Youth ministries fail for a variety of reasons. Rarely will you see them fail because of a lack of competency. According to Patrick Lencioni, (Author of the Advantage) while competency is important, it’s not nearly as important as organizational health.
Organizational health is something every youth ministry (And church) needs to address. If people aren’t working well with one another, the ministry will fail. According to Patrick Lencioni, in order to have health you need to have:
- Cohesiveness: Make sure everyone is on the same page and working together. That means having trust and respect. When a team is cohesive they are able to approach any obstacle and rally around any issue.
- Clarity: Everything from the vision to systems need to be clear. This means making sure that people know the action steps and objectives that need to be approached. Clarity needs to surround your vision and it should bleed through the organization.
- Consistent Communication: Over communicating is what builds trust and leads to clarity. A healthy team is one who is sharing what’s on their minds and hearts. It’s a team that is honest and authentic with one another. To build the communication make sure that people are given a voice and that as a leader you are listening.
- Accountable: You need to make sure people are praised for what they do well. You also need to make sure people are being held to their commitments and goals. Creating an evaluation system is a key to this. When people encourage and challenge one another the health in the organization increases.
An organization that is healthy will grow in competency because everyone is pushing their team to grow. When a team is on the same page and working together for the same vision, no problem will be too big.
What other characteristics would you add to a healthy organization?
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