I don’t know if life and ministry has ever been as messy as it has been over the past 11 months.  I imagine your story is similar.  If we, as grown people are struggling to process all of the change, as resilient as teenagers are, our students are facing things that no one has ever had to face before.  It’s messy. Here are four tips that were brought back to me from the 2017 GLS that can help you lead well through the mess.

1. Be Close

We have so many students who are running through the gauntlet of life and if we are not close to the students we are ministering to we are not going to have earned the right to really influence their lives.  This is why our “Sunday to Sunday” or “Tuesday to Tuesday” ministry is so important.  If we are engaging with our students at some point during the other 6 days of the week our students are far more likely to open themselves up to us when they need it.

2. Change Lenses

COVID has taken its toll on everything and everyone. Even the individual issues that our students face on a day-to-day basis seem to be significant ad constant.  As we are ministering to our students, we get the really cool opportunity to bring the perspective of God into their situations.  If you and I are struggling to keep perspective on Jesus through this whole ordeal, you can be sure our students are too.  If you have done #1 correctly, then you have earned to right to gently guide your students’ perspective of a situation back to an eternal one.

3. Stay Hopeful

The world is hopeless.  Any hope that our students have outside of Christ will not last. But that’s not for us.  We have the hope of Jesus. Any situation. Any story. Any sickness.  We have hope.  If our students look at us and see us floundering in the deep, then they will flounder as well.  We must lead our students by example.  With our hope firm resting on the anchor that is Christ. For us to do this effectively, we must maintain our spiritual disciplines.   Whatever it takes for you to find your refuge in Jesus.  Be sure to stay connected to Jesus so when the storms of life hit your students, then can you as a rock, a safe person they can trust through the circumstance.

4. Be Willing

This is the same drum that everyone has been beating since COVID hit.  But we must be willing to change.  Change is uncomfortable.  Change is scary.  But change is absolutely necessary.  I came to a realization sometime around late summer that we were essentially hitting the reset button on our ministries.  I had to grief what we lost.  But then, we got to praying.  Asking God for a fresh vision.  We couldn’t go back to ministry as usual and we changed up some significant things in our ministry.  Some haven’t been great.  Others have been amazing.  At this point, we just have to try.  Trusting that God is on His throne and that the word of God will never return void.

What do you think? Are you doing these well?  Can you do any of these better?

David Wood is a wizard.

Before I lived in Modesto, my wife, my three daughters, and I lived in Belize as missionaries. Before that, we lived in Southern California where I had an awesome opportunity to travel the U.S. performing at colleges and churches sharing the gospel through my illusions for about 3 years. I’ve experienced a whole lot in my life, and I love to share God’s story through my life as often as I can.

Searching for Youth Group Games? Discover thousands of turn-key resources at Download Youth Ministry.

As a black youth pastor and 16-year youth ministry veteran, I’ve never seen this much hype in the broader culture around black history month. It seems as though everyone is jumping onto the bandwagon to specifically acknowledge African Americans like never before.

The question is, should the church follow suit?

Should the bride of Christ focus on a single people group during an entire month within our church communities? This question was sparked by a woman named Sarah on our DYM Community Facebook page. The responses she got were varied, which sparked my desire to write this up.  To answer this important question, I’d like us to consider the following:

Where are we currently?

How can the Bible speak into this moment?

What should we do?

Where Are We Currently?

What is the current environment we and our students find ourselves in in 2021? I am about to list some things which may make some feel a variety of emotions or assume bias, but please allow me to elaborate further before you stop reading. Over the past year:

• Ahmaud Arbery was shot.
• Breonna Taylor was shot by police in her bed while she slept.
• George Floyd died with a police officer’s knee on his neck.
• In the summer of 2020, millions of people across the U.S. and around the world marched all summer long for racial justice in response.
• Communities burned as some rioters and looters took advantage of the situation.
• The phrase “Black Lives Matters” reemerged as both a rallying cry and a polarizing slogan.

Our teenagers saw and experienced all this. If church leaders aren’t intentional about helping this younger generation walk through these messy times with a biblical foundation seasoned with grace and understanding, someone else will direct their responses according to their own paradigms.

What Does The Scripture Teach?

Some may object, “But aren’t we called to be in the world but not of the world? Aren’t we supposed to be set apart? Aren’t we taught not to bow down to false idols of our culture like in the book of Daniel? Aren’t we supposed to be transformed by the renewing of our minds?” All this is true. However, culture alone is not a terrible thing. Every culture has both beautiful and broken parts. I serve a God who is able to redeem even the broken parts to point people back to him. Black History Month has been a staple in our culture for many years and serves as another opportunity for us to lean into events our students are already talking about and forming opinions on in 2021.

