I got this Facebook message the other day. It reminded me of why I do youth ministry, and it helped me understand more about success in any kind of ministry.
It’s from a former student, talking about what God is doing in his life.
Hey Dennis,
It has been a very long time I know. I wanted to let you know that after a little cooling period God has become top priority in my life, more than even before during the NDBC Youth Group years. I just wanted to let you know this.
I am experiencing things that have never happened before. The Holy Spirit has definitely come upon me. Words cannot describe the joy that I have knowing that I am near God right now. He is definitely speaking to me.
Adam and I are having a Bible Study session / prayer session now, praying for God to give us direction in everything we do. We both are feeling called to be more active in this church and in future churches (whether thru considering the thought of being youth pastors, pastors, or group leaders).
Something very new and exciting is now Bible verses are becoming clear to me, explaining how to live everyday life and accounting for every possible situation that will come up in my life and what I need to do in that situation to glorify God.
I just want to say thank you to you for all those times that you continued to preach the message to a bunch of kids who really needed it and sometimes took it for granted. You’re one of the ones who got helped me realized that life with out God is no life. You put the building blocks into me that are now growing and reaching higher levels.
I do not tell you all this to boast a bunch of praise on you. I tell you this because you should know, by being a man of God you changed someone’s life and did what the Bible and God said to do which is to teach the works of Jesus Christ and live a life like him.
I hope this message finds you well. Just know the message God gave you to give to me all those years ago will not end with me, because I am going to do what you did and speak the truth so that someone else may have the same joy that I have.
I know you are only here a short while and many things have changed in your life. They have with me as well. I know Adam and I both would like to get together with you and tell you what’s been going on. Anyways, I felt God telling me to tell you these things.
Talk to you later.
As I thought more about successful youth ministries, and I put together a list of characteristics of a successful youth ministry. Here’s my list.
What are your thoughts? What would you add?
25 Characteristics of a Successful Youth Ministry
A successful youth ministry…
- Involves parents and meaningful adults.
- Provides a safe place for spiritual questioning and discussion.
- Challenges students and their faith.
- Helps students discover their gifts.
- Allows opportunities for students to use their gifts and talents.
- Always places people ahead of programs.
- Helps hurting young people.
- Helps hurting families.
- Comes alongside parents in their responsibility to spiritually nurture their children.
- Accepts all kinds of students.
- Provides opportunities for students to serve the community.
- Creates a support structure that is there long after graduation.
- Has leaders who are held accountable for their own spiritual growth.
- Connects young people to the larger church body.
- Teaches Biblical Truth.
- Encourages students to study the Bible on their own.
- Helps students develop their personal prayer life.
- Teaches students how to discern right from wrong.
- Communicates Biblical truth clearly.
- Encourages and equips students to share their faith with those around them.
- Relies on the gifts and talents of more than one person.
- Seeks to honor Jesus in all it does.
- Persists even when people turn away (without being pushy).
- Gives students opportunities to lead and equips them to do so.
- Brings students into true worship.
Add your characteristics of successful youth ministry in the comments. I’d love to hear your thoughts.
See the other posts in the series on Successful Youth Ministry here: Part 1, Part 2 (Sara), Part 3 (Mike).
I was reading Tim’s blog the other day, and he said that he had never done a missions trip with a missions organization.
I think Tim gives some valid points about not using a missions organization, and I also think there are some good points for using a missions organization to organize your mission trip.
I’ve had the chance to lead countless short term teams during our time in Mexico (and before), so here are my thoughts on the subject.
Advantages of Taking a Missions Trip with a Missions Organization
- Lasting ministry by partnering with someone who’s “on the ground.” I know you can do this on your own, if you have the right contacts, but missions organizations spend a lot of time developing relationships with the national ministries with whom you’ll be working, allowing your two week ministry to have a lasting impact with less work for you.
- Short term trip fits into a long term strategy. Two weeks in a foreign country will do more for your students than it will for the local ministry. But, we should expect our time on a mission trip to play a part in a longer-term strategy. That’s where a missions organization comes into play.
Our strategy with YMI is to allow short term teams (called Quest Teams) to model youth ministry so that the local churches will invite us to train youth workers for their churches.
- Safety from working with an organization that knows the territory. The missions organization can help take care of insurance and help alleviate other safety issues that you might not be aware of in the region where you are going.
- Administration hassles are handled by someone else, giving you more time to minister to your students. I’m usually the guy at the missions organization doing most of the ground work such as keeping track of finances, deciding where to get food, details about lodging, and many, many other details. The youth pastor definitely gets to give his opinion and input, but he doesn’t have to worry about that stuff because the missions organization takes care of it for him.
