Personally, this has been one of the most difficult years of ministry in my eight years of experience. It’s not because of kids’ schedules, a difference of opinions with church leaders or not having enough adult volunteers. Those things always have been issues. What makes this year so different and more difficult for me is that I decided to stop teaching.

I consider my gift for teaching students one of my biggest strengths. For the first seven years of my ministry, there always would be a time in youth group when I would get up and teach my students everything I knew about Jesus. Kids kept coming, learning and growing. Still, something eventually started to bug me.

As I spent time with students outside youth group, they would ask questions. Often, I already had answered the same questions in great talks given in previous months. Their questions made me feel like my teaching and perfectly executed answers were going in one ear and out the other. Was I just wasting our time?

As I began to pray about this and figure out what to do, I got a suggestion from my senior pastor that I didn’t like. It wasn’t because the idea was outdated or not culturally relevant, but something completely different: pride!

His idea was for me to stop teaching every week, and instead, focus on having discussions with the group. I should let the kids share their opinions about different ideas, point them to different scriptures relevant to our topic and allow them to disagree and challenge one another to be like Christ. This meant I would lose my coveted time to teach and be up front, providing the answers.

As I began to work though this new idea in my own heart, I was challenged by a simple realization: This was how Jesus taught.

HWJT (How Would Jesus Teach?)

By our standards, Jesus was a horrible teacher. He didn’t teach from perfectly outlined three-point sermons. He didn’t have clever hooks and easy-to-understand adages and acronyms; and His points didn’t always start with the same letter. Instead, His “classes” were confusing, frustrating, short and a huge turn off. It seems to me that when Jesus taught, His pupils tended to walk away and never come back.

Was Jesus trying to confuse people on purpose? Was He trying to hide the gospel from them? I don’t think so. Instead, I think He was inviting the crowds and disciples to enter into something much deeper.

Jesus could have given all the answers the disciples needed in a clear and concise way. He could have pulled out His flannel graph or His PowerPoint presentation and waxed eloquent, explaining the Roman Road, thereby having droves coming down the aisle at the altar call. Instead, Jesus understood what we tend to overlook: People don’t need answers. They got plenty of those from religious teachers. What they need is a relationship with the Answer.

Jesus as Model Youth Worker?