Youth Ministry Hacks Archives - Page 9 of 16 - Blog

18 Jul 2022

Recruiting Youth Ministry Volunteers

By Ronald|2022-07-18T13:26:16-07:00July 18th, 2022|Volunteers, Youth Ministry Hacks, Youth Ministry Ideas|3 Comments

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard someone say, “I can’t get any volunteers. I put it in the bulletin. I put it in the newsletter. We’ve asked from the pulpit. No one cares about working with our youth.”

The truth is that many people just don’t feel equipped to work with youth. I’ve always found this perplexing since I’ve always loved working with teenagers, but the average churchgoer feels either intimidated or not cool enough or young enough to work with middle or high school students.

The good news is I feel that some simple but effective tactics can yield really amazing volunteers for your ministry. Here are some simple but proven effective tips for volunteer recruitment:

Ask your current volunteers to recruit.

I’ve even gone so far as to ask everyone at a volunteer meeting to come back the next month with at least one person they are willing to personally recruit for youth ministry. A personal ask is always better than a broad plea, and people love to serve with their friends. Plus, your current volunteers will love to have some influence on who they’ll be working with!

Ask your senior pastor or minister to adults for names.

It is my humble opinion that the pastors who are ministering to adults should be the best people to identify adults in your congregation who may be willing to serve in your ministry. This can also help to coordinate with other ministries and make sure that you’re not asking the same 10% of adults to do 100% of the volunteer work in your church.

Ask parents.

Not everyone agrees that parents should be volunteers, but honestly, research tells us that students who see their parents practice their faith are more likely to become faithful adults. My guess is your ministry has loads of jobs you could use help with, from administrative to logistics to more student-facing roles. The parents of your ministry have incredible gifts and you should be using them.

Ask early.

In my experience, people are more likely to say yes in the winter and spring for the following school year. The summer is almost impossible to communicate with folks, and fall is too late! This also allows you to snag commitments before another ministry poaches all your prospects. Mostly, it gives the potential volunteer time to pray and discern whether youth ministry is the right fit!

Offer training!

The National Day of Volunteer Training is Sept 24, 2022 and is a super affordable way to train all your volunteers in one day. Your church can host or sign up to attend at another church. Your local denomination probably offers something annually or can offer you a list of local experts who will come to your church to offer training. Sometimes local seminaries will offer a training series. Create your own training program with some of your veteran volunteers. Your volunteers will feel empowered and will be more excited to serve with you when they feel confident and prepared.

Ansley has served in youth ministry for two decades and holds a certificate of Youth and Theology from Princeton Theological Seminary. She loves the relational aspect of youth ministry as well as helping equip adults and students to lead. Ansley lives on her family’s beef cattle farm in Virginia with her husband and two young sons (and, sadly, no llamas).

See more from this DYM author here.

6 Jul 2022

How To Be Best Prepped For Summer Camp As A Leader

By Justin Knowles|2022-07-07T10:40:30-07:00July 6th, 2022|Leadership, Training, Youth Ministry Hacks|4 Comments

Let’s pretend we already have all the physical and logistical things ready for summer camp. You’re packed. Planning Center is locked in. Transportation is a go. As a leader, how do you ensure you are prepped to minister through summer camp?

It’s easy to get bogged down by the details and prep before, but it’s important for us as leaders to be prepped personally for summer camp ourselves.

Are you spiritually ready?

Have you stopped and prayed? Prayed for the camp, your leaders, and students. Not the ones you did in meetings, but you personally, on your own time, with no one watching, prayed it up and gave it to God. For example, the other day, I scrolled through the entire camp roster and prayed over all the names. Simple, but I deem it powerful. We can fall into the trap that what happens at camp can depend on our work, but the real work can only be done by the Holy Spirit. Spend some time alone as you approach camp and get spiritually ready.

Are you mentally ready?

I don’t know if you know this, but ministry is taxing on the mind. Ha! I think it’s important to make sure you do whatever you need to do before camp to get your mind in a spot where you can take on whatever you need. We leave this Saturday. Friday morning, I’m going golfing. I always feel in a good mental spot after I get alone and spend a few hours talking to no one. What is it for you? It’s important to know.

Are you physically ready?

