There used to be 6 ways to graduate from High School and they were all based on where you were in life and what kind of skill set you had. There are some things we can glean for our graduating process of our kids in our youth ministry, here are a few:

Academic- Possibly College bound, the norm ( this was me).
The academics are the bulk of your group. they may go on to grow their faith some more beyond your group but most just want to get out alive. This is the bulk of your youth ministry. They will go on to be your average church.

Vocational (Mechanics)- Guys or girls who are good with their hands. Maybe they planned on working in a factory or on the farm but that is a small market now. There are those students in your youth ministry who will never excel at Bible Study or Scripture memory or any other spiritual discipline but they are still a value to the Kingdom. They are builders and doers not necessarily deep thinkers but different thinkers who see the kingdom through dirty hands.

Business (accounting,Technolgy, 2 math , 2 science Plus ADECA Courses)- Some were good with numbers and sought to start their own business or work in accounting. You have kids who love to crunch the numbers or problem solve or create a strart up. What if their graduation process looked different from the others? Why not customize it?

Advance Academics- College bound and over achieving teens. There are our students leaders who would over achieve it were a hopscotch class. They join Bible Quiz or other brain engagers. They are your students leaders and student councils. They graduate at the top of the youth group because they came to everything.

Special Ed.- If you had a learning disability you still would have to know the basics but the standard was different. You have special needs kids in your youth group (ADD, ADHD, etc.) who cannot grasp the whole process but love God and want to do their best. Graduate them differently but do not separate them from others but bind them together.

Attendance Certificate- Kids just phoned it in. They showed up, didn’t do much, and graduate when the school got tired of seeing them. These kids are still in our youth ministries today. There are those who want to phone their faith in and say when they are older “I went to church”. They want their attendance certificates to say I was good, moral, and I believe in God but what does that say about our learning process, There is room for these kids to graduate if we want them to.

GED- Equivalency – this was not really a way of graduation but a way of getting by. This was for drop outs who wanted “beat the system” or who thought they were smarter than the system or who knew they were not smarter than the system. The GED’ers get their faith somewhere else. They show up occasionally, like maybe at the grad dinner you throw.

How are we graduating kids? Are we looking at all our kids the same? Do we program for advanced academics but are disappointed when our “vocational” kids don’t show up? Are we forcing a one size fits all educational spirituality on our students and then judging them on our graduation standards?

We all need to re-think our strategy and how we graduate our students. What do you think? Did Jesus lower the bar for some (thief on the cross) and lift it for others (Peter). Did Jesus customize the graduation process so all would believe but not all would follow the same way?

Let’s talk about it.