Can students in your youth ministry really make an impact on the world? Using an international Transformational Development model, David Russell shares what can happen when we re-cast youth ministry and kids catch on.
In light of recent research and our commitment to the importance of parents in youth ministry, FYI invited a handful of youth pastors and short-term missions experts to help us better understand how to invite parents to walk with their students in the justice journey.
Many of us assume that we “get” short-term missions work and its impact on our students. After all, we’ve led plenty of trips on which students experience transformation, right? Perhaps; or perhaps not. FYI recently co-hosted a Think Tank of short-term mission exemplars—youth workers and organizational leaders—to assess the current landscape of short-term missions effectiveness and to survey its future. This article looks at a few of the findings from that gathering.
How do you get – and keep – students involved in and caring about world concerns, serving others, and engaging in social justice? Take a look at what we’ve been hearing from youth workers around the country, as well as some suggestions on ways to engage the students in your ministry.
What value do our typical short term missions trips add to the communities we serve? What real transformation happens in our students? Does our short-term work help or hinder the work of long-term missionaries? These are the tough questions being asked by researchers and youth workers across the country, and questions worth asking of our own ministries!
