A question I've asked many times is 'How do I make young people disciples?' It is the earnest cry of my heart, but perhaps also betrays an anxiety – depending where you place the emphasis. 'How on earth do I do this?!'
Perhaps, rather than focusing so much on that question – important though it might be – it is worth shifting slightly and considering another: 'How can I journey with young people as they discover themselves and who God is?'
I wrote Follow Me!, a set of 40 devotions for young people, to try and answer that.
I have always loved the disciple Peter. He leaps off the pages of Scripture as a real, passionate, full-on, rough and ready young person.
The title, Follow Me! comes not just from Jesus' call to Peter when he first meets him, but from their conversation three years later. So much has happened – Peter has discovered who Jesus is, but has so much more to learn. Just like us. The 'follow me' at the end of John's Gospel comes after epic failure – Peter's three denials. Following Jesus had become real and in the immediacy of Jesus' arrest and trial, when Peter couldn't handle being thought of as one of his followers, the anger and the denial flows from his mouth.
What is amazing to me is that this fear, this flaw in his character surfaces again even as Jesus is re-instating him. Peter doesn't say, 'Thanks for your forgiveness, I don't deserve it!' No, Peter says, 'What about him?' and points at John.
The reality of Peter's walk with Jesus mirrors mine in so many ways. I wanted young people to get this – not to say, it doesn't matter if you are a stuff-up, but more to illustrate, with Peter's journey of faith, that we can do nothing to get ourselves right with God.
Simply saying 'yes' to Jesus does not then lead, naturally, in to discipleship just happening. We have to work at it, wrestle with it, make our peace with who we have been, receive forgiveness – discover a loving saviour who restores us again and again.
Beyond the gospels and in to Acts we have this amazing flawed disciple – at one moment raising someone from the dead (Acts 9), while at the next, saying no to God (Acts 10). This 'work in progress' disciple is such an important picture for young people. For all of us.
The devotions journey through from first encounter until we reach the last words we have from Peter in his final letter. I love those last words. What did Peter need? What did the readers of his letter need? What do you and I need? What do the young people we love and serve need? 'But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen' (2 Peter 3:18).
My prayer is that as young people read Follow Me they might do exactly that.
Ali Campbell is a youth and children's ministry consultant. Follow him on Twitter @AliCampbell_68 and on Facebook at The Resource.
'Follow Me' is published by Kevin Mayhew, price £6.99.
