This is one of my favorite mantras. I have long felt that it fits with the Student Minister lifestyle. Going from event to event requires a healthy perspective. One that will assure that you give the event, or project, your best.

After spending two weeks at our Youth Camps, I’m putting together some conversation threads about our post-pandemic progress in Student Ministry.

Have you ever given serious thought to not having youth camp? Most haven’t. It is a conversation that we had at one point in my career and considered pulling it from the summer schedule. After much thought and intense conversation, we continued having an annual youth camp.

Here are a few of the things we learned in the process:

Before you get too far into the summer, take a moment to pray, dream, and journal. If you review this weekly, you will experience additional joy in a very busy season.

In the scope of a Youth Ministry calendar year, we tend to sprint during the summer when the stakes are the lowest. It is hardest to reach students when they are scattered. If you can’t adjust your expectations, then you may run out of energy and resources during the summer and miss the best opportunity you have to reach students—the Fall.

Now more than ever it is time to experiment in your ministry. If you have been preoccupied with getting back to business as usual, then give yourself a much-needed break.

Ministry is in a rebuilding/rethinking process and it may take several attempts to find a new course for your ministry. Be prepared to focus and be persistent. Take notes and when you start to get traction then learn to scale your ministry to the next level.

This summer will be full of surprises. Unlike other summers - excluding 2020 - there will be opportunities for enrichment for you and your students that you never dreamed possible.

To that end, consider the following five ideas for enriching your summer:

You are ready to go for Senior Sunday except for maybe a few details, some errands, and of course, the annoying last-minute text wondering if it is too late to turn in information.

So, I hesitate to be an interruption to your well-oiled machine, but I’ve been thinking about something that I wanted to bounce off of you.