- Quality experiences for all involved. This can happen if you plan your own mission experience or if you go with an organization. The point is to be involved in missions and give students an experience with missions that will impact them for eternity.
We are open to having groups come work with us in Mexico. If you are interested in bringing a group to Mexico to work with us, contact us or YMI’s home office.
(image by: JPhilipson on Flickr)
Mike Kupferer joins in the conversation, giving us his thoughts on Successful Youth Ministry. You can read Sara’s guest post here and read my thoughts that started off the series here.
Success in youth ministry is different from success in the business world. Since a youth minister’s goal is not simply temporal, but rather eternal, our focus is different.
In all other realms of business success can be measured in tangible ways. You can look at the pie charts and graphs. You can see the income vs. expenses. You know if more people are using your product or service. These are the end results.
But in youth ministry, success is not measured in numbers alone. Sure, numbers can help you gauge your outreach or influence in the community, yet I do not think numbers always equal success. There has to be more to a youth ministry’s success than the number of students who show up.
In youth ministry, success is equal to life change. Life change for the students and their families. Life change that leads toward becoming more like Christ. When you think about success in terms of life change it becomes that much more difficult to qualify. You cannot qualify life change in terms of attendance, verses memorized, or even knowledge of doctrine.
You cannot base the success of a youth ministry on numbers alone. There will be students who do not seem to be affected in any positive way while they are involved in the ministry. Does that mean the ministry is being unsuccessful?
If youth ministry success is measured in life change then I think each student will have different variations of success during the years they spend in youth ministry. For one student it might be a success to get them to come to a Bible Study. This step might be the beginning of life change. For another student, their next step toward being like Christ might be to go on a missions trip. Is it unsuccessful youth ministry if only 10% of your students go on a missions trip?
Successful youth ministries do not focus on overall numbers and statistics. They focus on individual students’ growth. Unfortunately, there are other people who may try to change that focus. There will be caring adults who want you to adjust your focus away from spiritual growth and onto numerical growth. These people will work to change your mindset. They want you to see students as numbers more than individuals. Do not allow these people to deter you from focusing on the individual life change of each student.
Defining successful youth ministry as life change means that I go about my job focused on that end goal. As a youth minister, my role is not to bring in big numbers, it is to make disciples. Numbers might come, but they do not mean I am being successful. If the students are becoming more like Christ, then there is a successful youth ministry!
Mike describes himself as I am a child of God, husband of Amy, father of Nathan, Wes, & Moriah, friend of some, worker of youth and reader of books. He blogs at reflectionministry.blogspot.com and can be found on twitter @lilkup.
After thinking about what I wrote in part one of this series, I asked Sara Eden to give us her thoughts about Success in youth ministry. If you’d like to contribute, please feel free to contact me.
Dennis asked me to write a post on how I would identify a successful youth ministry. What success in youth ministry looks like and how it can be defined. I was psyched about the project… until I sat down and started working on it. It quickly became clear to me that I have no idea how to measure success in what I do. No wonder I am so easily discouraged!!
After struggling with where to begin I ended up where I should have started in the first place… prayer. With the Lord’s help, I’ve come to this discovery (a brand new one for me): In my mind, success is about accomplishing a task, achieving a goal, being victorious. The problem is that youth ministry is an on-going process where the goals and tasks are constantly changing and there isn’t a finish line this side of heaven.
There’s always another fire to put out, another parent to reassure, another student to reach or redirect (or the same student needing to be redirected for the millionth time) … I don’t feel like I’ve achieved success because there’s always so much more work to be done!
So instead of a list of things that would make our ministry successful, I ended up with a list of things I want to be constantly striving for…
- I want to be a part of students’ lives.
- I want to speak the truth.
- I want to provide a place for healthy community.
- I want to encourage students to ask the tough questions.
- I want to see students meet Christ for the first time.
- I want Christian students to be reintroduced to Christ in a new and very real way.
- I want students to pray.
- I want to see a passion for social justice and a desire to right the wrongs in the world.
- I want to see students bringing friends to church.
- I want the spiritual journey to be exciting.
- I want to help students choose the narrow path.
- I want to show love and teach love.
- I want to nurture lifelong faith that can weather the storm.
- I want our youth leaders to know that they are an important, irreplaceable part of a team…
- …that their opinions are respected and their dedication is appreciated.
- I want parents to feel that we are walking alongside them on the difficult road of raising teenagers.
- I want our church to encourage students to rise up as leaders and pioneers in our midst.
- I want our community to be a better place because of the work the Lord does through us here.
With God’s grace, if I constantly strive for these things, when I do reach the finish line, I will have succeeded.
Sara Eden Williams is the Director of Children and Youth Ministries at First United Methodist Church of Williamson in upstate New York.
She blogs at saredn.wordpress.com and can be found on twitter @saraden.
