Steve Puils: I’m going to wrap that question up into one concept—that of making disciples. Too many times we are judged by success. We are judged by how many people sit in the seats when we do a youth service, a Bible study or a small group. Instead we should be judged by how many disciples we made, how many people are still in the kingdom five or 10 years from now. The pressure to have numbers shifts us into that mode, when really that’s not a good barometer; that is not the ultimate mission of what Jesus sent us to do. It was to make disciples!

We’ve fallen into the trap that technology is going to win them over. If we can have a cooler light show or this video or that concept, then we feel like we’re smarter than Jesus or the early church was. Ultimately we’ve got to come back to the Word and to prayer. How do we instill in students the biblical concepts of spending time with God, talking to Him and spending time in the Word?

YWJ: What are the unique gifts your denomination or organization brings to the table to address these opportunities and challenges?

Stevens: We have developed a strategy that focuses on helping students develop spiritually. We call it the Know-Own-Known strategy for spiritual development. It is based on Luke 2:52, which has been used in youth ministry for a long time, but we combined that with Matthew 22 where Jesus gives us what is called the Great Commandment. What we developed out of that are three main things that we want to see happen in the lives of kids. We think they need to know God; that they need move to an ownership of their faith and they need opportunities to make their faith known. These three things are sort of the pillars of our strategy for the spiritual development of students.

Berger: The Covenant was founded on the principle that we can do more together than we can apart. Throughout our history we have also had a strong missions emphasis. That has always been a high value for the church. We have across the years sent missionaries “out.” But that was a generational thing. Students today don’t want to send someone else, they want to go.

We also have a three year (tri-annual) event called CHIC (Covenant High in Christ.) where we gather high school students together. This last year our project focused on things we could do for Africa. The students were able to raise enough money that we could start a school, get school supplies, and provide a teacher for three years. We built a medical facility complete with a doctor and nursing staff.

Puils: We were founded as a cooperative fellowship where you could decide whether you wanted to be a part or not. This cooperative fellowship was why we came together as a movement. So one of the things we bring is networking. We believe it is critical that we network with everyone. Any church, any denomination, any Bible-believing group of people—we what to work with them.