Goals should be reachable on strategy but big enough where God needs to move fir it to happen. As leaders we can do our part by planning and creating strategies on how to be effective. Over the summer our ministry had decided to focus on a few main areas in our ministry to give a great start to the fall. We created a playbook which has our focuses laid out in detail per campus and a month into fall it’s awesome to see it in action. Is it perfect no. But provided a clear direction. 

4 focuses:

1st Wednesdays – This is nothing new to Wednesdays but we wanted to get ahead. Part of a great event is the planning and promotion. If we want students to invite friends but we don’t have our plans in order early, how would they invite them to something they don’t know about. I feel one of the biggest downfalls of youth ministries is their lack of getting ahead and it causes people to do a bunch of last minute planning… which is never the best result. And getting ahead now allows for margin later. 

Rosters and small groups – We had two focuses. For larger campuses groups can get too big. So we focus on getting groups to a 2:12 (leader/student) ratio. Multiplying groups off to make smaller ones means more intentional discipleship. And for smaller campuses, more options of groups. If a student comes and there is only one group for guys because of the size, and they don’t like it, where do they go? They go home. We are having a huge focus on being highly aware of how big our groups are in order to create more room for students who are coming. 

Youth sections – We launched youth sections for connections on Sundays. We do not have any weekend services for youth. We want them in service in corporate worship or we want them serving on teams on the weekend. Our church has had a ton of new families and youth sections let them know there is something amazing happening on Wednesdays for the community and discipleship of our youth. 

Schools – I know this is a youth ministry staple. I don’t know about others, but CA schools are like prisons. Feels impossible to get on, but it isn’t. Post Covid, we lost all connections and we are focusing on getting them back and being in school. I know that not every student will come to SCY but every student can know at that school what SCY is about. 

Is this all ground breaking stuff? Nope. But I’d like this something we have prayed about, something metrics have revealed to us, and something we are striving for as a ministry in hopes to see Jesus move through us and our amazing leaders.

Justin