What does the Bible say about leveraging culture for the sake of connecting people to Him? In Acts 17 Paul was walking through the city of Athens and noticed an area with many idols. Now, Paul could have completely ignored this. He could have condemned the people for having idols made of stone or wood. He could have made fun of them because he knew the true God and their theology wasn’t even close to being accurate. He could have chosen to completely ignore this aspect of their culture and just get right to “preaching the gospel.” However, Paul graciously acknowledged the Athenian people’s desire for religion.  He looked into their customs and used an altar dedicated “to the unknown god” as an opportunity to talk about the ONE true God. I love that Paul quoted back THEIR OWN CULTURAL POETS as additional reasoning to believe what he was saying: “‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’” (Acts 17:28 NIV). Paul recognized the moment of the culture. He saw an opportunity to use their limited/false understanding of God as a bridge to a relationship with Jesus. I also love 1 Corinthians 9:19-23 where Paul recognized the power of adapting to certain cultures and customs for the purpose of helping people hear the gospel! Paul was truly a cross-cultural missionary. So what does this have to do with Black History Month?

What Should We Do?
Our students have experienced more racial unrest in the past twelve months than they likely have witnessed their entire lives. Black History Month offers a natural excuse to reach into the culture and say something meaningful to a generation of young people desperate to know God’s response. The following are two very basic ideas as to how you can leverage this season to connect with your students better, positively shape their thinking around race, and lead your students during a messy time.  Please understand that all of these ideas will need to be adjusted and modified based on the ethnic makeup of your group. Contextualization is very important!

• Intentionally use examples of African Americans positively in sermon illustrations.

Because we live in a predominately white society, we naturally have more current and historical examples of white people doing and saying stuff worthy to share. That’s not a bad thing. However, representation matters. It matters to the students of color in your youth group, and it matters to the white kids in your group who may have unspoken stereotypes in the backs of their minds. Being intentional about using positive examples of African Americans doing great stuff, saying cool stuff, and becoming amazing people does two things. First, it lets your students of color know you see them. They will feel loved and cared for. Second, it helps shape your white students to value the voices and accomplishments of people who don’t look like them if they don’t already. So, during your series on sex this month (because of February), consider what positive examples you could use where you highlight African Americans.

• Have a specific conversation on racial injustice in your youth group.

Regardless of the ethnic makeup of your group, invite a guest speaker to have a conversation with you (on stage or on Zoom with your students present) about race in their area. This can be an eye-opening experience not only for the students, but for youth pastors as well. Consider the following:

• For groups that are mostly or all minorities, this conversation helps those students not feel crazy. It helps them feel seen. And with the right voice, it can redirect their possible anger and frustration toward healthy ways of expressing themselves and toward considering how they can help change society.
• For groups that are very mixed (I used to lead a highly diverse group of 300 students at my main campus at my last church), it helps all these students from various backgrounds have some common language and understanding for how to have discussions around race. It teaches them how to understand and empathize with one another. It helps them understand some much-needed history. With all this learning and understanding, deeper relationships can form within the group. Your students will take this unity back to their schools.
• For groups that are mostly (or all) white, have this conversation too! Stereotypes, prejudice, and racism are often subtle in culture, and it starts at a young age. Even though you may not have students of color in your ministry, there are likely students of color at their schools. And if there aren’t, I can assure you they are interacting with them online. Be a pioneer in helping students value all people by intentionally exposing them to diversity of thinking.

Final Thought.

If you’ve gotten this far but are still resisting the ideas presented in this article, I first want to say, thank you for reading! Encountering ideas contrary to one’s world view can be jarring. Thank you for making it to the end. This DYM article can’t do this conversation justice on why we need to have these discussions, so I would recommending picking up one of two books if you would really like to dig into American Church history of racism and how we can fight it today. The Color of Compromise and How to Fight Racism are two fantastic books by Jemar Tisby which are worth your time. Please leave a comment below if you would like to dialogue about this at all!

Theo Davis serves as the Multi-Site Youth Pastor at Restore Community Church in Kansas City, Missouri.  He has worked in youth ministry for 16 years in a variety of settings which include church plants, rural churches, and mega-churches on the East Coast and now Midwest. He received his degree in Youth Ministry from Eastern University in 2008 and has continued to leverage his education with real-world experience. He and his wife Malia are huge gamers and named their kids after video game characters — Zelda & Shepherd (from The Legend of Zelda and the Mass Effect Series).  Theo also loves action figures and spends his spare time developing his musical and visual art talents.  Follow him on Instagram @theo_davis

Searching for Youth Group Games? Discover thousands of turn-key resources at Download Youth Ministry.