I don’t mean are you ready to dominate in rec games. I mean, are you rested? I know the excuse is there is too much to do before, but we need to make sure we are on a full tank going into camp because once we are there, we are waking up early to make sure kids get to breakfast, late nights talking and hanging, running around doing rec, it’s nonstop. If we are not careful, we will run out of juice towards the end. I cannot minister with grace as easily when I’m on empty. I get snippy and annoyed. I want to give my best the whole time.

Are you servant ready?

The mistake is falling into that camp is about you and your preferences. We all fall into it at some point. The food, the beds, the walk, the program, the songs… all, if not careful, can become distractions to our servant-hearted intentions for going to camp as a leader in the first place. We are leaders at camp to serve our kids and set up an atmosphere where they can know Jesus better and more intimately. Don’t let your preferences detour your heart.

Because we all know something happens at camp. Jesus tends to move in mighty ways. We get a front-row seat to life change. And we get to help play a small part.

Are you ready?

Justin Knowles

1 Dec 2021

Pro Lock-In

By Ronald|2021-12-01T12:16:27-08:00December 1st, 2021|Leadership, Youth Ministry Hacks|2 Comments

All-Nighters take me out for days. Sore muscles, foggy brain, exhausted body. Is it worth it?

I remember years ago reading a survey of thousands of teens from youth groups around the country; when it came to popular fun events, all-nighters were ahead of the competition by a landslide. Based on my experience, the results would be the same today if they did that survey again. And it makes sense; think back to when you were thirteen, fifteen years old – being able to say you stayed up all night was exciting, it was cool, it was something to brag to your friends about. It was a sort of test of endurance.

Why is it worth it? These events are over the top and exciting for adolescents. They’re cool, and the critical ministries we want kids in week after week become cool by association. Teens may not think of it in terms like that, but the over the top events like retreats and all-nighters do create a reputation of being the place to be – I want teens bragging to their friends about the events we do, I want them posting on their social media about it. All-nighters are an investment, both financially and physically, in our Wednesday night small groups and Sunday morning large group ties.

Here’s the thing, we do that same kind of attractional event for adults, don’t we? Concerts, picnics, holiday parties – we may use language like fellowship to explain their value, but at the core it’s the same, isn’t it? Our church becomes exciting to our adult crowd in part because of these concerts, picnics and parties. They may not be spelled out in the Bible, but we see the Biblical value in doing them. The same is true of all-nighters.

They’re not just about fun, there is real, ongoing value to doing them. They are a powerful investment in the critical ministry that happens in our small groups and Sunday mornings.

Matthew and Heather have been in full time youth ministry for twenty years. They have four sons ranging from 13 to 20 years old, which means the majority of their time is spent buying food and replacing broken furniture. You can find Matthew’s writing, resources, and podcast, on his website, www.MatthewMcNutt.com.

14 Oct 2021

Students, Pastors, and Cell Phones

By Ronald|2021-10-14T13:23:12-07:00October 14th, 2021|Leadership, Youth Ministry Hacks, Youth Pastor Life|8 Comments

Students have cell phones. If they don’t yet, they probably will by Christmas. It can be a great way to communicate with them directly, but it can also be an overwhelming tide of communication. 3 am memes, anyone?

Setting some ground rules and boundaries for how you reach out to students is a great way to put safeguards around yourself and the students you communicate with! Here are some suggestions:

Have designated “off” time! Set a 9 am to 9 pm boundary for replies. Did they text at 11 pm? Unless it’s a BIG emergency, it can wait until the morning.
No more than a few texts. Use only as a way to briefly check-in or ask about something. If the thread is turning into something they want to have a conversation about, find a time to meet in person to talk about it. See if they can come early or stay a little later after your usual meeting.
Avoid phone calls. Having a written record equates to the “have more than one person in the room while interacting” rule. It also helps to make sure you prioritize conversations for in-person times.
Make sure your phone number is accessible to everyone, not just a few. Be willing to give it out to anyone. Be clear with rule number one from the get-go.
Ask students for their numbers. If you need the student’s number but can’t find a good time to ask them, ask their parent so that they are in the loop. Parents should know that you are contacting the student! Another way is asking if another student can text a student about something. This could be a great way to serve!

