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Monthly youth leaders column

Seeing vision

I wonder when was the last time you had a vision? — I don’t mean a Damascus Road like vision, but one where you could clearly see how you should shape or re-shape the ministry you are involved with.

When did you last draw back from the routine of week-by-week ministry and look at the longer term. A failure to do this often results in a group becoming grooved into their routine but unsure about where they should be going. You do things only because you did them last year.

More documentation

In recent years youth ministry has been forced to complete a lot more documentation. Recently I was looking at one of my files and realised that a lot of the paper work there did not relate to the delivery of ministry but was largely to do with the policies needed to cover ourselves. Now we must be clear here. We need policies to cover ourselves in terms of child protection and risk assessment and these documents need to be in place.

The Churches Child Protection Agency is expert in getting you sorted out in this area. My concern is that, at the local church level, the writing and re-writing of all this documentation has squeezed out creative Bible-centred youth ministry. We are so busy and keen to make sure our ministry is on a good footing that we ditch the one thing that will give it fresh life. We must never take short cuts on important policies in this litigious society but recently, in several conversations, I have met leaders who simply do not have the time to plan ahead. Routine administration is vital for the health of a ministry but it seems that administration can become the dominant parameter rather than being the facility which gives the work a chance to flourish.

Evaluation

When did your leadership team last sit down and look at the state of your ministry? To get your vision clear takes time and evaluation of the present scene as well as looking to the future. Where are the young people at — what are the issues that dominate their lives? When was the last time we did some real training of our leaders? Where are our strengths and weaknesses? What are the key issues to be taught in the coming months? Do we need to recruit leaders? So often youth groups get caught out by these issues. So, at least once a year, try to create some time to silence the administrators cry of ‘We can’t possibly do that, we tried it last year and it failed’, to replace it with ‘What on earth are we doing for heavens sake?’ and, for once, let the administrator have the job of making things happen in the church context.

Creative ideas

I do not see these two aspects of ministry as enemies. Every group should be well organised. My plea is that creative ideas are not lost — they need to be heard and tried out if you think their appeal might be limited to only a few. The visionary should be valued in the team and not made to feel like a radical extremist. Resistance to change in a youth group can come either from leaders or young people. His or her ideas should be valued not ridiculed as they could be the future pattern of the group.

We need the steady rocks — but we need somebody well schooled in ministry to enable the new ideas to keep coming through. The work needs to be freshened up from time to time and so do the leaders. A fresh vision can provide the catalyst for the next phase of your ministry.

Dave Fenton

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<< July 2008 >>