I want to ask you the same question I asked my team this week in our meeting.

“If your leaders were hanging out with their students they lead as much as you have been hanging out with your leaders, would your students be discipled well?”

Stop spending so much time with students. Start investing your time with leaders.

I know that will probably rub people the wrong way, but hear me out.

I know it seems counterintuitive to spend less time with students, especially as youth pastors, to hang out with the adults who lead in your ministry. But you need to stop spending that much time with students yourself.

I am not saying not to hang out with students ever. 100% you should be with students.  All I am saying is we need to switch our priorities a bit and spend more of that time with leaders who hang out with students. I have seen that this is when ministry and the culture you want to develop really begins to take shape.

Why?

Because the more time you spend with leaders—pouring into them, spending time with them—they are getting to hear how you care for them and hear your heart and vision for the ministry. In turn, they repeat and replicate it with the students they lead. Maybe not word for word, but the same care you show to your leaders as an example will be replicated from them to the students they lead.

The more time you spend with leaders, the more they repeat and replicate your heart and vision with students.

I know I am good at developing people. But I am not good enough at it to care for all our students in the same way. We should treat our leaders as if they were in a small group we are leading. So the same care, the time, the energy we would spend with students—spend it on leaders.

Why?

There is always a return on investment, and not just any return. Exponential return.

Why?

Because you can multiply yourself. This will help with leader care, student care, the culture you are striving to achieve for your services and groups, and ultimately it will allow you to be more effective.

This is something I see a lot of youth leaders get stuck on. I believe if they were to switch some of their time and energy to leaders they would see a dramatic difference in their ministries.

This is part three of a series based on New being potentially better than Normal. You can find the other parts here and here. 

Look. 2020 was a wreck. We were forced to do some things that weren’t normal. But the new might be better. And that is especially true in the digital landscape as well. 

I’m not sure what digital stuff you tried or did during any lockdown you had to face. Maybe you shifted to phone calls. Maybe you prioritized handwritten notes. Maybe you stuck with Instagram. Maybe you went for the full boat and started streaming.  

Regardless, the notion that digital is impossible or unattainable went out the window when we were left with fewer ways to connect. The idea that we CAN’T do digital because it just seems like a hassle became less of an excuse when it was the best way to inspire students. 

All I’m saying is, we found that we could do SOMETHING on a digital platform and it could work and it can be powerful if you just do one thing digital. Here are two reasons and one simple list of solutions to doing something digital: 

1. They are already there. Even in the most rural areas, students are engaged in some way on a digital platform. Maybe it isn’t TikTok, Snapchat, or Facebook. But it’s probably Instagram, Twitter, or YouTube. And at the very least it’s texting and messaging.

It’s how they listen to music, it’s how they discover what’s going on, and it’s how they form their way of thinking. Why would you not want to at least inject SOMETHING into the space that they occupy? 

The statistics are overwhelming and reveals a very real opportunity to be where they already are. 

2. Digital connection is a self-selected relationship. The people they follow, the accounts they turn notifications on for, the groups they align with are self-selected. Sure, there’s the random promoted posts that show up for everyone, but by and large, they have chosen to engage the accounts they are connected to.

If you are putting something out that inspires them, encourages them, or reminds them of the hope they have in Christ, it is one more way to inject light into darkness… and they choose to connect with it.  

3. Doing something isn’t as hard as we make it out to be. Nobody has enough time to do everything they want right now. I come to this realization almost every week. But we can get something out there and it only takes a few minutes and you don’t even have to be super focused on it.

Depending on what platform you are using, scheduling apps and systems allow you to load up an automatic calendar and have it auto-post for you. And some of these are built right into the platforms themselves. 

So how do you do this? I’m so glad you asked. Here are a few simple solutions. 

1. Buy a Social Media Pack or Texting Pack from DYM. I’m honestly not trying to sell you on anything. I use this stuff and it makes things so much easier. One of the most time-consuming parts of digital is producing high-quality stuff. DYM makes it easy for you.

I’m loading this Social Media Plan for January into my Instagram and Facebook feeds. They will automatically post and insert something into a platform that my students are on daily. You can even load devotionals into them like this one on the book of Ephesians. 

This year, we have a couple students selecting scriptures that we are texting out daily at 7am via Remind. The students receiving these signed up for the text messages and get a scripture reminder each day. We have also used this texting list and all we did was buy it, load it up, and then go play golf! 

There are seriously so many of these resources available on DYM and you should see if one fits your needs here. 