Do you have any boundaries or ideas for contacting students? Let us know!

Kayla Feil

Kayla is the Director of Children, Youth and Family Ministry at Faith Lutheran Church in Glen Ellyn, IL. Along with her role, she is currently attending Luther Seminary to get her MA in Children, Youth and Family Ministry. When she isn’t at church or writing papers, you can find her practicing yoga, running, or adventuring around Chicago!

16 Sep 2021

Are You Proactive Or Reactive With Parents?

By Justin Knowles|2021-09-15T20:11:04-07:00September 16th, 2021|Leadership, Parents, Small Groups, Volunteers, Youth Ministry Hacks|13 Comments

It really is interesting how many parents drop off their students and never meet the people they are dropping off their student to be with for two hours a week. It’s also really interesting for how many leaders have not reached out to know parents of their students.

We have an incredible opportunity to not only minister to our students, but their families as well.

We all have heard stories of students who first started coming to church, got saved and then their families started to attend as well. When we are intentional with our students families, we can really partner with parents/guardians because they are with their students the other 166 hours during the week compared to our 2-3 hours.

This is why in this season we have been really challenging those who lead small groups to be intentional about reaching out to, not just the student, but their families as well. We should be making the first move. We want to be proactive in making the first connection.

Here is the ask of our leaders: Make one connection per week with one family.

If you go on Yelp and look at reviews, most of the time you will see the negative ones. Why? Because when things are good, people don’t really write reviews because they don’t think about it. No one talks to the manager at a store when things are going well. People only tend to write reviews when they have a bad experience. People only ask to speak to a manger when something is wrong.

Same with parents. It could be all good and no one will say anything but far too often we are reactive with parents. When something happens, thats when we make the first connection with them. We are already starting in the negative.

When we are proactive, we can start to build relational equity, build up the positive and IF something goes down, we already know the parents/guardians. It will not only set your ministry up better but your volunteers to win with the families as well.

What could this look like?

For some families, they might come to church, so just physically meeting them and knowing their name and getting their cell phone number would be a win.
For some, just letting their parents know how awesome their kid is after group or through email throughout the week. Parents love to hear how awesome their kids are.
For some, you might be close to their family and be invited to dinners. Do it. Any time you can be with the family, it’s a good thing.
Take 30 seconds and send them a text asking how they are and how you can pray for them specifically. You will be amazed how simple and powerful that is.
Shoot an email updating them on what conversations and group has been like (obviously keeping the confidence of your students) but parents love to be in the know.
Connect with the parents/guardians via social media. Most of GenZ parents have it. It could be an easy way to share a story or make a connection with them.

As we have been pushing this with our small group leaders it’s been awesome to see the proactive relationships blossoming.

@justinknowles3

26 Aug 2021

Prepare for Next Year’s Promotion Now!

By Ronald|2021-08-26T06:57:57-07:00August 26th, 2021|Leadership, Youth Ministry Hacks, Youth Ministry Ideas|1 Comment

I don’t know when you promote your students into the next grade. It may be right before summer starts so your new students get the “full on” summer ministry experience.

It may be right before school starts so that you can have students really dive into school with their new youth group buddies.

Or you may do it somewhere in the middle.

No matter what time you start your change over, you’re probably like me and notice a big student leadership vacuum during the first few months after the promotion happens.

Maybe your senior class was SUPER involved and heavily led the worship band. Maybe your eighth graders basically ran your tech booth for the middle school ministry, but now they’re high school students and oops, no one is there to run the computer.

This year things went smoother than in years past, so I wanted to take time to think about what led to that and how we can make this magical thing where students immediately step into leadership roles happen each year (or at least give it our best effort).

Give students SPECIFIC jobs.

Katie Edwards said she wanted to make sure everyone in her ministry had a clear, specific, one page job description. I spent some time looking over ours this year. They definitely needed some re-working!

Make sure your student leaders know EXACTLY what they are supposed to do. When should they show up? What should they do while they serve? How do they help at the end of the ministry time? What does a win look like?

If you can answer these questions, students will know their job and be able to do it well. This is HUGE for a student who will still be with you the year AFTER you promote. Even though they leaders ahead of them are gone, they know what their role is.

Show students their value.

