Not A Mega Church? Building a Youth Ministry that Lasts no matter what size Church you are!

4Aug/1010

Is Opting out of Youth Ministry the right choice?

On August 2nd, Sarah Mae wrote a blog about how her family is opting out of Youth Ministry.  You can read the post here.  Frankly, I think it was very well written and I was impressed with her and her family's decision to follow through on their convictions.  If the Lord has laid it on their heart to opt out of youth ministry and focus on her family, raising them up according to what they believe is the biblical way, then who can argue with that?  I hope and pray that the Lord blesses their family.

But reading this post made me think of the future of youth ministry and what we, as youth and children ministers need to do to better serve the kingdom and families.  Does children and youth ministry need to be abandoned in favor of a different approach?  In her post, Sarah quotes 2 youth minister voices.

    “The curtain must be pulled back if we are to keep young people involved in the church and if we are to renew our congregations we first must acknowledge that many of our current forms of youth ministry are destructive.”  -Mark Yaconelli, co-director of the YouthMinistry and Spirituality Project (pro-youth ministry)
    “Youth ministry needs a revolution. It needs to be overthrown, retooled and reborn. The majority of what passes as youth ministry is organized babysitting: songs, games, a short devo and pizza afterward…yippee!” Greg Stier, Revolutionizing Youth Ministry (pro-youth ministry)

Sarah also went on to quote some facts about how college students and young adults are no longer following the Lord as if she was further instilling that youth ministry, as it is currently constituted, is not working.  Although I have seen these stats before, I do not think they mean that youth ministry is ineffective. Rather, I think it further emphasizes that we are not investing in our young adults properly enough once our youth transition into a new stage in life.  This emphasizes our need for further ministry, not a reduction of our children and youth work.  It means that we have to further bridge the gap between youth and adulthood.

Mark and Greg are definitely right on with their comments!  Children and Youth Ministry need to retool and promote a ministry standard that integrates the generations together rather than segregate them.  We need to take a hard look at what we are doing and how we are making an impact for the Lord.

But does that mean we have to get rid of children and youth ministry all together?  Does that mean we need to have youth and children sit in a service that can be very irrelevant to them?  ABSOLUTELY NOT!  Just because they were calling for those ministries to be retooled and revamped, doesn’t mean that Mark, Greg and other youth ministers are advocating for them to be abandoned.  In fact, I would probably say that those quotes were taken out of context to support Sarah's opt out reason. See, youth ministers don't need parents to opt out of their ministries.  They need parents like Sarah and others to OPT IN and speak into their lives to help them retool their ministries for the better.  After all, those ministries exist to bring people into a relationship with Christ. You can't argue that that is not a great cause.

I understand the reason why people may want to opt out of children and youth ministry.  As a husband and father of 4 young children, you have to do what is best for your family.  I get that.  But opting out without being constructive is rarely a right plan of action.  Instead of opting out, why not explain your convictions to your church's leadership and see how the Lord uses that.  That may or may not impact your conviction to opt out, but it may help the church better minister to families and help further the kingdom of God.  Again, children and youth ministers need people to speak into their lives to help them see how they can better serve and minister.

Finally, I am very pleased that parents like Sarah are taking ownership for their children's faith.  Parents definitely need to take ownership for their children’s faith – no doubt about it.  If youth ministers had more parents like Sarah doing that, our jobs may be extinct.  But, unfortunately, majority of parents are not.  That is why I like the family ministry approach. Mark DeVries and Reggie Joiner have great books on this approach.  In fact, it is an approach that I am just starting to become familiar with and appreciate.  I may be late to the game on this one, but I am excited about what I have been discovering and learning.

Children's and Youth Ministry needs to be retooled and revitalized.  DEFINITELY.  But instead of abandoning, we need to recreate and redesign a ministry that our children through young adults can hear about the Lord and be impacted by.  Going back to the 1920s, before youth and children's ministry existed, doesn't seem like a great option either.  I believe that the best ministry to children, youth and families is yet to come AND if we have families who are willing to opt in, support and be constructive in feedback, we will discover a way (not a formula) to best serve them and further the kingdom of our Lord.

What do you all think?  I'd love to have a healthy discussion going on about more effective approaches to doing ministry.  After all, that is the main reason why I started this blog - to encourage healthy, effective ways to do ministry.  So share a comment or thought so we can all benefit.

