Ministry Philosophy

While reading a youth ministry article recently, I noticed a commenter asking why a student minister even needs an office.  As someone who has an office and spends time in that office each week, I had a hard time trying to figure out just what he or she was getting at.

I don’t necessarily love my time in my office, but I also cannot figure out how it is not necessary.  As the only paid youth staff at my church, I play a significant role in delivering programs and plans for our students.  I tried to figure out just what I do in the office and here is a list I came up with:

• Develop the program parts for Sunday and Wednesday night programs.
• Communicate with students, parents, and volunteers through facebook, email, blogging, and (the dreaded) phone call.
• Complete paperwork such as check requests and collection logs.
• Meet with volunteers, parents, and students about who knows what until they show up and ask if I have a second.
• Prepare and plan events such as retreats and mission trips.
• Spend time staying in touch with resources, articles, and youth ministry ideas.

This list leaves off a few things I am sure, but the thing is that I find myself in the office quite a bit.  There are some ministers who are on big staffs with their role only being to spend time with students.  There are also ministries where some of what I mentioned is done by volunteers (we’re working on that and will be in 20 years).  I simply find the office time to be a necessary part of my job.

Does this mean that it is what I would rather be doing?  Not really, though I do love to create a good plan and see it work.  I would much rather spend everyday mentoring students and helping them realize what God has in store for their lives.  However, something that I have to remember is that contributing the kingdom is done in many different ways.  Creating a calendar and planning a Wednesday night program can be important ways to contribute to what God is doing in the lives of your students. 

When we look at ministry as a journey, we see that sometimes you have to plan the trip before you can take the trip.  There are days like today when there just is not much going on, and I need to use the time to plan events and programs.  There are also days when I spend the majority of the day speaking to and working with students.  Some days we have impact through preparation and check requests.

I must admit that there are days when I have been in the office far too much, and at the end of the day I really wonder what I actually accomplished.  I have found that I need to do one thing that would count towards active discipleship in order for me to really feel good about my day.  Maybe it is a quick thank you note for a volunteer or a conversation over facebook with a student.  What pushes me and motivates me is that I never want to leave the office feeling like nothing would be different if I had just stayed home.

I love having conversations with the volunteers in our student ministry.  I like hearing about how they are learning along with the students and feeling like they are really making a difference.  Recently, though, I had a conversation with a volunteer that went in a different direction.  We began to discuss how easy it is for a minister or ministry volunteer to lose credibility and influence through just one bad decision.

The truth is that it doesn’t take much for our ministry to be derailed on account of our actions.  Ministers and ministry volunteers are definitely held to a higher standard than your average Christian and probably with good cause.  Ministry influence can be lost through one inappropriate conversation or one poorly thought out facebook post.

We have to actively maintain our integrity at all times, not just for the health of our own souls, but also for the souls of the people we minister to.  I have caught myself several times trying to decide if a facebook post would be perceived as appropriate.  I have had to change subjects when students ask particularly probing questions about movies I have seen or music I listen to.  One of the major elements of our jobs is to be an example to those we minister to.

I hear a lot of stories of youth ministers who are in trouble all of the time because they lacked discernment in certain areas of their lives.  This is frustrating because youth workers need to have people’s confidence in order for them to maximize their impact.  When we do something that takes away from our good example, we lose the trust of our constituents including the church staff, parents, and students wise enough to be disappointed.

As youth workers we want to be positive examples, mentors, and role models.  And with that comes a huge responsibility.  This does not mean that we cannot ever make a mistake, but it does mean that we need to enhance our discernment so as to minimize the mistakes we make that harm the ministry.

Is fun okay when it comes to student ministry? This question actually involves more tension than I ever thought. On one side you have student ministries who seem to have fun as their core value. Other ministries seem to hold fun as the unforgivable sin.  Here is where I have landed.

Who does not want to have fun?  Everyone wants to enjoy what they are doing.  What the question of “fun events” in ministry is really asking is if it’s okay to just do something because it is enjoyable.  When it comes to doing a fun event, if you are only doing it because it is fun, then the event may not be a problem but your approach may be.

