Less is More (Youth Mission Trips and D-Nows)

In youth ministry, less is more. That is a concept that is foreign to most youth pastors and others in student ministry. They argue that we need events, lock-ins, games, etc to attract students and then give them the Gospel while they are there. I want to remind you today that the Gospel is enough and there is a generation of young people hungry for the truth. Students today are finding things to be passionate about and they are excelling in the things they are passionate about, so imagine an entire generation that is passionate about the Gospel. Thus, less is more. Less games, less gimmicks, less giveaways, and for heaven's sake less pizza. The young people in our churches can handle the deep truths about God and about themselves. So let's give them the truth of God's word, line by line and paragraph by paragraph, then turn them loose to change the world. I want to propose this idea to you today. Stop having events for your youth at your church so they have to go out and be apart of the world for the purpose of changing it for God's glory. Stop filling up your students' social calendars so that they can hide from the world and make them go be with lost people. How does all this pertain to the topic of mission trips and Dnows?
There should be 3 big event on your youth calendar every year. A week-long summer camp, a mission trip, and a retreat/Dnow type event. Any other event on your youth calendar should be designed for the purpose of outreach and not to simply fill up the students' social lives. You should make it a goal in youth ministry that every student goes on a mission trip. The older ones (juniors and seniors) should go on an international mission trip before they graduate from high school and the young ones (7th-10th graders) should be going on mission trips in the United States. You want to change a student's perspective on life and God then take them to the mission field and let them see and experience God in a different context than their local church. It will change their lives and probably change your church. Secondly is Dnow events. I want to challenge you to push your students to dive into and chew on more of God's word during your weekend events. Then instead of playing games or whatever during the free time push them with service projects or even street evangelism. Stop expecting so little from your students and stop expecting God to only change their lives one, little bit at a time. Be bold in your teaching and praying, ask God for the impossible for your students. Push them, challenge them, love them and then unleash them on the world. You will be shocked with the results and God will get all the glory.