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20Jul/100

2 Lessons Learned from Sandy Koufax

Late in June, I got an issue of Investor's Business Daily.  When I was looking through newspaper, I saw an interesting article about Sandy Koufax. Being the baseball enthusiast that I am, I was quickly drawn to it.  You can read the IBD article here.

Reading the article, I was shocked to read that Sandy Koufax was close to quitting baseball after the first 6 years of his professional career as he was struggling hard. His record after those 6 seasons was 36-40!  Considering that Sandy is a Hall-of-Famer who is viewed by many as one of the best pitchers every to play major league baseball, this was very surprising.  I had no idea!  I thought he was great from the moment he stepped on the mound for the first time.  Despite this rough start, he did not quit and ended up with a record of 165-87, going 129-47 from 1961 on.

So what made the difference?  How did he go from an bad to Hall-of-Famer?  He did 2 things during the offseason that changed everything.  He:

  1. worked out. Never before had he worked out and took care of his body.  So he started running in hopes to better equip his body to find out exactly how good he could be a a pitcher.
  2. started listening to advice. People within the Dodger organization had always tried to give Sandy advice but he never listened.  It was during the offseason a Dodger Scout found an issue with his pitching mechanics.  Once he corrected it, he was better able to see the target.  Also, Sandy started listening to his catcher, Norm Sherry.   Norm told Sandy to throwing more curveballs and change-ups to keep the opposing batters guessing.  Even though Sandy had heard this before, he never applied it.  This time he did and it really helped!

Ultimately, the bottom line is that what made Sandy Koufax a Hall-of-Fame pitcher and living legend was his willingness to adapt and change.  Too often in ministry we can be set in our ways and do the same things all the time.  Why?  Because that is how we always did things.  Well, that just isn't acceptable. If we are to stay in ministry long term (especially youth and other "transition year" ministries like children's, college and young adult work), then we HAVE to be willing to adapt and change.  This age range changes all the time so our attempts to minister to them needs to change.  The ideas, events, lessons that used to work all the time do not necessarily work now.

The problem is, how do you know what you need to do to change unless you have an effective way of evaluating yourself?  Sure, you may have a general idea of where you need to adapt or what you need to change, but it is always great to have an "outsiders" perspective.

So right now, TAKE A MINUTE and set up a plan to evaluate your ministry.  Here's just 1 way you can get a good evaluation:

  1. Contact a parent whom you trust and respect or another youth minister from another ministry or church.  Ask them to come by and evaluate an upcoming ministry event (i.e., "youth group" or a social function).  The key here is to have someone you know and trust while being honest with you at the same time.
  2. When they arrive to evaluate, give that person(s) a set of 2-3 goals you hope to accomplish during the meeting. You can also tell them what principles you value highly as a leadership team (You can look at what we value here as an example).  Therefore, they will know what you are striving for and what you view as important so they will be able to discern whether or not you are hitting your mark.
  3. Give them a few days to collect their thoughts and/or write them down on paper.  Then set up a meeting with them and your volunteer leaders to go through the evaluation together.  That way you can all hear how it went, unfiltered.
  4. Lastly, pray through what you all heard, process and start implementing change where needed.

Evaluation and self-examination is not always easy or fun.  But it is necessary to build a lasting ministry.  Had Sandy Koufax not taken a hard look at himself, we may have never heard of him and he would probably have always lived in a state of "what if".  Let's be like Sandy and evaluate, adapt and change where needed.

Got a comment or thought?  Post it so we may all benefit and grow as followers of Christ and ministers.

Thanks to my Sources:

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11Mar/100

You CAN Change the Perception

In the March 3rd Sports Section of The Washington Post, both Mike Wise and Michael Wilbon wrote great articles about Greivis Vasquez and the change that has taken place in his life in the 4 years he has been playing for the Maryland Terps Mens Basketball team.  You can check out Mike Wise's article here and Michael Wilbon's article here.

In case you don't know the story of Greivis Vasquez and the Maryland Terps Mens Basketball team the past 4 years, they have been described often as inconsistent, disappointing and unreliable.  In fact, things were so bad for Greivis and Terp Basketball that before the ACC Tournament last year, many of the Terp faithful were calling for their coach to be fired and Greivis not to come back for his senior season.  Then, something funny happened. They started winning!

It started last year when got into the NCAA tournament and made it to the 2nd round with a less than talented squad.  Then, this year, they continued their winning ways as they finished the regular season number 1 in their conference. What a turn-around! Now, all of a sudden Greivis is being viewed as one of the best Maryland basketball players of all-time and was just named the ACC Player of the Year.  In addition, there are no more cries for the coach to be fired as he was just named ACC Coach of the Year!  It is amazing what winning can do.

