Growing With Student Ministry

It is fun to see things grow. If you have plants or flowers at your home or apartment, plant a tree at the park or work on a farm, you don’t invest time, money and energy to plant things so they will die. You want them to grow to use their fruit or enjoy their beauty.

We must have the same mindset as it relates to our faith in Christ. But it can work differently than our very visual analogy of growing plants. We want to see the growth and adding students to our numbers is great, but they must be growing in their knowledge of the truth so they may become disciples: followers of Jesus who are mature in their faith and bearing spiritual fruit.

It is fun to have more students; more rowdiness; more challenges; more souls who are hearing about Jesus gathered together on Wednesday nights. But at the heart of even ONE more student joining the activities on Wednesday nights, there must be growth that is, for a time unseen, the deep inner working of the Holy Spirit, transforming the life of an unbeliever to one who is seeking first the kingdom of God.

Ephesians 4:11-15

¹¹It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, ¹²to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up ¹³until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

 ¹⁴Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. ¹⁵Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ.