Max Q for Youth Leaders
By Andy Stanley and Stuart Hall
()
About this ebook
Maximum Quotient: It is the point in time when a rocket's speed is the highest and air pressure is at its extreme. It is what young Christians feel during their teenage years. Pulling from many years of successful youth ministry, Stanley and Hall introduce youth leaders to a new realm of youth ministry through this dynamic new plan. Youth leaders will learn about: A Ministry of Influence, Jesus & Influence, Maximum Dynamic Pressure, Setting Standards, Establishing Priorities, Maintaining Accountability, Unconditional Acceptance, Sustaining Influence, Using Leverage, and Partnering with Parents.
Andy Stanley
Communicator, author, and pastor Andy Stanley founded Atlanta-based North Point Ministries (NPM) in 1995. Today, NPM consists of eight churches in the Atlanta area and a network of 180 churches around the globe that collectively serve over 200,000 people weekly. As host of Your Move with Andy Stanley, which delivers over 10.5 million messages each month through television, digital platforms, and podcasts, and author of more than 20 books, including Irresistible; Better Decisions, Fewer Regrets; and Deep & Wide, Andy is considered one of the most influential pastors in America.
Read more from Andy Stanley
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Max Q for Youth Leaders - Andy Stanley
MAX Q
Developing Students of Influence
Andy Stanley Stuart Hall Michele Buckingham
HOWARD BOOK
A DIVISION OF SIMON & SCHUSTER
New York London Toronto Sydney
To the countless teenagers around the world who, in the midst of maximum dynamic pressure, are allowing their lives to echo loudly in eternity!
Our purpose at Howard Books is to:
Increase faith in the hearts of growing Christians
Inspire holiness in the lives of believers
Instill hope in the hearts of struggling people everywhere
Because He’s coming again!
Max Q for Youth Leaders © 2004 by Andy Stanley and Stuart Hall
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Permission Department, Simon & Schuster, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.
10 Digit ISBN: 1-58229-360-0; 13 Digit ISBN: 978-1-58229-360-8 eISBN: 978-1-451-60521-1
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HOWARD colophon is a registered trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Manufactured in the United States of America
For information regarding special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact: Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-800-456-6798 or [email protected].
Edited by Michele Buckingham
Interior design by Stephanie Denney Walker
Cover design by LinDee Loveland and Stephanie Denney Walker
Some of the names used in the stories in this book are not the actual names; identifying details have been changed to protect anonymity. Any resemblance is purely coincidental.
Scripture quotations not otherwise marked are from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked NKJV are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked The Message Remix are taken from The Message. Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group. Scriptures marked NASB are taken from the New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
Contents
Acknowledgments
Foreword by Doug Fields
Introduction
Part One: The Truth about Influence
Chapter 1: Granting Permission
Creating a Ministry of Influence
Chapter 2: Knowing What to Expect
Lessons from the Master Influencer
Chapter 3: Understanding Influence
The Connection between Social Science and the Gospel
Part TWO: The Principles
Chapter 4: The Standards Principle
Gaining the High Ground
Chapter 5: The Priorities Principle
Putting Your Own Spiritual Health First
Chapter 6: The Accountability Principle
Making Sure Someone Has Your Back
Chapter 7: The Unconditional-Acceptance Principle
Out-loving the World
Chapter 8: The Sustained-Influence Principle
Sustaining the Influence You’ve Gained
Chapter 9: The Leverage Principle
Using Your Influence Wisely
Epilogue
Notes
Acknowledgments
Behind every good man is an even better woman; and behind any project like this one, there is a host of even greater teammates. Our deepest thanks and love to: Our families for never-ending love, encouragement, and PlayStation® breaks; Diane Grant, Dawn Hurley, and Vicki Noblitt for allowing us to work from our sweet spot; Dave King and NASA for your kindness, generosity, and knowledge; Kevin and Gina Ragsdale for being uniquely you; Reggie Joiner and Lanny Donoho for brains and hearts bigger than most; the Temple, Scroggins, Walker, Crain, Joiner, Donoho, Mitchell, and Bowen families for great counsel and even greater examples; John Howard and Howard Publishing Company for believing that teenagers can be influential without being influenced; Denny Boultinghouse for being a friend.
Foreword
When I read this book, I thought to myself, This is the second Andy Stanley and Stuart Hall book I wish I’d written! Much like their previous book, The Seven Checkpoints, this book breaks new ground for those of us working with students. I loved every chapter! I not only thought about the youth group I pastor, I also thought about my own high-school daughter and how I might help her be the person God wants her to be and help her see her friendships through more influential eyes.
I’ve been working as a youth pastor for more than twenty-five years, and I know there are limits on what I can do as an individual and on what our youth ministry program can offer. I try to focus on the possible and have faith in God to do the impossible. Andy and Stuart gave me a lot of ideas for the possible
part of my job as a youth worker.
This book convicted, challenged, and coached me to think more strategically with the core students in my ministry. I don’t mean to sound arrogant, but I didn’t think that could happen. You see, I’m a champion of teenagers. I’ve committed my years to helping them and pointing them toward Jesus. I believe in teenagers and have spent the majority of my life believing they can make a difference in this world. Obviously, I’m not alone. I resonated with Andy and Stuart’s challenge to help create students of influence—and you will too.