Fun events can have several purposes if they are done with some intentionality:

1. Fun events build community and connect students with one another.
2. Fun events build excitement around the student ministry.
3. Fun events help build relationships between adult volunteers and your students who are served by these volunteers.
4. Fun events build memories for your students who will, later in life, remember positive feelings in their relationship with church.
5. Fun events help bring in students who may not enjoy parsing greek verbs during Bible study (you guys all do that right?). 
6. Fun events let you let loose, and they allow your students to see you having fun with them.

I will definitely agree that fun events should not be the foundational element of your ministry.  For us, small groups are really the place where we seek to do our deep discipleship, but our fun events, such as playing laser tag or going to the zoo, allow our students to be discipled in a different way.  The issue here is maintaining balance in your ministry and making sure that you are working towards your vision and goals.

When we are in the middle of planning camps, scheduling meetings, and organizing our weekly programs, it is easy to forget that our service in our ministry is actually a theological enterprise. We are not serving a calendar or even our students, but we are serving our God who created us and called us specifically to this task. I find at times that I need to be reminded of this truth.

In this theological task, our theology plays an important role whether we are conscience of it or not. Everyone thinks theologically, even if they do not call it thinking theologically. When we talk or think about God or about what the Bible teaches, we are exercising our theology. The fact that discussing theology has become something reserved for seminarians and professors troubles me. The issue that I see is not that people need to understand every theological concept in order to be saved, but I feel that having a better understanding of theology would result in having a better understanding of God and the faith that we profess.

In order to teach theologically or doctrinally, we need to understand our own understanding of our faith. The best place to start that process is to think about how we approach the theological task. What I mean by this is that we need to be aware of the lens that we look through when we seek to understand the Christian faith. Let’s look at four common starting points of that frame our approach to theology and the exercise of our faith.

Creation
A theology that is seen from the frame of creation is one that focuses on a big picture view of God’s redemptive plan for mankind and all of creation. The motivating idea is that God created the world, the world fell into sin, God has a plan to put it back together, Christ was that plan, and now we are moving to a place where God will restore everything. The focus here is that God still loves all that He created even though it has become corrupted.

The Incarnation
Many Christians identify strongly with the fact that Christ became a man and lived among other men. The lens becomes a way to approach life in light of the fact that Jesus provides an example of how we might approach life. Christ experienced many of the same things we do. He suffered and laughed. This view tends to provide assurance that God knows all that you go through in life and brings comfort that God would be so loving as to have that experience.

The Crucifixion
With the crucifixion as a starting point there is a desire to identify and understand the suffering that Jesus underwent for our sakes. The crucifixion is seen as the ultimate act of sacrifice and our lives are called to mirror that sacrificial love. In this frame there is a tendency to feel a deeper regret for sins and have a great appreciation for forgiveness.

The Judgment
There are Christians who focus a great deal on being prepared for the time when we will enter the heavenly realm. This could be a focus on eschatology (end times) or a focus on the judgment that the Bible speaks of that all mankind will experience. The emphasis becomes one of living a life that is more good than evil.

While all of these starting points are valid ways to approach our understanding of the Christian faith, each can be errant when taken to an extreme. For example, an overemphasis of the crucifixion can lead believers to live with guilt and pain when grace is not also emphasized. Likewise, a faith lived out focused on judgment can become one of legalism and striving when grace is not included.

If we are to truly teach theologically, we must first work out our theological understandings and what we believe. We must also know our tendencies when discussing the Christian life and how it is to be lived. As we become better theologians ourselves, we will become better at introducing people to a deeper understanding of what it means to live as a Christian.

I was not the coolest kid in high school. I am pretty sure that I was not the 300th coolest kid in high school. I was a shy kid who, to a large degree, lacked confidence and cultural awareness. Like most high school kids, I wanted to fit in, and it was actually when I found a healthy student ministry that I finally found my niche.