I really tried this last year to highlight when our students were serving. This helped not only encourage the students who were doing a great job, but also showed students who WEREN’T serving that they could.

Do this from the stage. Do this with your emails. Show students after they serve how much you appreciate their service. Make a big deal out of it!

If students see serving as valuable, they’ll look at it as something worth their time.

Celebrate wins. Correct misses.

Whenever something goes right, we don’t hardly celebrate it. I’m trying to change that in our ministry. I want to let students know WHAT they did well and THAT they did well. I want to make a big deal out of things going right! I haven’t been great at this in the past, but I’m working on it.

Also, I really don’t like conflict or rocking the boat. So I really haven’t been great at showing students where they could improve when they “missed” during a service opportunity. Like showing up fifteen minutes late, or not cleaning up after the event.

I want students to know that they got it right and help them when they don’t. This way they can understand that they are doing their job how it needs to be done!

So here are some questions for you as you think about NEXT YEAR’S promotion season. It’s closer than you think!

Who are your leaders now that your leaders have moved up?

Who could be developed?

How can you identify new students to take on new roles?

How can you encourage students who have stepped into the vacuum?

What else could you add?

23 Jun 2021

Find a New Way to Count

By Ronald|2021-06-23T14:25:30-07:00June 23rd, 2021|Youth Ministry Hacks|7 Comments

The number of students we have since reopening is different than before.

I bet that’s the same for you too. Whether it’s more or less, you’re probably in a weird “new normal” territory.

My own group is seeing a smaller group than before. Rather than getting defeated by the number of students who are currently coming, I’m trying to count them in a different way. I want to report to my pastor how things are going and that’s what these different ways of counting help me do!

I could spend a long time explaining that we USED to have this many on a Sunday in student ministry, but realistically, the whole church has changed. So the way I count needs to change too.

Find the percentage!

How many people attended your big worship service? Of that group, what percent of that number were students in your weekly program?

If you’ve got 200 people in “big church” and 20 students attending weekly youth ministry, that’s 10% of your attendance. I’ve heard that’s a healthy youth group statistic. You might even run the percent of adults in small groups and kids in kids ministry to have some comparisons.

Counting this way helps you see if your youth ministry is matching your church’s comeback pace or if you’re possibly ahead of it!

What’s your Four Week Average?

Take the amount of students you’ve had for the past four meetings and divide by four.

Then, next week, take off the last week and add the newest, but keep that running average for your records. This way you can see if you are trending up or down over a month period. Say your attendance numbers were 19, 18, 22, and 20. Then your 4 week average is 19.75. What did you do with 3/4’s of a student!?

What if next week, you had 26! Then your four weeks are 18, 22, 20, and 26. Now your average is 21.5! You found half a student! This way of counting lets you see if you are being consistent with your attendance, but it doesn’t reflect on “the good ole days” four years ago.

Keep it mind, holidays might make this number way high or way low.

Not Just Attendance

Find out how many students are serving your church during the week. Are they greeting at doors? Helping with kids? Setting up the worship center? This number is great because it shows that your student ministry goes beyond your basement room (or wherever you meet!).

Show your pastor that your youth are INVOLVED. This is great.

Is there another way you can help keep track of your students this year rather than looking back at the time before COVID and lockdowns and pandemics?

Let’s hear them!

Ronald

2 Jun 2021

Plan Your Talks in a Crockpot

By Ronald|2021-06-02T11:08:07-07:00June 2nd, 2021|Youth Ministry Hacks|0 Comments

Sermons that nourish require slow cooking.

– Kent Anderson

You may be the person who plans an entire year’s worth of talks without blinking an eye (by purchasing them on DYM!). Or you may be pretty sure what you’re going to talk on next Wednesday night sometime on Tuesday. Or somewhere in-between.

If you’re a youth pastor who wants to write your own messages, let me challenge you to think about how you go about writing a series in a new way!

Instead of only looking at the youth ministry talk you’re doing next, look at the series as a whole. Or if you’re teaching through a book of the Bible, look at the entire book all at once!

This way, you get a better sense of what each talk will be and how they fit into the whole series.

Have you ever finished a talk and thought “Oh man, I should have told THIS story because it would have helped me set up next week!” Well, the “crock-pot” method will help!

