As you’re beginning to gain some Gospel Advancing traction in your own youth group, your God-given passion to see the teenagers in your community reached with the gospel may seem bigger than you can possibly accomplish through your own ministry (And it very likely is). So this is a great time to begin to prayerfully reach out to other youth leaders in your community and share your heart for seeing the gospel advance in and through a network of students. Whether you’re already part of an existing youth leader network, or you’re creating one from scratch, the following simple steps will help you share a Gospel Advancing network with other youth leaders in your community.
First Steps for Gospelizing an Existing Network
If you’re already part of an existing youth leader network in your community, here are a few first steps you can take to begin to cast a vision for seeing more and more teens in your community reaching other teens for Christ.
- Pray for those in your network, pray that God would lead you to the right people
- Be a student of the network. Learn the needs of the other pastors before you start offering solutions.
- When the opportunity is right, share with the network how the Gospel Advancing values have impacted your life and ministry.
- Wait to be invited. Give them a free digital copy of Gospelize Your Youth Ministry or buy them a physical copy. Then get together to talk about it.
First Steps for Creating a Gospel Advancing Network from Scratch
If there is no existing youth leader network in your area, it’s time to prayerfully consider creating one. In John 17:20-23, Jesus indicates that unity among His followers has a role to play in how the outside world sees and understands His message:
“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one—I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”