There is a tension in youth ministry we must always battle. The tension involves discipling Christian students and challenging them to care about their lost friends. Both discipleship and evangelism are difficult tasks, and most youth ministries are strong in just one—discipleship. Most youth groups do a good job of providing a safe place for students to grow in Christ—a place where they can be known, loved, and cared for. This is great! But growing in Christ also means developing a passion for the world; it means not only surviving in the world without losing faith but influencing the world because of our faith. A healthy youth ministry is more than simply entertaining Christian kids and keeping them safe from the world.
Max Q challenges youth ministries to be more than just a safe place for kids. It seeks to show how we can develop students to be influential in the world rather than being influenced by the world. I found myself saying, Yes, I know my kids can do that!
Why should the secular school system challenge teenagers with higher standards than the church does? It’s amazing how low the church keeps its expectations of students, while schools raise the bar and say: If you want to play this sport, give us your summer.
If you want to sing in this choir, you must raise this amount of money.
If you want to be in student leadership, you must attend this camp.
And what do kids do? They rise to the levels set before them. What do many youth groups do? They lower the bar and beg students to participate. We under-challenge them!
As I have done in my youth-ministry books and my training seminars, I once again ask you (as a youth worker) to raise your standards for teenagers. Grab a few students whom you believe in. Look them in the eyes and let them know there’s a God who is crazy about them and an adult who believes in them. Then cast a vision of who they can become and what they can do when they allow the life-altering Spirit of God to invade their lives, change their character, and give them new eyes for their world.
I challenge you to grab a pad of paper, read this book, ask God for his wisdom, and join Andy and Stuart for a ride that will challenge you, your ministry, and the students that God has entrusted to your care and leadership. Don’t let them down … raise the bar.
Your friend in youth ministry,
Doug Fields
Youth Pastor, Saddleback Church
Author, Purpose Driven Youth Ministry
President; www.simplyyouthministry.com
Christ is the strongest, grandest, most attractive personality ever to grace the earth. But a careless messenger with the wrong approach can reduce all this magnificence to the level of boredom.
JIM RAYBURN
Introduction
I am humbled and amazed at the ministry opportunities God has allowed me to participate in over the past twenty years. And as grateful as I am for the publicity I have received as an author, preacher, and church planter, I have a suspicion that my most fruitful years were actually the years I spent in student ministry. My wife, Sandra, agrees. Every time we see or hear about one of our
kids doing great things for God, we can’t look at each other without tearing up. No words are necessary. We know in our hearts that our time as youth leaders was well spent and that our labors will continue to pay dividends long after we are gone.
Although my student-ministry days have come to an end, my interest in students and student ministry has not. In fact, it was my concern about what we in the church teach our teenagers that drove me to find a publisher for The Seven Checkpoints: Seven Principles Every Teenager Needs to Know, a book that I co-wrote with my friend and colleague Stuart Hall. Stuart is one of the featured communicators at Inside Out, our high-school discipleship environment at North Point Community Church, where I am the senior pastor. He is also the founder of DASH Incorporated, a nonprofit organization that provides resources to help youth leaders develop students of influence.
Two publishers turned the project down. They wanted a book that would have broader distribution. Stuart and I wanted to create a tool for the men and women who have committed a season of their lives to students. I am so grateful to the people at Howard Publishing for getting behind that first project.
The success of The Seven Checkpoints and its companion student journal spurred me on to create a second tool for student ministers. Max Q, again co-written with Stuart Hall, presents a strategy for equipping students to become influencers in their world. It’s designed to help you train Christian teenagers to engage in meaningful relationships with their unchurched, unbelieving friends—while maintaining God-honoring standards, accountability, and a vibrant faith.
As a teenager I grew up in a youth group that discouraged us from having meaningful relationships with non-Christian peers. We were warned to stay away from kids who didn’t share our value system. Yet every summer our youth leaders loaded us up and took us on mission trips to other states or countries where we were expected to share the plan of salvation with strangers who apparently didn’t embrace our values either. Back home in high school, we were always on the defense, trying not to let the world score on us. But for two hot summer weeks, we were expected to go on the offense in environments where we had absolutely no relational traction.
When I had the opportunity to design a student ministry from the ground up, that inconsistency was the first thing I addressed. I cancelled the annual mission trip and started training kids to be the influence-ers rather than the influence-ees in their schools and communities. Our youth ministry partnered with them in the evangelism process by creating safe environments where they could bring their unchurched friends. Those early experiments in creating relevant environments formed the basis for much of what we do at North Point Community Church today.
The results were staggering. Every Monday night we had between fifty and sixty students visiting in the homes of friends who had attended one of our invest-and-invite events. Hundreds of kids packed out our midweek outreach events. And hundreds of our core kids saw their friends make professions of faith in Christ.
Much of the content for Max Q is taken from a series I repeated almost every year for our students, called How to Be an Influence without Being Influenced.