1. Take an Hour and schedule a month of posts/texts. These days, if you have a business profile set up on IG or Facebook, you can use their “Business Suite” platform to schedule across both platforms. We use REMIND for texting students and they allow you to schedule as well. 

I run the social media for our church as a whole as well so I carve out an hour on Thursdays to load the next couple of week’s worth of posts. However, sometimes I have been known to be watching football and scheduling posts.  

You can also find a volunteer to help you. These don’t have to be super complicated or intricate. Often the simplest things are the most powerful.  

1. Just be yourself. There is a stigma around social media and digital to be the absolute best of everyone ever that has ever produced something online and if you can’t be that, you might as well not try. The truth couldn’t be further from that. 

If you are a high production church group, then you probably should have elements of your digital platform that takes that experience online. But if you are one person staff and the kids love hanging out with you just because you love to wear flip flops and drive bright green mustangs from 1995, then let your digital presence be the same! 

I used to do this thing on my IG story where I would say “UPDATE!” at the beginning of each story. It was nothing more than me being me and trying to make insignificant things seem more significant. It caught on and people started messaging me wanting more “UPDATES!” 

You don’t have to do everything. You don’t have to do what everyone else is doing. But doing something puts you into their world.  

So, I’m curious. What have you done digitally that you weren’t doing before? 

Geoff Cocanower is a husband, a son, and the Associate Pastor of Student Ministries at Hope Missionary Church in Bluffton, IN where he leads the team of adults who minister to high school students as well as young adults. In addition to contributing to the DYM blog, Geoff co-hosts a podcast focused on the issues, questions, and blessings of leaders who aren’t in the driver seat of the organization called The Backseat Leadership Podcast. An interesting fact about Geoff is that he is a high school football and volleyball referee in his spare time and is a legacy member and loves all things DYM. You can find Geoff online here!

New year, new me right?

With the new year comes new things in order to try and get better in how we look, how we feel, how we operate and more. Same thing when it comes to ministry. I don’t know about you, but we take a 3-week break for Christmas and during that break there usually is a bunch of questions that run through my head when it comes to the ministries I run and how I as leader lead. I always want to get better. I think when I get better as a leader the people and ministry around me only can get better.

So I thought I would write down a bunch of questions I have been wrestling with and journaling through as we kick off this new year. Maybe these are things you already think through and maybe some of these things you AND your leaders need to think through to spark some good conversations as we enter into 2021.

In no particular order (welcome to the randomness of my mind):

• What is something this year that needs to go in your ministry?
• What is something that needs to start in your ministry?
• Do your leaders know what a win is for them in your ministry?
• What do you need to do in order to have your students understand the vision of your ministry and ACTUALLY act on it?
• When it comes to your students inviting friends, is your service worth being invited to?
• What is one habit you NEED to add in order for you to be more effective?
• What is one habit you NEED to give up to be more effective?
• If you have family, what are you going to do to actually “be home” when you are home?
• What exactly do you need to do to pour into more leaders?
• Do you have practical steps for your students to grow in their faith? What are they? How can you measure it?
• What do I need to do in order to have online ministry be more prominent in my ministry?
• What can I give away to a leader or two to free me up to do only what I can do as the leader of the ministry?
• Who do you need to ask out to lunch once a month because they are more seasoned than you so you can ask questions?
• How do you know if your curriculum is being effective for your group of students?
• How can you make sure you communicate better this year?
• How can you be more organized and be better in time management this year?
• Who needs to not be a part of your ministry in this season?
• Who do we need to recruit to jump on our team this year?
• How are my processes? Is it easy to join a group? Jump in to serve? How well do we follow up?
• Do our leaders know how to walk someone through excepting Jesus on their own?

I am sure there is more but these are the big ones that have plagued my mind over the last few weeks as we head into 2021. I know that if I were to sit down and think through a lot of these, I can easily make some better decisions this year and be more effective. My guess if you were to go through with you and your leaders, you would too.

Justin

So, I am no good at predicting the future. If we didn’t all know that in 2020, we certainly know it now. What I do know is that in 2021 youth ministry needs to innovate…and fast. And it needs to be planning for innovation not DURING Covid, but post-Covid. We need to innovate now for the future! We need to do it before the temptation to return to what was expected returns. Now is the time to re-think and dream. Youth ministry has needed to innovate for 50 years. While I can’t predict the future, innovation in youth ministry is something that I know something about!

So, here is the list of keys for innovation for 2021 and beyond!

