2. Ministry is relational. I used to say “all ministry…” but I don’t want to overlook a really important work that we do which falls mostly outside of direct relationships. When I went into schools and spoke at assemblies I did not have a relationship with each student. Guest speakers and others who enter temporary situations even if they work hard to mix with the students there, are not building long term relationships. Now, my work in schools was regular (every week for five years) and collectively they got to know me through my speaking. I did build relationships with students as a result but not before they heard me challenging them with the gospel. It branded me as the religious guy, but my assemblies were popular even among those who did not agree with my faith.
So, ministry is relational. That is the glue, the context in which we work. When I say glue, I don’t mean that it is the means to an end. We don’t use relationships to share the gospel. I don’t believe we have to earn the right to be heard before we share the gospel because we are called to be ambassadors. It is Christ’s message that we are called to share, not our own. The implications for that are more than we have time to explore at the moment, but hang with the ambassador thought long enough and test it against scripture and I believe we see a consistency. Jesus sent his disciples to go and preach. He did not send them to go build relationships and live alongside people for a while before proclaiming the gospel. This is why I reject the notion of the incarnation as our model for evangelism and struggle with the idea of doing incarnational ministry. The incarnation was a reality in space and time that was a means for God to reveal Himself to us. We really don’t even see Jesus concerned about relationships before proclamation. Rather, we see relationships that come out of gospel ministry. This is especially true of Paul and other apostles who never stayed in one place for very long.
So I wonder if it really makes sense for some in youth ministry to define what they do as “relational ministry”. Could you imagine a youth minister working in a church where he/she never built any relationships? It is all relational in one way or another. And yes, those relationships we build with students and between students are a major source of helping them grow in their faith.
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