As you are about to discover, the crux of the series centered on timeless principles that, properly applied, have the potential to equip even the meekest student to become an uncompromising influencer. Adding to that material, Stuart Hall weighs in with insights and illustrations gained from his own ministry to students and leaders around the nation. The result is a tool that we believe will encourage and equip youth leaders and train Christian teenagers to maximize their influence right where they are.
Please understand: This book, like The Seven Checkpoints, has very little to do, if anything, with programs. It’s not a new evangelism formula. The rabbit
of youth evangelism and outreach runs far, fast, and wide, and it has been chased long enough. We are convinced that the real problem of lost teenage America is not a lack of evangelism but a lack of substance in the Christian students who live, study, and play among them. The principles we shared in The Seven Checkpoints are meant to serve as building blocks for Christian teenagers who desire to become people of substance and influence in their world.
Max Q, too, is a book about substance, and it’s about content, not context. We begin to develop students of influence only as we choose to put our focus on the character of our students rather than the charisma of our environments. The breadth and power of our students’ influence on their unbelieving friends are directly proportional to the depth of the content of their character. And the effectiveness of our ministries in influencing the unbelieving student culture is absolutely dependent upon the character of our core students.
This book is designed to challenge you, as a youth minister, to redefine what it means to develop spiritually influential students—and provide you with the tools to begin that process. In the pages to come, we will explore what a youth ministry that breeds influence looks like, both in content and context. We will attempt to unravel and understand influence as a principle. We will examine the life of Christ to see how he modeled relational influence.
Each chapter in this book concludes with interactive application questions designed to help you examine and digest what you have read.
To help you further, we have written a companion book, The Max Q Student Journal. Similar to the workbook that accompanied The Seven Checkpoints, this journal is written for use by your students over a period of several weeks. It is designed to systematically challenge them to understand and apply the six principles of influence we examine in Max Q.
The Setup
Two overarching concepts are critical as we develop teenagers of character who are influential in the lives of their peers. We have divided this book into two sections to reflect and organize these concepts: influence and principles.
The idea of influence is introduced in part 1 and carried throughout part 2. Christian students feel the tension that exists between our desire for them to have healthy friendships and God’s call to influence their peers for Christ. We must give them permission to reach out to their lost friends. Part 1 also looks at Jesus, the Master Influencer, and examines the guiding principles of his life, particularly as they relate to influence. We will also examine how the gospel and the sociology of influence must be intertwined to effectively equip our students to be influencers among their peers. Certain common characteristics drive the way all people think and act. Our students need to recognize and understand these characteristics in order to capitalize on their opportunities to be influencers.
The second part of this book focuses on the six key principles that our students must understand and embrace for the sake of becoming influential. We don’t believe they’re the only principles that are important, but we do believe they are key to the growth of our students. Our students need to learn them first and foremost. We have tried to communicate these six principles of influence in a way that allows them to be easily remembered, understood, and applied. They look like this:
1. The Standards Principle
Our students must develop, be able to verbally articulate, and live by standards.
Standards protect a student’s freedom. Standards protect a student’s testimony. And standards are the primary tool God will use to open the door for a student to share Christ with a friend. Standards will create the why factor in the life of an unbelieving teenager. Our students must understand how to develop standards and live by them.
2. The Priorities Principle
Our students must prioritize their own spiritual health over the spiritual health of the friends they are attempting to influence.
A time will come when our students will find themselves being drawn into activities they have no business doing. They will find their motivation shifting from influence to acceptance or even romance. When that happens, our students will need to make their own spiritual growth a priority over the spiritual growth of their lost peers. They must recognize when it is time to back off or even bail out. Then they must have the courage to follow through.
3. The Accountability Principle
Our students must maintain effective accountability relationships with other Christian students.
A student’s relationship with God is personal—but it is not private. Students who refuse to make themselves accountable to others when it comes to their personal spiritual lives are at greater risk of committing spiritual adultery, just as a man who keeps his personal affairs private is at greater risk of committing adultery against his wife. God never intended for our students to go through life alone.
4. The Unconditional-Acceptance Principle
Our students must love and accept their lost friends unconditionally.
Acceptance is perhaps the strongest desire a teenager possesses. Students will gravitate to people or environments where they sense acceptance and avoid people or environments where they sense rejection. Our students must out-love and out-accept everyone else in an unbelieving peer’s life to gain influence.
5. The Sustained-Influence Principle
Our students must sustain influence with their unbelieving peers.
Gaining influence is not enough. Maintaining and sustaining that influence are equally important in the faith journeys of both our core students and their unbelieving friends. Our students must learn how to maintain and sustain their influence once they’ve gained it.
6. The Leverage Principle
Our students must properly appropriate leverage.
It is always right to share the truth. But to be most effective, our students need to know the best time, place, and method for sharing that truth. They must develop the wisdom to balance the leading of the Holy Spirit, the science of persuasion, and the power of leverage for the sake of influence.
We’re convinced that these six principles, if fully engaged, will transform your students and your ministry as they have ours. If these principles are ignored, however, we can almost guarantee that your students will