1. Question Everything- If you aren’t good at asking tough questions about your theology and your ministry now is the time to start. In faith and in innovation questions should WAY outnumber answers. All innovation begins with questions and more questions. “Why do we do it this way?” “What if we tried that?” “How did that experiment go?” “What did we learn just now?” “How do we do it better/more like Jesus?” Question everything in 2021!
2. Seek Understanding- If you don’t know your students and your city you won’t know what direction your ministry should go. What do local leaders say students struggle with? What is your students’ world/home/school actually like? Good missionaries learn about the culture around them and good church innovators do too. Do you really know your town? Why are you certain of that?
3. Observe Details- Good innovators pay attention to how their people use their stuff. What parts of your ministry do students deeply enjoy? Why do they like it? Could you do more of that? What do they love out in the community and could that be a new kind of ministry?
4. Experiment, Evaluate, Repeat- This is the season to emerge and try something new! Innovators experiment. But, they don’t always believe the mantra that more experiments are better. The best innovators say that isn’t true. Lots of experiments are only good if there are few enough for you to evaluate each one of them. Put together a team that supports each experiment then experiment, evaluate, and repeat. Over and over. Sometimes one experiment combines with another to produce something truly great!
5. Risk Something- I know many of us are vulnerable. We don’t get paid that well. We have families. We may not have cooperative staffs, heads of staff, or healthy church culture. But, if you are able to, take a risk! You cannot innovate without risk. Jesus risked in coming into the world and people are only willing to follow those who are willing to risk first.
6. Cross-Pollinate- The best innovators read outside their jobs, they go to different conferences, and they have coffee with people outside their area. What if you went to an education conference? What if you had coffee with somebody from juvenile probation? What if you joined a local non-profit circle to learn their best practices? The church is way too isolated not just in terms of who we minister to, but who we learn FROM. Most of us aren’t experts at anything if we are honest. Let’s go learn from the best. The best ideas come when innovators go outside their ministries.
7. Fail Shamelessly- Jesus’ earthly ministry only made it 3 years, he didn’t make it far from home, and his 12 best buddies never understood him. From the outside Jesus’ ministry might have looked like a failure. The Lord loves you and nothing can change that. Failure and mistakes are just lessons learned along the way. And sometimes one failure becomes the key ingredient to a later experiment! But, don’t fail alone. Get the support of your leadership. Make sure you are failing in a group. No mistake can diminish God’s love for you or for your team. So give yourself some grace. Do another new thing. Do it better next time and move forward!

The famous missionary William Carey once said, “Attempt great things for God, expect great things from God.” The Kingdom of God is worth it and so are students! Let’s innovate YM in 2021!

Matt Overton (right) is a youth pastor from Washington State that has been doing Youth Ministry for 20 years. He is the founder of www.youthministryinnovators.com and The Columbia Future Forge. The Forge is an award winning organization that combines youth ministry with mentorships, job skills, life skills, and social enterprise. He is an author, speaker, innovator, and occasionally consults with churches and organizations trying to innovate in youth ministry.

I don’t know about you, but this last year have given me a little twitch in my eye.

The amount of times we had to switch, rethink, redo, cancel, adjust, or create something brand new out of nothing has left me just tired tired going into the new year. I feel like many are like me. When thinking about heading into leading our ministries into 2021, there is a little PTSD thinking that this new year is going to be like this last year.

And if you are honest with yourself, you are anxious. I know I am.

A few weeks ago, I accepted a position at the church to be the Director of Kids & Youth across all our campuses. So I am taking the baggage of this year and going into this new year leading a few extra teams more than I had last year. I already struggle with anxiety. Thinking through this new year and the uncertainty it could bring for ministry – on top of leading more teams – has got my mind churning like crazy.

So for you, what is the thing you are worried about going into this new year?

Better and more important question…

What are you doing to prepare your heart, mind, and soul for leading in 2021?

Like, what are you ACTUALLY doing, if anything, to make sure you are best set up as a leader to take on this new year?

Even though 2020 was nuts, I am still blown away by how God moved in spite of how unprepared we were to do youth ministry in the midst of a pandemic. Even though 2021 will be different, our world and how we do ministry moving forward will not and SHOULD NOT be the same.

As leaders it is our responsibility to take some of the things we have learned from this year and, even though it won’t be a repeat of 2020, prepare our minds as if it will be.

Why is that important?

• This year forced us out of our comfort zones on how to do church services.
• It forced us to focus on online ministry and that’s where youth have been for years.
• It forced us to find better and more effective ways (and ways that are not so effective) of connecting to our youth.
• It forced us to be more creative than we ever have been.
• It it forced us to hold our ministry plans loosely.

