It’s Youth
Ministry not the Youth Pastors Ministry
Because it’s youth ministry the youth should be
ministering. We believe in putting our students to work and giving them the
opportunity to get involved in ministries within the church and outside its
walls. When I first started I worked with the belief that our leadership team
and I had to do everything. But once we began letting go of the reigns a little
and allowed students to take more ownership of their ministry it just
snowballed. It took some time but students have taken full ownership of the
youth ministry and they participate in all aspects of our service from opening
to closing. This also created a sort of cascading effect. Our young adults or
college students reach down to our high school students. Our High school
students reach down to the middle school students. We are currently talking
about ways for middle school to reach down to the elementary students. The
point of youth ministry should be preparing youth to minister.
Give them the
Opportunity to Succeed and Fail
This is a tough one for me. By nature I am controlling
and like things done a certain way. Handing over responsibilities to even
mature students left me in cold sweats sometimes. But what I learned is some
students thrive on the opportunities and rise to the occasions when tasked with
a responsibility. They may not have always met my expectations but seeing the
faith and maturity of a student grow before my eyes is rewarding as a youth
pastor. Even when they fail it creates an awesome opportunity for coaching and
mentoring. Once you start to delegate responsibilities to students you become
aware of other opportunities for them. Then you begin to wonder, “Why didn’t I
think of this before?” Just think about this for a moment. Students are taking
on huge projects and assignments at school all the time and they understand responsibilities
and deadlines. Granted they might not be good at keeping deadlines, but you’ll
never know unless you try. And who knows, in all of this you might just be
preparing your successor.
Put ‘em to Work
Currently students in our ministry lead worship, operate
audio and media, open services, give announcements and occasionally share
testimonies during services. We also integrate students into ministry during
our main church services. You will always see youth on stage singing or playing
with the praise and worship team and many of our older students teach Sunday
school classes or assist teachers. Others set up and break down tables and
chairs for our welcome areas. As you begin to examine everything it takes to
run a church ministry you will find opportunities to put students to work. They
have the time, energy and when it comes to things like technology they usually
have the upper hand. Besides some of the obvious ministry opportunities I
listed here’s a quick list of some responsibilities I give students…even when
they don’t realize what I’m doing.
·
When a student has an idea for an outing or
fundraiser, instead of them verbally telling their suggestion to me I have them
write down all the information on paper. This makes them think through what it
would take to pull it off. I’ll then use that student to help spearhead the
project.
·
Text a student and have them forward it out to
the others. Getting an encouraging text or invite from a peer can sometimes
have more impact.
·
Have them hold the keys to the rental/church van
during a trip. Nobody wants to be the reason everyone is stranded.
·
Have students help you plan your message or
service. Give them the title and theme and have them find illustrations,
testimonies or design a stage set. I currently do this with our youth worship
team. I give them the title and theme of my message and I allow them to come up
with the song list.
· Include random students when planning events.
Get their feedback and ideas. These students will usually be the ones
encouraging others to attend.
No comments:
Post a Comment