As the school year starts back, it is time once again to head to the area high schools for lunch. I love these lunches, and they have made a really big impact for our ministry. The students love that I am willing to enter their world and talk to their friends, even the ones who don’t talk to me once I am there. The food is terrible by the way, that has not changed in 11 years.

The funniest thing for me about going to the high schools is that on those days I suddenly become very aware of what I plan on wearing. On days heading to the schools I decide that certain clothes I have are not cool enough or not youth minister-ish enough. It would be hilarious if it wasn’t a little sad. I was telling this to one of my high school students last week, and his response was, “Imagine if you had to do that every day. It’s exhausting.” Man I am glad that is over. It takes a lot of energy to be cool.

So here is the question: are you cool enough to be a student minister? After only being an official youth minister for about a month I attended my first get-together of area student ministers. While it could have been a great time for fellowship, I came away from the meeting extremely discouraged. Half of the other youth ministers had either a mohawk or faux hawk. The rest looked like they were taking a break from their rock band to attend the meeting. I just had jeans and a sweater on with brown boots. I definitely did not leave that meeting feeling cool enough to be a student minister.

It did not take long, however, for me to realize that being cool enough had very little to do with what I wore. I realized that being a cool student minster meant being a minister who was invested in the lives of his or her students, who cared about each of the students and demonstrated that care. To the students who I minister to, it doesn’t matter that I can’t play guitar or that I don’t share their fashion sense. What they care about is knowing that I care. If you love your students, then you are definitely cool enough to be a youth minister.

During Christmas and New Years our offices are closed for the most part here at the church. This allows time for us as staff members to recharge and get a little rest. It also provides a time for evaluation. As a evaluation addict, I spend a ton of time thinking about how we can do things better, what needs reorganized, and what we might do differently.

Over the break I spent a great deal of time thinking about our programs. We are altering our formats a little by using a new curriculum for small groups and using that curriculum to also shape our Wednesday nights. I also spent a lot of time thinking of fun things for the students to do while on break, though not much materialized.

What all this thinking did was to help me realize that I do a lot of thinking. It got me thinking about what my role really is here at the church. I think that it is so easy to lose yourself in certain roles when it comes to ministry, especially student ministry. As I looked back at the past year, I realized that I have been spending so much time as the organizer and planner, that I may have missed the mark on minister. I realize that part of being a minister is the planning and vision casting, but another part of ministry is the actual ministering. I realized that many of my conversations with students stay on the surface. Spiritual and life things come up, but I must admit that it is not natural for me to ask spiritual questions of my students.

For a while I found it important to establish relationships with the students before venturing into the deep waters of spiritual advice and especially spiritual correction. Now I find that I have those relationships and need to initiate those conversations. Much of this goes back to asking what it means to be a minister. I have a whole lot of roles in our ministry–teacher, planner, janitor, driver, friend, and counselor. However, the most important thing that I can do is to help my students grow in their faith. The other roles need to serve this role, not be in addition to, and especially not take away from it.

I want to think about this next year from this angle, what do I want students to know me as. Do I want students to know me as a fun event planner, a good speaker, a friend, or as someone who helped them grow in their faith? Hopefully this question will help shape the year’s priorities and practices.

Being a minister is temporary. Now, I am not talking about the fact that ministers change churches frequently or leave the ministry. Our roles are temporary for two reasons. First, the places that we serve were there before us (unless of course you planted it) and they will be there after us (unless of course you killed it). Second, the people you minister to will change. They move away or change churches. Whether we like it or not, our roles in the lives of the congregations and the people we minster to are temporary.

What does this mean for our ministry? Does it affect the way we do our jobs? I hope that it does. I keep a picture of my church’s youth group from the 1980s in my office as a reminder that I am part of something that is bigger than my time here. It helps me to remember three things.

First, I need to minister with a sense of urgency. I am all about building relationships and gaining trust, but I have to be reminded that I don’t have forever to bring up spiritual stuff with students. I have to be careful that I continue to be a minister rather than a friend. Praying for boldness helps here. Not only does urgency help me with minister to the students, I also focus more on strengthening the program. I want to make things happen as fast as God will allow, and that means positioning the program for success.