All of those points are awesome things. So if we are thinking we can’t wait to “go back to normal,” we are dreaming. We would be doing a disservice to our churches and our students if we did not take the things we learned from the craziness of this last year into this new one.

I’m not a therapist, but here are a few things I am bringing into the new year in hopes of battling this 2021 leadership PTSD from last year:

• Daily reading of Scripture – Jesus answer I know, but I can’t tell you enough how important this is. As of the day I’m writing this post, I am 64 days straight in the Bible reading plan. That might seem like a lot, it might not. But for me I have always read it weekly but I would miss a day or two or week from time to time. This year more than any year of my 13 years in full-time ministry has showed me I need to depend on God more than my own skill set or passion. I tell you what, I have noticed a big difference in my leadership confidence and thinking because I am in the Word daily.
• Getting rid of sideways energy – This year has forced me to look at what I spend my time doing. Sideways energy is things I would spend time on, meetings I would be in, projects I would be doing, conversations I would be having that do not help the main thing be the main thing. I have been ruthlessly getting rid of things that will not matter in the long run or affect the outcomes of how our ministry runs or disciples students. Get rid of it.
• Blocked-out heads-up time – There is head-down time where you are in the trenches, figuring things out, reacting to situations, fixing problems, removing road blocks for others; and then there is head-up time where you are not working on immediate things, but you are thinking about the long-term future of your ministry. Too many times we are so head-down all the time that when things happen and we need to adjust, we have not been up long enough to see where we need to go. I have scheduled intentional “heads-up” time where all I do in those blocks is dream and think through only things coming months or years from now. It allows us to “see into the future” a bit and hopefully be prepped for adjustments because we already know where we should be going long term.
• Delegating more than ever – This last year forced me not to be a control freak. Why? Because there was so much to do I would have literally died if I didn’t delegate to others. It’s the truth. The crazy awesome thing is that most of the stuff I gave away to our very capable team turned out better than if I were to have held onto it. I feel like one of the reasons leaders feel the heaviness of leadership is because they hold onto too much thinking because they are the leader, they need to do it. Stop it. Delegating and empowering others will only help you recover from the PTSD of last year and help take your ministry and leaders to the next level. It will help you do what only you as the leader can do.

I feel a heavy weight going into this year, mostly because I have experienced last year. The advantage we have for 2021 is we have done a lot of adjusting and maneuvering to help train us to be better leaders this year. I feel in doing some of these things I will have less anxiety knowing what I know and seeing how our team tackled this last year.

The question again is, what are you doing to prepare your heart, mind, and soul for leading in 2021?

@justinknowles3

2020 was a crazy year. 2021 can be a different year and regardless of the pandemic, there are some ways that you can embrace NEW especially if NORMAL wasn’t working in the first place. 

This is post #2 in a series of posts. The initial and foundational offering is found here.  

If there was anything that the events and happenings of 2020 proved it is that volunteers and leaders are the lifeblood of any ministry that is going to effectively and efficiently engage students with hope, care, and discipleship.  

I grew up in a youth ministry that was primarily set up for the youth pastor to do the lion’s share of the discipleship. The “sponsors” were there to hang out, check kids in, serve snacks, and run sound. When it came to spiritual conversations or discipleship oriented conversations, those were mainly directed to the youth pastor.  

My guess is that many of our ministries have this flavor, to some degree. Maybe you have raised up a group of adult leaders who are in small groups with a few students. They are called to be relational, caregivers of your students for a certain amount of time. But when things get into the nitty-gritty, the conversation is often shifted to the youth pastor.  

If 2020 confirmed anything for me it was this: Leaders need to be empowered, equipped, and encouraged to be the lifeblood of ministry to students; not just the youth pastor.  

Programmatically, in March, we had to swiftly pivot to some sort of small group method if we were going to remain engaged with students over digital mediums. In May, when we were able to gather in small groups again, we found organizing small groups into host homes was going to be the only way we could continue to gather students together. 

We started the 2020-2021 school year gathering together for youth group, but by Thanksgiving had to make the shift bake to small group-focused gatherings. This model will continue in early 2021 for us.  

Now, I realize that I’m describing the setting in rural, northeast Indiana, however, the lesson rings loud and clear to me: Leaders must become the lifeblood of our ministry for us to be effective and engaging to a greater number of students more specifically.  

But, I’m not the first to say this. Paul said it to the church in Ephesus:  

“So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.” – Ephesians 4:11-13 

We were already striving for leaders to be the force of our ministry. Paul said we should and honestly, we have a value that we are more effective when we are together. So this was already something that was part of our culture. 

