Two Kinds of Fishing

In the midst of an interview for a job as a youth director in a large church in Northern Virginia, I was explaining how the ministry I was currently leading had developed.  I shared about changing tactics from a weekly youth group to two evenings a week where one was focused on making disciples and the other on evangelism. Suddenly one of the two students on the interview panel asked a question.  “If you were to come here, what would be the bait you would use to bring students in?” My immediate reply caught him off guard.  I quipped “so, you like to fish?” I could see by the look on his face that he had not made the connection. I quickly moved on though. I began to explain that I was not looking to replicate what I did in the Chicago suburbs.  I shared the lessons learned from the two pronged approach I had learned from Willow Creek. For a few years our strategy worked and many students entered our ministry, some came to faith and many grew in their faith.  However, things dropped off after a while in the evangelistic program.  We hit a plateau of sorts and then a slow decline.  Meanwhile our other evening was thriving.  What I shared in the interview was that I did not feel it was right to use bait when fishing for students. The student who asked the question could not get his head around the idea of not creating something that would attract teens to youth group.

There is a significant disconnect between fishing in Jesus’ day and what we think of today.  That disconnect I believe leads many to misread what was meant in the gospels.  Jesus’ words “I will make you fishers of men” has a hugely different meaning to what most of us think of in our modern world. And that has huge implications for ministry. When we look at fishing back then, it was much like commercial fishing is today.  Nets were cast and fish were gathered in the nets.  It was only really successful when fish were “schooling” or swimming in large groups. Yet when most people think about fishing today it involves poles, hooks, and bait or lures.

My dad was an avid fisherman and very good at it.  He had an ivy league degree in fishery biology even and he studied fish enough to know what would attract them to his lines.  He understood where to find them in different seasons including what depths they would be swimming at. He used technology and equipment to find fish and put his lines down to the right place where they could be caught.  This is what we see with some folks in youth ministry.  Study youth culture, learn what students are into and then be in the right time and place to reel in a catch.  Our lures or bait are what we think will attract students. We then gather them up and present a message that we also believe will set the hook for someone to decide to follow Jesus.

What happens when we think about being fishers of men but have a commercial fishing approach in mind?  We cast a net and pull it in for a harvest. What is the equivalent in ministry to casting that net? I would argue that it is the gospel being proclaimed.  And even more specifically, I would argue that it is the gospel proclaimed by opening God’s word. What I was getting at in the interview was my conviction based on experience that rather than luring students to a youth group through something irrelevant, we need to build the existing group and encourage them to bring their friends to hear about Jesus. If there is any lure or bait involved it should be Jesus, the good news, and genuine Christian community – which is infinitely more attractive than any games, food, or entertainment we could offer. (don’t read this to mean we never play a game or eat food with youth)

Now, just for fun, a unique experience of fishing comes to mind that I think speaks to this subject. When I was about twelve years old, my dad and grandfather took me smelting.  Smelt are small fish that travel in schools and towards the end of the winter they migrate from lake to rivers or streams to spawn.  We went late one night to catch smelt off the piers in Chicago. This is done at night when they are “running” and the technique used is to shine a light into the water and then scoop them up in nets. When I think about smelting and ministry I think in terms of shining the light of the gospel into the darkness of the world and scooping up all that we can. I prefer the light of the gospel to draw people closer and then bring them into the knowledge of our Lord and into the church.

Now, you might say “does it matter really how we do ministry if either way leads to a catch?”  I’d say it does matter, because drawing people to bait is deceptive and those that get away learn to how to avoid being caught by bait in the future.