For years in youth ministry, I have been a part of graduation Sundays when it was time for students to graduate from high school. We always recognized graduates during Sunday worship, and we celebrated their time in youth ministry. Unfortunately, statistics have shown us that students who graduate from high school often will graduate from our churches as well. Some will walk away from their faith and church altogether, and very few will come back.
When you think about what school or the education system is designed to do, it is to academically educate students for a time, kindergarten through 12th grade. Students graduate from the academic world because they have completed what they started. That is the education system’s role – to graduate students better prepared for what is next. Similarly, the church graduates students one Sunday in May as if they have completed their time in youth ministry. Regretfully, we may also be graduating them from church and even their faith altogether.
The church is training up students and educating them in discipleship, the Bible, and a lifetime of serving and walking with the Lord. The church is a vital part of discipleship for a lifetime. We do the church a great disservice every time we graduate students. Instead, what we should be doing is training them up and commissioning these 18-year-olds for the mission field.
Commissioning is the opposite of graduating. It is not a sign of completion. It is the very essence of sending for a purpose or calling. We should be sending out our 18-year-olds from our youth ministries into the mission field wherever that may be with the purpose of living out their faith, leading others to Christ and teaching and training up others for the sake of the kingdom.
If we are going to commission students instead of graduate them, that does change who we recognize on this great Sunday in May. It does not continue to be a situation where everyone is recognized – where everyone is celebrated and everyone leaves. What it should be is recognition and commissioning of students who have invested their lives into the ministry. It also means that they should be believers.
Hello, wonderful people out there reading this – I know some of you are asking, “What about that student that this is their last opportunity to hear the Gospel or for you have an influence on them?” I believe that every senior should have an opportunity to be celebrated, but that might not come on a Sunday morning in front of the church.
I will never forget the day that I stood up on a graduate Sunday where I had no idea who the student was or where they were going to school or what they were going to do with their lives. It changed the way I looked at things. I like to celebrate all the students and the families of students who are in our youth ministry and our church, but I do that through a banquet time on Saturday not on Sunday morning.
Sunday morning is designed to be a time to celebrate those that have been connected to our ministry and living out their Christian faith. We allow them to share their testimonies, what impact the church has made on them, and where their mission field is by sharing whether they’re headed to work or college. Where they are going to school and/or work becomes their mission field!
We do this through a short video to the church. That way it is controlled, time-sensitive and allows the church to hear from the students – not just the youth minister or the pastor reading off information sheets.
Along with this, the church will make a commitment to the students to be in prayer for them and be involved in their lives. This holds the student and the church accountable. The church has not always done it this way, but I believe that it was necessary to change the environment in which we did youth ministry and to celebrate those who had invested their lives in the church and for the church to continue to invest in the lives of the students as well.
We must stop creating a rhetoric of success by how many students come through our ministry, how many people are there on a specific night, how many kids we baptized, or how many graduate. Our churches should be creating disciples for a lifelong ministry. I believe that commissioning students instead of graduating them is just one step to helping us get to that point.
Scooter Kellum serves the State Convention of Baptists in Indiana as team leader of Leader Empowerment and Mobilization. He previously served for seven years as a state missionary and the student ministry strategist with the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions.
