While fun certainly has its place in a youth group, let's be honest with ourselves about what we're achieving with some of these "ministry tactics." While there's nothing wrong with a little entertainment, can we please stop calling lock-ins, retreats and conferences discipleship?

Discipleship might happen in those contexts, but do we really believe a concert or all-night Wii tournament is discipleship? It's not, and you know it's not. That's the point—you know when you're discipling a student and when you're just pandering to their narcissism.

Young people need their hearts broken. They need to see the relevance of God in the midst of a world of pain. If you've been paying much attention to this generation of youth, you know its worldview is being expanded. They're more aware of social and political issues and more in tune with how the world works, thanks to an endless supply of media and technology. More than anything, you should notice they really need to experience something in order for it to be real to them.

Call it postmodernism or emergent theology, but this is really true for all of us. Once we have an experience with an abstract idea, it becomes more meaningful to us. In a sense, it becomes reality to us when before it was just an idea. Consider the abstract truths you know and think about what you believe about those things. Most likely, there is an experience tied to the belief.

Take love, for example: While it's one thing to read about and even believe in love, it's something entirely different to be in love. The same can be said for following Jesus. Young people (in fact, all of us) need to know Christianity still matters, that redemption is still a reality, that it can be tasted, touched and felt. The only way we can know this is through experiencing it—observing it and joining it.

Just as in the first century, discipleship for us begins with a journey. Taking your students on a trip that breaks their hearts and tests their faith in God may be one of the best ways to turn them into disciples. Call it a mission trip, a justice journey or your afternoon outreach; but this needs to happen, and it needs to happen now.

Time for Adventure

If you're at an impasse in getting through to your students, it may be time to take them on a radical, faith-stretching adventure on which they are forced to depend on God. This is more than a Wild at Heart weekend for the guys (although, those bonding experiences are certainly necessary for young men and women, as well). This involves exposing your group to poverty and showing your students there is more to faith than cozy church pews and stuffy services.

If you're a parent, please send your child on one of these trips. You may be worried that they're not ready. Trust me: They're not. That's the reason they're going on this trip in the first place—to be initiated, to tap into something revolutionary inside themselves, to inherit the same spirit that turned the world right side up 2,000 years ago.

I've argued that sending young people on mission trips is one of the best ways to disciple them. It is, in fact, the only way. While the journey may look different, depending on the people involved this idea of leaving and going is essential and universal. You see it throughout all of Scripture and evidenced in the lives of all spiritual heroes.

If you're struggling with this, spend some time reading Matthew 10 and Luke 9. Read the Gospel of Mark (heck, read 'em all), and spend a period of time studying the Book of Acts. Then go. Don't try too hard to understand everything or dissect the theology of this. Just go.

"Follow Me." I hope those words reverberate throughout your spirit. Jesus is waiting. The world is waiting. As you go into the world to make disciples, you may discover that you are becoming one.