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28. Most top leadership involved in youth ministry - In all the churches we have visited, youth ministry is an entry-level position on church staffs. Church leaders often begin their careers as youth workers, but later move up to adult ministry. We have not seen any large church where the senior pastor sees his main ministry as students.

At Xenos we are "crashing the boards" for student ministry. After beginning as a student group in the 1970s, Xenos gradually aged and lost its stake in student ministry during the '80s. But by 1990, our high school and college-aged membership numbered fewer than 100 students! At that point, our elders declared student ministry the number one priority for the church. For the next six years, student ministry remained the number one priority, as we scrambled to avoid being cut off from the source of youth and the vigor that comes with young leadership. Every year, student ministries had whatever they wanted in terms of funding, personnel and facilities. Under the leadership of Joe Botti, the Student Ministries division proceeded to recruit nearly all the top leaders in our church to serve in student outreach and discipleship. All but two of our eight elders, including both senior elders, see student ministry as their main commitment. Most of our top staffers also work in student ministry as volunteers. Xenos has built a nice youth facility for high school students called Building X that has a capacity of more than 1,000. We also lease a fantastic venue for meetings on campus at The Ohio State University, which is being renovated this year to accommodate 400 people per meeting.

Xenos student strategy moves from a program-driven approach in middle school and high school to a cell-driven, self-replicating indigenous house-church strategy in the college group. The program-driven portion today involves well over 100 adult volunteers and more than 20 full- and part-time staff. At the same time, college home churches have multiplied during the past four years from three to 12 groups.

Today, our student ministries have not only flourished, but remain the fastest growing part of the church. Including Blow Out, North Central Fellowship, and Campus Bible Study groups, our students now number more than 700 and are poised for fantastic growth during the next few years. This is because we not only have the leadership and training structure in place, but adult Xenos members' own kids are now beginning to enter this age group (middle school) in huge numbers! Sixth grade classes leaving the Oasis program and entering Blow Out are now over 60 per year, and history indicates these kids will reach more than twice their own number in the nesxt few years. Considering there are 10 classes involved in this part of our ministry, we are planning to have more than 2,000 students a few years from now.

Meanwhile, the rest of the church is already feeling the impact of the victory in student ministry. Several home churches have been planted from the student ranks into the post-college ranks, and these are some of our most vigorous adult home churches. At other times, individuals have transferred from the student groups to existing adult groups, bringing a welcome infusion of youth and excitement into these groups.

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