But with the pivots we had to make in 2020, we had to make this all the more clear and tangible. Leaders needed to know that we were about this, not just think it was a cute leadership axiom. 

We focused our attention on making these three things clear: 

1. We trust you. If we hadn’t made this clear before, we doubled and tripled down on it. We were making shifts and we needed those leaders to embrace the cultural aims and goals we had established and make it happen with their group. 

This meant we couldn’t be handling every detail about their group. Frankly, we were trying to “figure things out” just as much as they were. So there were things we had to release to their decision making.  

You avoid train wrecks in this process by vetting well when you “hire” them. But, you also need them to know that you are behind them. If you never communicate that, they will have reason to believe something other than that. 

2. We support you. We always were working to support our adult volunteers, but we needed to make sure they knew that. We found this to be most effective in the frequency and the regularity of how we communicated to our leaders. Get info to them as soon as possible and with as much clarity as possible.

Yes, there are times that we have had to re-communicate or re-adjust our plans. But by keeping them in the loop as much as possible, they could deal with adjustments and shifts because they were informed in the first place.  

This isn’t the time to hedge your bets so that you only have to communicate once. Early and often gives them what they need to be the best leaders they signed up to be.  

3. Tell us how to help you. The feedback loop became incredibly important for us. If what we were doing wasn’t actually setting them up for success, then we needed to change things. 

We began recording a video piece that included announcements, some “fun,” and a message. We had told the leaders, in the beginning, to expect a 35-45 minute video. It didn’t take long for us to realize that this was a lot of work. However, we didn’t make a shift in the content until we got feedback from leaders. 

Due to their feedback, we adjusted and produced a 20-minute video and added some other elements throughout the week to supplement the midweek content. This response has produced MORE feedback from them and has made our ministry better in the midst of the pandemic. 

Look, maybe you thought normal was awesome and super effective. But we found that when we had to shift from normal to new, our leaders were absolutely critical to that shift.  

What about you? What have you had to do to engage leaders more and empower them even more as you pivoted through 2020? 

Geoff Cocanower is a husband, a son, and the Associate Pastor of Student Ministries at Hope Missionary Church in Bluffton, IN where he leads the team of adults who minister to high school students as well as young adults. In addition to contributing to the DYM blog, Geoff co-hosts a podcast focused on the issues, questions, and blessings of leaders who aren’t in the driver seat of the organization called The Backseat Leadership Podcast. Interesting fact about Geoff is that he is a high school football and volleyball referee in his spare time and is a legacy member and loves all things DYM. You can find Geoff online here!

I know 2020 is not quite over yet, and I still feel like we are in the final stage of Jumangi awaiting the final boss, but from a ministry standpoint, I don’t think I have ever worked so hard in a year than this one. There were so many emotions and decisions and pivots and brainpower used in order to pull off youth ministry this year.

Anyone with me?

Even with all of that I would not take back or wish this year was different from a ministry standpoint (yes from a health and wellness of people point of view, of course). Even though so much happened the amount of innovation, creativity, forced engineering of online services and more, we are FAR better off to reach more students for Jesus than we were before 2020. And I bet, if you look at your ministry now, you could say the same thing too.

Here are some things that have come out of this year that has set us up for the better:

• Online focus – Like everyone else, we had online as something that was on our list of things to get to but 2020 forced us to make it a priority. There was a time where we did 24 weeks straight of online only ministry. We were forced into it and had to come up with an online strategy in the matter of a few days. Everything went to online because we had to. Now moving forward, even wit meeting again, we are keeping online a main priority. Even to the point of hiring a full time youth lead to own it and make it happen.
• Put our money where our mouth is with small groups – I have always said in trainings, “If we only could do one thing, it would be small groups” and while we were online only, small groups were really the only thing we could do. So we had to move and shake and rally our leaders to have them take ownership of their groups to continue to minister to their students… and they did in a big way. They did in such a way that most of our leaders have changed up how they minister because they have seen how much intentionality goes in youth ministry.
• YouTube engagement – YouTube before al this was at 8 subscribers. We just passed 700 now which is awesome. You can see it HERE. But with going online not only would we put our service and messages on there, we came up with fun bits, challenging conversations and videos to be engaging for students. This is something even as we are back we have made a priory in our ministry as we move on.
• Intentional training with leaders – It’s not like we were not intentional before, but we have become like… really intentional and have come up with some great systems in order to make sure they continue to do so in the future. We came up with EASY WINS and a FOLLOW UP SYSTEM for new students lead out by the leaders.
• TikTok – I mean, I’m old, and I ran and got out TikTok started and thankfully someone way cooler and younger has taken it over. But we know this is where our youth are and we started it this year in the pandemic and we have it high on our list for engagement in 2021. You can check it out HERE.
• A new studio – Out of all this, our entire church has rallied and invested into a full blown, legit studio for the church. It started as a makeshift one that was thrown up in 4 days from the awesome digital media team, but now it’s a real-life, professional studio that we just found out we will have for 2 full days a month to use as we wish to film all of our things. You can see an example of what we can do now moving forward HERE.
• Team buy in – I can say that leading during this time has never been harder. But when you go through something like this last year as a team, I can say there is a team dynamic that I would not change for the world. We all worked really hard, sometimes got frustrated, but rallied together to create some great content I am super proud of. And I can say we all had fun doing it and we are better off as a team for it. And I would not want to change that at all.