But, they didn't just win by chance.  They won because a change happened. That change happened primarily in Greivis.  He became the leader he was recruited to be.  He became a better scorer and a better all-around player.  Because of the change that happened in him, the team changed and a renewed "winning" environment became the norm again around Terp basketball.  They were no longer characterized as inconsistent, disappointments and unreliable.  Rather, they were winners.

So how does this apply to youth ministry?  No matter who you are or what you do, people have a perception of you.  Maybe it was from a first impression or from months or years of interactions.  It does not really matter how they got that perception.  What matters is that sometimes that perception is a negative one and can impact your ministry.

For instance, there was a perception from a couple at my church that I did not really like them and that their comments and "helpful suggestions" involving their child to me were often discounted, not respected and/or appreciated.  When I heard how they really felt about me I was blown away because I had no idea they perceived me that way.  It was not until another person, outside of this situation, helped me realized what the problem was.  The problem lied within me in how I responded to them.  Although I was not attempting to be rude or disrespectful in any way, I realized that how I responded and the words I used in response were very hurtful to them.  Therefore, from that moment on, I was careful to think more before I talked to them and be very intentional about word selection and display a positive, responsive face when they talked.  It took a while, but it was very helpful to our relationship longer term.

How can you change the perception?

In order to change, you need to first identify what kind of perception people have of you.  Do they have a positive one or a negative one?  Do they think all you do is sit down and play video games?  Or do they think you are irresponsible because you are late to meetings or drive erratically?  Even though there are many negative stereotypes of youth ministers out there (i.e., we all play video games and have goatees), every youth minister is different and needs to work on different areas.  A weak area in your work may be a strong suit for another.  So find out what perception you are giving off to others around you.

Two ways you can do this are:

  • Ask a few of your most trusted supporters to give you some honest feedback on what kind of perception others have of you.  Whether you feel it or not, there will be people who do not have favorable opinions of you and what you are doing.  And, more likely than not, your most trusted supporters will have heard both the good and bad about you.  By asking a few people who you know and trust, you are opening up to hearing truth behind what may appear to be negative comments.
  • Do a 360 evaluation.  A 360 evaluation is used at times for pay raises or promotions, but it can also be useful for feedback and evaluations purposes. In ministry, a 360 evaluation takes feedback from peers, supervisors, and others such as volunteer leaders, parents to provide a realistic look at your performance.  There is a place for self-evaluation in this process as well.  The benefit from this type of evaluation is that you are getting opinions from many different sets of people, rather than just one manager or supervisor.

There are pros and cons to each method.  Whether you use one of the above methods or another one not mentioned, the key is to find out what kind of perception others have of you.

Sometimes we can blow off perceptions other people have of us because "those people never liked me anyways".  But the key question you need to ask yourself is where is the truth behind their perceptions.  If, after you find out others perceptions and reasons, you realize that there is no truth and those people never liked you anyways, then that is ok - at least you went through the process of examining those reasons. But to just discount someone else's opinion simply because of like/dislike will do you a disservice. Regardless of their feelings, they have this perception of you for a reason and it will either limit you or help you in ministry.

Understanding how you are being perceived by others will go a long way in your growth, development and effectiveness as a person and a minister.  Now I'm not suggesting that it is your job to make people happy and to make sure everyone likes you by doing what they want you to do.  That is not the point. What I am encouraging you to do though is to take a thorough look at how others are perceiving you and make changes where appropriated.  As in any profession, you want to be viewed with respect and be known for your effectiveness.  This helps you begin to travel to road to get there.

As was the case with Greivis Vasquez, he went from zero to hero in less than a year.  The Terps and Greivis did not win by chance.  They evaluated, grew and improved in who they were and it began to pay dividends on the court.  Similarly, by asking tough questions, evaluating and understanding the perception people have of you, you can change the environment around your ministry and be better off because of it.  Sometimes it may be hard to hear what others think or believe about you.  But, if you present it to the Lord and allow him to work in your life and ministry, you will be better off and the perception others have CAN  be changed!

TAKE A MINUTE and...

  • Start assessing the kind of perception you have.  Pick one of the above feedback suggestions and begin the process of evaluating.
  • Spend some time praying that God would give you a discerning heart to evaluate the truth behind the perceptions.  Then, start implementing change where needed.


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