A few months ago, Smarter Youth Ministry started doing some pretty significant research into the youth ministry world. Specifically, I wanted to know... How much time do we spend with students? What we learned was fascinating. 1. We spend 44% of our time in front of a computer. 2. 21% of us spend less than 10% of our time with our students. Take a look, and then leave a comment to let me know what you think of this snapshot of youth ministry.
by Aaron Helman | @aaronhelman | loading comments... Today I'm sharing the strategy we used to finally break through with those overcommitted students. You know the ones. They play sports and instruments, make good grades, work part-time. They are busier than ever and there are more of them than ever too. What's a youth pastor to do? I feel like I spent the last ten years trying to find out, and then... Getting through to those over-scheduled, hyper-involved students turned out to be easier than I thought. A psychologist would call these students 'achievers.' They do many things and do them well, and usually it's at the prodding of their parents. It's easy for youth workers to struggle with these kinds of students. They have time for forty hours of swim practice every week, but still can't find an hour a month to show up for youth group. Bummer. But there's also good news. Those achievers like to be involved, and when they find something that captures their interest, they jump in with both feet. In short, they're hardwired for a deep and meaningful faith. The trouble is getting them there, and we started to figure that out when we realized that we didn't have an answer to this one question:
Why would someone who didn't know God sacrifice their Sunday morning to worship Him?
You could ask the same question about Sunday afternoon or Wednesday night or whenever your primary program meets. We discovered students who were interested in our ministry and said they wanted to be involved, but then Sunday came... ...and they were nowhere to be found. Repeat that cycle every single week for ten years, and you have the recipe for the most frustrating element of my ministry career. Until the day when something clicked.
WHY DON'T THEY EVER SHOW UP?
For the past five years, I've been partnered with a performing group that rehearses a full-length musical, then tours the show across the East Coast. They perform at Boys and Girls clubs, YMCA's, inner-city schools. They rehearse in our building, pray before each of their gatherings, and best of all, I get to talk to them about Jesus. Every year, I invite them to join us, and every year several of them indicate that they will, or at least that they want to. But in the last FIVE years, exactly ONE student has become a part of our ministry as a result of his participation in the group. That's not a good ratio, but at least there's good reason. These students are achievers. They make excellent grades, they each participate in multiple musical productions all year, they sing in choirs and play in bands. These are students who don't even know the meaning of the word 'weekend.' Sometimes they rehearse for as many as twelve hours on Saturdays and eight hours on Sunday afternoons. And there I was, trying to persuade them to plug one more thing into their schedules: I wanted them to come to church at 9:00 in the morning the same day they'd be rehearsing until well past 9:00 at night.
30 NEW WORSHIPPERS IN 30 DAYS. HOW?
It used to be that I'd show up about a half hour before rehearsal began. I'd bring a snack and say hello. This was my time to make myself familiar to them, and also when I would invite them to come back on a Sunday morning even if they never did. But then I did something a little crazy. I stopped inviting them to come back for worship later, and I started inviting them to worship with me right now. We brought a guitar and a hand drum. We sang songs and I shared a message. We built a little congregation. People who would have never showed up on a Sunday morning are worshiping with us every week, and why? Because we brought our program to them, when they were ready and wanting to do it, instead of making them jump through hoops to get it. There's such a Jesus precedent here that I almost can't believe I missed it for so long. Read through the Gospels and you'll see it. Jesus doesn't invite people to come hear truth later. He shares it with them right now.
It's such a simple idea that I'm sure you've ALREADY thought of a way you can use it in your own ministry. So go ahead and share this post with a friend, then tell me how you'll put it into practice this week.
by Aaron Helman | @aaronhelman | loading comments... I asked youth workers if they'd like less of their WORK stress to follow them HOME at the end of the day. 100% said enthusiastically, "YES!" But when I asked them what they were doing to make that happen... ...I received only a vacant sea of blank stares in return. The more I talked to these people, the more I realized one crazy, important truth about burnout. The most important reason that burnout creeps into our lives is because we allow it to creep into our lives. You probably already noticed that I haven't written very many words over at Smarter Youth Ministry in the last few weeks. That's because I've been on a paternity leave vacation, and vacation isn't vacation if you're working. Furthermore, since I work in youth ministry AND blog on youth ministry, writing a youth ministry blog feels an awful lot like work. I don't know about you, but I only get fifteen vacation days all year, and I certainly do not want to use those precious days... ...to do more work. You can ask anyone who's ever excelled at an endurance sport:
Sometimes the quality of your rest will dictate the quality of your work.
Truth is, most of us suck at resting. We check and respond to emails at stoplights because we can and because we're bored. We take our laptops on vacations. We pretend like Andy Stanley's books are the kinds of things we should be reading poolside during our spring getaway. And then we complain about how worn out we are even though we never make the decision to stop working for more than an hour. You understand how messed up that is, right?
STOP INVITING BURNOUT INTO YOUR LIFE TODAY.
There are several triggers that help burnout invade the intimate confines of our homes and families. My advice? Just don't do these things for the next two weeks, and then, if you're feeling less stress, keep on not doing them. If your stress doesn't diminish at all, feel free to come back and leave a comment to let me know how wrong I was. Don't check email at home. For two years during my ministry, I lived alone in a small house with no cable and no internet (and sometimes no furnace, but that's unrelated). During that time, people sent me emails during evenings and weekends, and I didn't read them until I got back to the office. This literally never caused a single problem. If you have a smartphone, I know how tempting it is to check email while you're waiting in line at the grocery store just because you're bored... ...but don't do it. You'll thank me later. Have a procedure for real emergencies. If there is a real emergency, and sometimes there are real emergencies, make sure you have a clear process for people to get through to you. It might be a specific phone number or some kind of text message code that you develop. Either way, make sure people understand what constitutes a real emergency and what doesn't constitute a real emergency. The stuff in the second category can wait. Leave your laptop charger at the office. I take my laptop home with me every night and will work on a few things in the evening after the kids go to bed. But if I'm doing more than a few hours of work, that's a problem. Leaving your laptop charger at work creates an automatic shut-down point where work stops and real rest begins. Encourage other leaders to set boundaries. If you expect your volunteers to always be able for phone calls, emails, problem-solving and conversation... ...it's fair of them to expect the same of you. Encourage your leaders to treat their families as their most important priority and they'll understand why you're doing the exact same thing.
DOES THIS REALLY WORK?
It does for me, and while I can't promise anything for you, I can tell you this: It's definitely worth a try. If you're burnt out, stressed out, worn out, or on your way out; take some time in the next two weeks to really rest. Don't cheat your rest and don't try to mix work into your rest. It's amazing what rest can do to counteract the problem of tired. Are you the person INVITING burnout to get into your life? Or are you actively working to evict it? Tell me all about it in a comment below. And as always, if you have a friend in youth ministry, send this post over to them right now. Leave a comment below > > >