Even though this year could have been the worst on a ministry level, if you were to look back, I am sure you will find some great things that have come out from this year that will only better set up your ministry for the better in the months and years to come.

What would those be for you?

@justinknowles3

2021 marks 13 years in student ministry and, in so many ways, the last year has made me feel like I’m in year one all over again! There has been so much to learn and so much to adjust for, it has been exhilarating and exhausting all at the same time.  

2021 looks to be another year of adjustment as many will look to get back to the normal we had before 2020. The normal gatherings. The normal trips. The normal events. The norms we had when things were consistent and planned and we could expect what was coming in 30 days; the next 3 months; even the next 9 months of a school year.  

But if there is anything that I have learned or reflected on from 2020 it is this: perhaps the way we were doing things may have not been the best way to do those things. That until we are forced to consider a different way, we will most likely revert to the comfortable way. 

2020 taught us that while different might be more difficult to start, it may be more effective to reach your ultimate end goal. The question is did we learn from 2020 to set us up for a more fruitful, more effective, and more kingdom-focused 2021? 

I’m not sure what circles you run in or what conversations you have been having about student ministry in recent years, but I have been a part of so many discussions revealing new modes, new models, and new structures for doing student ministry. Ideas that break the mold of what has been considered “normal” and, at face value, seemed to be super challenging to shift into and establish as our normal. 

But 2020 released us to try stuff that has not been normal to us. 2020 forced us to consider what truly empowering and trusting volunteers truly means. 2020 caused us to leverage social media in new ways that we hadn’t attempted ever before. 2020 reminded us of the value and the essential nature of deep, authentic community in the lives of students. 

And 2020 did this by rattling our “normal” like a Boston Terrier trying to get out of their cage when you come home from work. Ok, that wasn’t the best illustration, but I thought the picture of a silverback gorilla breaking out of their enclosure might not be the best either. 

Regardless of what 2020 altered or forced into your student ministry, I hope that you learned from it. I hope that you gained perspective from it. And if you haven’t had time to learn from it, stop and reflect today! 

For me, there was one main theme of learning for me. There was one strand that kept permeating the surface and it’s quite simple: Normal isn’t worth going back to if New is better going forward. 

If normal wasn’t working the best, why would we go back to it if new has opened our eyes to something better? If normal was mainly catering to our comfort then why wouldn’t we stick with the new that more concretely creates opportunities for growth for students? 

 Trust me. 2020 is not the year that I will look back on and recall it as the banner year of ministry for me. But we did some things in 2020 that we had to do because of 2020 and it will make us better for 2021 and beyond.  

So, in order to avoid writing a blog post of epic length, I have broken things up into a few parts. Learnings and a few things we altered in three major areas of our ministry that I think has helped our student ministry be better.  

I don’t come from a huge church with a massive budget and multiple staff. So, for much of what I learned, it was a shift in my own personal approach to these things. They were shifts that had to be sustainable for me if I wasn’t going to burn out and find myself loathing the work that was placed before me. 

So, here’s what’s coming up: 

Part 2: Make Leaders the Lifeblood 

Part 3: Dig into something Digital 

Part 4: Capture the power of authentic Community 

These are just my findings. I would love to hear yours. What has 2020 taught you and what are you going to do differently in 2021 because of those learnings? 

Geoff Cocanower is a husband, a son, and the Associate Pastor of Student Ministries at Hope Missionary Church in Bluffton, IN where he leads the team of adults who minister to high school students as well as young adults. In addition to contributing to the DYM blog, Geoff co-hosts a podcast focused on the issues, questions, and blessings of leaders who aren’t in the driver seat of the organization called The Backseat Leadership Podcast. Interesting fact about Geoff is that he is a high school football and volleyball referee in his spare time and is a legacy member and loves all things DYM. You can find Geoff online here!