I still remember my first day in youth ministry. I was a wide-eyed idealistic 17-year-old kid who was asked by his youth pastor to become a small group leader to a bunch of junior high boys. Wow! I had big plans. These plans included being used by God to revolutionize these kids thinking about Jesus and I was going to mobilize them to do ministry and reach a community for Christ.
Now 13 years later I'm much more cynical then I'd like to admit, I am not as wide-eyed as I once was and I'm thankfully not as presumptuous to think God needs me to revolutionize anyone or anything. The only thing that I still hold true and dear to my heart as I did that winter day is the desire to mobilize (if the Lord will use me) adults and students to reach a community for Christ.
After spending four years as a youth ministries volunteer I found myself inheriting my youth pastor's youth ministry. The four years that followed were made up of a 20 something kid not having a clue how to mobilize students but having a lot of love and passion for students. When I look back I see a lot of mistakes but I also see that God-given desire of mobilization.
The problem I had was I had no clue how to mobilize people to do ministry. When I tried it was always within my own strength, my own fortitude, my own abilities and my own knowledge. I was coming up with way in which Adam could convince some students and parents to catch my vision to reach a community without ever actually reaching a community.
One day while sitting in a restaurant with a close friend and a mentor of mine this person said something that I have never forgotten. As I sat there this wonderful gentlemen said "Adam, I have no doubt that you are called to youth ministry, I have no doubt that you are a good leader, I have no doubt that you will honor God with your life but I have serious doubts about your desire to change in order to become a better leader and fulfill your desire to mobilize people for ministry." I remember sitting there stunned. I was shocked, I was hurt, I was outraged, I was embarrassed, I was caught and I was loved.
Several months later I left full time youth ministry. The person who shared those words with me had not done so trying to kick me out or beat me down but he genuinely cared and wanted to see me grow. I however chickened out and left with my tail between my legs. I was broken. I was hopeless and I felt like an utter failure. I've never really shared that with anyone other then my wife but those were my heart-felt feelings.
Don't get me wrong I had awesome students. I had a great ministry team of leaders and I loved most of the parents but in my mind I had failed thus I needed to walk away.
In the three years that followed after walking away from full time youth ministry I became once again a youth ministry volunteer and starting working in the area of sales. I enjoyed selling and networking. I felt like I had finally accomplished something in my life. I was making money and doing okay. When I looked in the mirror I was pleased. This was a huge season in my life because I found out through sales that I could network with people and sell vision. It didn't matter if I was selling a computer, furniture or airtime for a radio station. I could sell people my vision for the product that I believed in. What I realized was it wasn't necessarily my ability to sell vision but it was my love for the product that empowered me to sell.
I started wondering what if I actually sold a vision of reaching a community for Christ instead of jumping from cause to cause? The thought should have been common sense but for me it was like an epiphany! I was sitting at my desk in early 2010 taking a short mental break from doing sales strategies and I wrote these words:
"Magnify Christ by mobilizing the local church to multiply ministry in order to reach a community for Hope"
I still have that little piece of paper with those words. I realized that's what I wanted to do. I didn't want to magnify Adam's ability. I still wanted to mobilize believers and I wanted to reach a community but all of sudden it came to me. I need to magnify Christ and I needed to sell a vision to the church, to youth, to parents, to teachers, to community leaders, to businesses and etc. To reach a community, I first needed, to magnify Christ. My love for Christ would empower me to sell the vision. The vision to reach a community for hope is first found in our desire to magnify the creator of the community.
At this same time I was in communication with Youth For Christ (YFC). I was talking to one of the National Field Directors and I realized that I wanted to see YFC come to central Wisconsin. The more I dialogued with YFC and eventually began to build the foundation to start this new chapter I realized that YFC could be a bridge to accomplish this strategy. My heart was to use YFC to facilitate ministry opportunity for the local church to reach a community for Christ. I believed with all my heart that if you reach young people it is possible to reach an entire community. Young people can revolutionize and saturate a community. I also believed that you could mobilize youth to reach other youth. Now the issue was to sell the community on this.
It took nine months to raise a budget and convince communities that YFC could help play a part in this vision. I had to do a lot of apologizing on behalf of Para-Churches being islands to themselves but the more I talked about facilitating ministry opportunity the more churches, businesses, schools and so on starting coming on board.
I had the great pleasure of launching YFC of Central Wisconsin in December of 2010. This last year I have seen first hand communities work together to reach out and bring the hope of Christ in tangible ways. In a lot of these circumstances it has been through using YFC but never limited to us.
To reach a community with the hope of Christ you must first bring together a group of individual people from vast backgrounds. You need to find the businessperson, the teacher, the administrator, the pastor and church along with the students. Once you put them all together you have a missional community or a team that is ready to tangibly bring the hope of Christ to the community. For us here in central Wisconsin I've seen that through working with students in the Juvenile Detention Center along with tutoring and so much more. I've seen students, youth workers, businesspeople, community leaders and etc. lock arms to reach a community and I've personally had the privilege to watch it all play out. YFC has been the facilitator but ultimately the networks of people involved have been the heart and soul of this ministry to reaching a community for hope.
Adam Fischer is the Executive Director at Central Wisconsin Youth For Christ.