Last week put up PART 1 (CLICK HERE) about how to dissect and take a good hard look at your ministry in order to make it better and better. Going through these questions with your team, volunteers, or students will change how you go through your ministry.

Check out part 2 below:

People – This is the people you lead who make ministry happen. It doesn’t matter if you have 2 volunteers, 20 volunteers or 200 of them, we need to make sure we lead them well if we want to maximize our ministry to the full. I have loved (and have kept this language myself) what Doug Fields says about small group leaders. They are the pastors. We might have the title of youth pastor, but our leaders are the pastors. They are the ones with students week in and week out. It’s our responsibility to make sure they have clear vision, they know what a win is, and they are taken care of. 

  • How clear is your vision? Can your leaders repeat it back to you?
  • Do your leaders know what a win is for them in your ministry? If they do “these things” they know they are being successful. 
  • 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? Great leaders want more. They want purpose. 
  • Who do we need to recruit to jump on our team this year?
  • Do our leaders know how to walk someone through accepting Jesus on their own?
  • How many leaders do you have right now? How many leaders to you need just to sustain what you have?
  • How many leaders do you need before you can grow to the next level?
  • If your leaders were to be spending as much time with students as you are with them, would they be discipled well?

Processes – These are the systems you have in place that help you do ministry well. This is using whatever tools your church may have for communication, assimilation, or operations. For example, we use Church Community Builder for our database in which we process volunteers, follow up with new students, and take attendance in small groups. 

  • What church software do you use to help you with your processes? Are you using it to the best of its ability? If not, who can you set up a meeting with to learn it better?
  • Is the process of how you onboard new volunteers effective?
  • Does that process train and set the leader culture along the way?
  • Do you have a system for following up with new students to make sure they don’t fall through the cracks?
  • Do you only keep track of attendance? What are some other measurable markers you can have to see if your ministry is healthy? (1st time decisions, baptisms, how many kids are serving, etc.)
  • When a student makes a decision to follow Jesus, what happens after that?
  • How do you communicate with your team? With your students? With parents? Is it the best way to do that?

I know this seems like a bunch of questions and this seems time consuming to you… and you would be right. But it’s worth it. Before you can even move forward and begin to write out your own playbook, you have to sit down and go through these questions honestly. You have to address the current state of your ministry right now before you can really take practical steps forward. 

I am sure there are better questions to ask or to add, but these are the ones I have wrestled with to help me assess the ministries I took over this last year and helped us take the next step to the next level.

@justinknowles3