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| Ministry to students begins with experience |
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| By Sean Witty, director of student ministries, Trinity Church | |
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Our
students are growing up in an EPIC culture. EPIC is an acronym and a
methodology coined by Leonard Sweet that stands for EXPERIENTIAL,
PARTICIPATORY, IMAGE CENTERED, and CONNECTED. EPIC is a methodology
for creating effective ministry in a postmodern context. Whether we
realize it or not, our students live an EPIC life, and I believe
that unless our ministries are EPIC, they will not be effective.
EPIC Student Ministry At our high school midweek meeting, there are 60 students involved, and 30-35 show up each week. Last year at this time, we had no midweek meeting. I was meeting with 3 guys for breakfast weekly, which has turned into our midweek meeting, “The Balcony”. Many of the students who attend our evening service sit in the balcony of our borrowed sanctuary. At “The Balcony” and in the balcony, they get to be together, and get a better view. Here is how EPIC methodology is worked out in my ministry to students in lower Fairfield County, CT (particularly at The Balcony). It is first important to know that everything flows from our purpose statement, which reads: A movement of students helping students, discover and live out a lifelong and life-changing relationship with the Christ that impacts the world. Experiential "A movement". To our postmodern students, truth is not found linearly or in a "place". As one student I know recently said to me in response to my suggestion to discover Jesus for himself by reading the Gospels, "I can read it and all, but I need to FEEL it." For a student, the truth of Jesus will be DISCOVERED in the context of an EXPERIENCE - more specifically, COMMUNITY. Therefore, our midweek "program" (The Balcony) is not fun and games and a talk "performed" from up front. It is worship, small groups, and discovering Jesus through metaphors, Biblical narratives and parables, and sharing stories of God working in the lives of each other. In short it is an EXPERIENCE with purpose that even non-churched students are drawn to. At one particular meeting, we looked at John 15 where Jesus says, "I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” I did not try to explain the passage, but rather engaged them in a creative brainstorming exercise. I asked them, “If Jesus is the vine, and we are branches, what is the sun, the soil, the bugs, the rain,” etc. After about ten minutes of brainstorming, I began to pick imaginary grapes around the room, and talked about what it might have been like to hear Jesus that day. About how you would have understood picking grapes in the hot Palestinian sun. About how the truth of his saying might come to you the next day or a week later as while drinking wine (or grape juice for you Baptists). About how you would probably not have forgotten what he said - then or now. With a group of students at Princeton University a few weeks later, the exercise was so thrilling it felt like worship.Participatory Whenever and as often as possible, rather than me explaining or defining something, students do it. The focus of the ministry is to facilitate or equip community and ministry ("a movement of students helping students"). What is highlighted are not my ideas as the leader, but what the students are doing, thinking, and feeling, and what God is doing their lives. I am a facilitator of their sharing their lives. If we need to remind them about small groups, a student shares about their small group. If I want to draw attention to evangelism, I invite a student to talk about how he/she talks to their friends about God. Even our small groups are student-led. In the John 15 exercise, through the participation, the students felt they have come to the conclusion. They had accomplished something together that they could not have accomplished alone. One of the values I reinforce on our work trips is TEAM, the acronym for “together everyone accomplishes more”. I have found that students instinctively want to do things together, but lack the opportunity to do spiritual things together. Image Centered Whenever possible, as much as possible, everything is represented visually - screens, overheads, props, or just flip chart paper. If it is not represented visually, it is ineffective. I have found that students are clearly impacted by pictures, even if they are described orally. In a small group setting, I drew the student’s attention to an unusual (and unattractive) painting on the wall. It was post-impressionistic in style, but seemed to be a street in an Asian community. I asked the students to “tell me the story of the painting.” Again, after ten minutes of brainstorming I said, “Reading scripture is kind of like this. We have to discover the story.” We then continued our time by reading out of 1 John, and “discovering the story”. Connected Connected is another way of saying community. People in community are connected. Community, however, is an ineffective word for students, so instead our purpose statement reads, “a movement of students helping students…” The difference also has other useful connotations. Our “experience” is relationally focused. The students don’t come for comedy; they come to get connected. A fundamental question we all ask ourselves, particularly during our adolescent years, is “Where do I belong?” Students, in particular, want to be a part of something bigger than they are. Acts 2 says, "each day they met to break bread," etc. Our email forum finally makes it possible for us to meet daily. On the forum students ask each other questions, discuss issues and even write out prayers for each other. Students can’t wait to get on it. A Final Thought EPIC methodology has become a list of values for everything we “do”. It does not replace incarnational ministry, but lays the bedrock for “how” we will do things. It is difficult, for instance, to be inauthentic AND participatory at the same time. It’s hard not to have a standard for “excellence” when you’re thinking through effective images. EPIC methodology has forced me to continue to think like an artist as I spiritually direct students.
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