Here’s what I do:

I look at the series I’m going to be teaching. Like this summer we’re doing a study on Joseph. So we’ll be studying Genesis 37-45.

Then I borrowed (aka, stole) Doug Field’s method of teaching:

Pain: Why should they listen to me?

Passage: What does God say?

Point: What’s the BIG idea?

Path: What do I want them to do when they leave?

For each part of this four part teaching method, I fill out a quick sentence or two as I’m reading the whole story of Joseph from the Bible. This helps me outline the WHOLE series. There’s a lot I’ll fill in or change during the week of the message, but this way I’m already thinking of where I want to land on Week 7 of our series even when I’m writing Week 1.

The Passage section is always where I focus a lot of time. But as I’m reading the Passage, I see where the Pain is, where the Point is, and what the Path should be.

Plus, during the summer, with VBS week, mission trips, and other crazy events, having my talk outlined a week (or several weeks!) ahead of time gives me the chance to be ahead of schedule instead of scrambling to catch up when I roll in from a vacation on Saturday night.

What do you think? Would preparing a series like this help you out?

Let me know!

Ronald

20 Apr 2021

One Main Reason Why We Doubled Last Year

By Justin Knowles|2021-05-17T16:41:34-07:00April 20th, 2021|Leadership, Podcast, student leadership, Youth Ministry Hacks|119 Comments

This is not a quick fix thing or something you do tomorrow and everything will change type thing. This is something we started in the fall fo 2019 and has taken a year to catch and we have seen it take off. It’s something we probably get asked about more than anything else.

And we saw our ministry doubled because of it. At least, this was what I think was one of the main reasons why.

If you talk with most students about the idea of what evangelism is, most students find it overwhelming. How do we go out and tell all of our friends about Jesus who don’t know who He is? Most students think they need to be bold and stand in the middle of their quad at school and start preaching the gospel in the middle of lunch. Or they think they need to be able to speak from stage. Or they believe they need to stand on a corner and do some street evangelism. Sounds overwhelming.

When it comes to this simple idea of “who is your one”? It breaks down this really big concept of evangelism for students into something way more doable and way more realistic in their minds… and let’s be honest, way more effective.

I would say, if I had to pick one thing to see the growth our ministry has seen over the last two years, the idea of “who is your one?” Has been one of the biggest keys.

What is it?

“Who is your one” is this idea that each student who believes in Jesus is really intentional about, caring for, reaching out to a friend they already have who they know does not believe in Jesus.

This is not original all to me, it’s Biblical and I even really started to grasp and implement it at my last church, but we have seen it take off at Sandals Church Youth.

Even if you think about your own friend group, you know someone you already have a relationship with and they don’t know Jesus. The idea is that you would spend time with them, be there for them, let them know you are praying for them, invite them to church, talk to them about faith or lack of faith and just be a good friend to them.

All in hopes they would know you and your faith and because of your relationship with them they see your relationship with Jesus and want it as well.

If you look at Jesus, there were many times he called out people and wanted to spend time with them one on one, inviting himself over to their house for food and just to be around people who were “not like him”. It’s a much more relational approach to evangelism that I believe students can get behind and function from.

This is way more doable when we can get students to understand that the best evangelism is done knee to knee and eye to eye in relationship. A student who has a friend they already know and are friends with with the intentionality of inviting them to a 1st Wednesday or a real community of a small group is a great combo and strategy to show who Jesus is about.

We have seen when students grasp this concept and have just one person they focus on loving and caring for and praying for all year in hopes they know Jesus and get involved in church, it’s been so effective.

How did we make this a thing in our ministry?

We did a few things to make this a big deal and I will let you know up front… it takes some time and it takes repetition.