The second thing that being temporary helps me to understand is that this student ministry needs to be sustainable. I could build a program around my gifts and energy, but the truth is that there are no guarantees that I will be here forever. My desire is to create a program that is not dependent upon one person or even one resource. This means establishing a culture where leaders are those in the church, not just on the staff. It also means simplifying certain aspects of ministry. For more information about this topic, I recommend Sustainable Youth Ministry by Mark Devries.

The third thing that I remember when understanding that my role is temporary is that I need to have thick skin. A friend of mine in college ministry recently changed his area of ministry because it was simply too difficult to see students come and then leave after four years. His heart was broken every May and he had started to dread August because the cycle started over again. This week we will say goodbye to a student who has only recently joined us but has made a huge impact on our group. For five months we have poured into her life and watched God do some great things. As her family relocates for a new job, it breaks my heart, but I also know that I have done what I was called to do–minister to whoever God sends my way, even if it is for a little while. Even playing a small role in someone’s life is an honor.

Understanding that you are temporary is so important in ministry. Not only does it keep you balanced, but it keeps you on your toes. As you watch students head to college or as you think about the people you have served in the past, I hope that you always rejoice that God has used you and will continue to do so.

With two kids my house seems to default to a state of clutter. Like most people, I really hate having a cluttered house, but picking up after each kid is like living the movie Groundhog Day. It just starts all over again.

Just as our homes can become cluttered, our ministries can also have a ton of clutter. While we have good intentions, sometimes we put events and programs all over the place just trying to have the maximum impact and outreach. However, the problem with clutter in our ministries is the same as it is in our homes, it is distracting and unorganized. Clearing up this cluttered approach to our programs allows us to focus and plan in ways that we never dreamed possible.

So what are the signs of a cluttered program? If planning the next six months would be impossible for you, the the program may be cluttered. If you have more “spontaneous events” than planned events, then there is clutter. If you lack any real process of discipleship or even participation, then the clutter may be accumulating.

So how do you clear the clutter? First, you need to evaluate whether your events have a purpose and if they fit in your overall plan. Sure the purpose of paintball is to have fun and maybe grow community as long as no one get shot in the eye, but does it fit in an overall plan to grow community? The goal is to have a goal, or at least to have all of your events working together.

The next thing to do is to have an overall process for your ministry. This is where ideas from Simple Student Ministry or the Orange conference can really help you decide upon a strategy for reaching and discipling your students. Having a clear process for your students means integrating events with one part of your program leading them to another part. It also means balancing what you do for clear impact. If 75% of your program is built on fun activities, then it may be time to balance that out with discipleship and service opportunities. If 80% is Bible study then perhaps you could consider implementing some community building activities. This is also true if you are duplicating your efforts in an area. We realized that we want to do small groups at night, but we also offer a small group Sunday School. If we want students to see their evening small groups as their primary discipleship opportunity, then we needed to look at what Sunday School could become so that we are not overlapping.

The next thing to do is hard, but really necessary. You need to plan. Look, I am one of those people who thinks I write better when the paper is due the next day, but that will not cut it in ministry, not if you want to reach your true potential. Plan your big events at least 6 months out. Right now in December we have scheduled all of our big events for next year such as Disciple Now, M-Fuge, and our Fall Retreat. We have penciled in smaller events like lock-ins and Christmas parties. When these smaller events are three months away, we will have fixed dates that we can start to advertise. By the end of this year, we will also have crafted our teaching topics for January through June. Doing this planning now means that we have a ton of time to be creative and gather resources. We can also create a brochure with relevant dates and details that gives everyone a sense that we know what we are doing. The level of confidence and credibility we gain is worth the time spent in planning. This does not mean that we will not do spontaneous things or that some dates may change, but we do have a plan to go by.

Clearing the clutter has so many benefits from helping you to streamline and use your time more wisely to allowing you to maximize the impact of particular events. Good luck, now I need to go pick up some more toys.