We did however intend it to canvass a cross-section of approaches in a cross-section of contexts in the hope of providing information to a broader range of situations back home. The absence of Australian examples (with the exception of our own) is again only a reflection of where we travelled on this trip, and not of a lack of great youth-cell ministries ‘down-under’ (refer to Appendix for Australian youth cell network information).

Unfortunately time also prevented us from covering all the age ranges usually associated with youth ministry, from early teens through to young adults, and subsequently for the most part we focused on just the Highschool age (ie. 14-18/20 year olds). However, I’m sure many of the ideas recorded here can be transferable in some way to Junior High and College ministry.

The eight ministries have been grouped into the two broad categories of the ‘U.S’ and the ‘U.K’, with each preceeded by a rather general nationally-contextual reflection. What we predictably found was that there were notable differences in the ‘spiritual climate’ of the two regions which has of course significant influence on their approaches to ‘all things spiritual’. This of course needs to be taken into account when assessing which ideas are culturally transferable and which may not be. As mentioned, we have also profiled our own ministry, preceded by a broad look at the Austalian context as a point of reference.

It’s also worth noting that in presenting these profiles we felt it important to additionally include contextual details about each ministry such as ‘parent church size’, ‘youth ministry size’, ‘staff’, ‘socio-economic climate of area & church’ etc for the purpose of being able to discern which ministries relate more to your own local context and which may not (size context thus being included for this reason only and is no way meant as a measure of the ‘success’ of the ministry).

In our never-ending quest for information and ideas, we had often only heard about transitioning ministries attached to relatively large churches with all their associated resources. As we were a pioneering ministry attached to a small church with very few resources, many of the strategies were simply not directly transferable. We became proficient in the ‘trial & error’ method of ministry so many of us adhere to while wishing ‘there was a better way’! Well here is your ‘better way’!! Of course, it’s all still trial and error really, but hopefully these pages will at least give you more options to help tailor the ideas to your situation.

We also tended to only hear of the ‘model’ being used by a ministry in it’s clinical interpretation without gaining an understanding of the effect of it’s true application - the good and the bad bits!!

It is our goal to present each ministry in ‘all it’s glory’ - what is working and what is not!

Each profile then, will canvass the following areas:

• Context
• History
• Weekly Structure
• Youth ‘Service’ (Congregational meeting)
• Cells
• Equipping/Training/Resources
• Strengths
• Weaknesses/Issues

It is therefore hoped these profiles will provide inspiration and some of those missing pieces to your ministry ‘puzzle’, as it has ours. I have included a review of the impact our research trip has had on our ministry, and the changes we have since made.