We did a whole vision series at the beginning of the school year (you can go to move.sc/youth to SCY and We Are SCY to go back and watch) which set up these big concepts of why we want to focus on them this year and challenge our students what to do in regards to 1st Wednesdays and Who Is Your One?
At the end of that series we made little business cards with “My one is __________” on them so they filled it out and they got to keep it so they can see it every day and they gave another one to the small group leader for accountability.
We had training about those very things at the beginning of our school with our leaders to help them understand how they can help their students in their small groups.
We added an update of “How are you doing with your one?” In the curriculum that all small groups go through at least every other week for the first year.
We told and shared stories from all our campuses of someone’s “one” coming to church and getting involved in small groups and starting a relationship with Jesus. Stories are powerful and we should have back pocket stories ready to share at any moment.
Celebrate students and leaders who take this on and do it well. Celebrate them personally but also publicly. Everyone wants to be celebrated and what gets celebrated gets repeated.
At some point during every service, “Who is your one?” Needs to make an appearance. How you set culture is that everyone needs to hear it all the time and needs to be reinforced over and over for people to gab onto it and make it a part of the culture of your ministry.

I really do believe taking this concept and giving students a chance to really own it has changed the way we approach this idea of reaching students who don’t know Jesus. Because let’s face it, students are better at reaching other students. They are better at reaching their own friends then we are. But we can do our best to set them up well to do so and help them feel a burden for their un-churched friends in hopes they have a passion to reach them in the name of Jesus.

The cool thing about “who is your one” is that in reality, you don’t need a building, you don’t need a huge event, you don’t need to be cool or anything like that. You have a friend who is being intentional and has a burden and you provide a safe atmosphere where students feel comfortable to invite friends because they know it’s going to worth it if they show up. Community and relationship is powerful and we have the opportunity to show them the best relationship of all with Jesus.

@justinknowles3

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17 Mar 2021

Untie Your Shoes!

By Ronald|2021-03-22T09:00:16-07:00March 17th, 2021|Youth Ministry Hacks|3 Comments

Like most mid-thirties guys, I’m thinking about being healthy.

One of the way I try to do my part to be eating pizza and drinking coke until I’m 70 and the grandfather of the youth group is by working out. And also, eating less pizza and drinking less coke.

I go to a class because people get me motivated. I’m not much for working out by myself.

Usually, I’m rushing to the gym in order to make the class in time and something I am ALWAYS fighting with is rushing to untie my shoes.

No matter what I’m wearing that day, be it tennis shoes because I’ve got an event later on or dress shoes because I need to look presentable to a parent, I change my shoes to work out. In my mad dash to get ready to do something healthy and important, I find myself slowed up by the fact that I just quickly tore off my shoes when I was done with my last workout without bothering to untie them.

Then it hit me.

What if I just untied my shoes when I’m leaving the gym?

That way, I save myself the rush and the agony of being late (again) to class!

The same idea can save us a lot of stress in ministry. There are lots of “small things” that we can do to help us get organized, prepare ourselves for the next day of ministry and keep us from rushing around when we could be spending time with students.

Here are some of the things I thought I might do.

Contact the new student before I leave for the night

I don’t want any student to feel like they aren’t connected to the group. So, after I get a student to fill out our connection card (DYM has a great one of these!), I go ahead and send them an email before I leave.

https://www.downloadyouthministry.com/p/student-information-card/admin-tools-3602.html

I’m notorious about forgetting things like this and I don’t want to be. If I save it for tomorrow, I may forget it all together. So before I leave for the night, I want to email, text, or contact the new students before I go.

Bonus points for having an email already written that you can change out the names or add a quick personal message at the top!

Get my desk ready for the next day

I want to rush out and head home as soon as the “work day” is over. Whatever time of day or night that might be. But I often find that when I return to the biohazard that is my desk, I spend the first bit of my morning trying to remember what in the world was going on before I left.

I am MUCH more efficient when I come into my office with a clean desk and a list of the things I need to get started on waiting for me. It usually only takes about five minutes to do this as I’m leaving and it’s SO worth the effort the next day.

Create a folder for “next year’s event” when I’m planning “this year’s event”

This was huge for me. While in the thick of the event, I find myself thinking of “Next year we should totally do this!” or “Wow, that was a bust. We shouldn’t do that ever again.”

When I have a folder on my computer or a note on my phone of all these ideas, it’s great when I want to plan the next “St Patrick’s Day Snake BBQ” and see that it was actually way better when I had the list of people who volunteered last time and tips for keeping the snakes at bay in my “Next time” folder.

These are a few ways I “untie” my shoes in student ministry to help prepare for the next day, next event, or next task.

What else would you add to this list?