a rut that was set in motion 15 years ago by a guy with a goatee who thought it was an incredible idea to rock a Carmen CD while kids memorized the books of the Bible. No offense, but I think there might be a better way today. And if you’re willing to roll up your sleeves, you should be getting excited.

What if you could poll 100 students at the local high school to find out what they want more than anything in a student ministry? (Please make sure you don’t word the question that way!) What would they say? What would you do about it? If the responses were to create a lounge to hang out, drink Mountain Dew all day and chill, would you even consider doing it? Why not?

I’m not saying to throw wisdom to the wind. God doesn’t expect us to just go where the wind takes us, conversely, He expects us to be intentional about staying at the forefront of how to reach a generation that is slowly slipping away. And if reaching them looks different than it ever has, and it will, are you willing to go for it?

Again, I’m not saying ignore the past. There is something to be said about ignoring the polls and working the principles, but to be exclusively one way or the other only leaves room for missed opportunities. Find the creative balance of doing what works. Figure out what translates from the past, talk to students, pray that God gives you your creative vision and go do it.

Students are always going to be waiting for us to give them a reason to live a life for God, so let’s go do it. Be creative, do what works.

Larry Hubatka - Student Pastor

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As the Student Pastor at Elevation, here’s my take on getting a student ministry started.

When you’re getting the student ministry off the ground, you’ve got a thousand different models and hundreds that work great. A lot of them will probably work great for you too. At least, you could make them work great if you just looked at how it was done and did the same thing.

But is that really what you’re going for? To just re-create a program that someone else has created and duplicate it right here at home? Maybe it is, and it might not be that bad of an idea, but I want to put this out there before you make the call.

God is creative, not stupid. He’s innovative, not boring. He’s original, not prideful. My point…whatever you end up doing, chances are, and someone has already done something similar. Someone is probably thinking the same way you are. God is probably laying the vision on the heart of someone else as we speak. Not everything we do is going to break a new mold, and it doesn’t have to.

So don’t think you’re the only one that has the miracle cure for the best way of reaching students in the most progressive manner in the history of cheese-smelling 6th grade boys…you’re not.

Now that that’s out of the way, the way we got the student ministry started at Elevation Church, was to identify what it actual was that God had called us to. A lot of different things could work, but we knew that God had something specific in mind. And in a lot of ways it was simple for us, because what we do as a student ministry, lines up with what we do as a church. We do everything possible so those far from God will be filled with life in Christ. The only difference is, we recognize who we’re trying to reach at the student ministry level (6-12 grade) and we take the appropriate approach to accomplish that.

What we’ve decided is students need to recognize that God has gone before them and prepared a path for them. And if they can catch even a glimpse of what that is, we believe it changes them in a way that few things can at this age. If Prov 29:18 is true, and it is, students without vision will begin to run wild. But students who actually begin to grasp what it is that God has for them will grow into the next generation of godly young men and women to reach their schools, their communities and their cities.

So, back to getting started, for us, it was critical that we had a laser-precise mission to accomplish that would permeate everything we do as a student ministry. Is it for every single student? Probably not. Is our church for everyone? Probably not. But we do believe that when it comes to reaching those far from God, we’re doing everything we can, because that’s what God has placed in our hearts to do.

After all, there’s a reason you do surgery with a laser and not a flashlight.

Larry Hubatka - Student Pastor

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