Dream teams, team dream.

The hectic pace of student ministry shifts from summer to fall, and now you have to be ready for the rogers of weekly programming.

As you prepare, I have two questions:

1. What are your expectations this year?

2. Will you do this alone?

Usually during the summer ministry you have the opportunity to witness God’s work in students up close and personal. And maybe you wonder, will this continue?

If it were to continue, what would it look like?

As you start to dream, start with some time with God. Seek God’s direction as you think and pray about the next year. I think this works best away from the office. Maybe in a place where you can go and know that you best experience God’s presence. Take a journal and commit your thoughts to print. When you are done, consider this sequence.

1. Put your journal away for one week. After one week, find a place where you can review your notes. Make additions. Clarify some of your notes or write new thoughts. After this, highlight the things that stand out to you.

2. Review your notes one last time, and before you leave this space, decide one person that you can share your dreams with. It doesn’t need to be all you have written. Choose some specific things that you would feel free to share.

3. Make an appointment and share your dreams with someone you trust within two weeks from the start date. Be vulnerable and ask this person to share their dreams for the student ministry, and ask them to commit to pray for you this semester.

4. Within the first four weeks of your dream session, schedule a time to share your dreams with your student ministry team. If you don’t have a team, then this is the place to start developing a team. Ask others to share their dreams. Plan regular meet ups to review your dream sessions, pray and celebrate.

Dream dreams. Share dreams. Celebrate dreams.

Building a Launch Strategy to Reach Students

Creating a launch strategy creates a rhythm for your Student Ministry where you can vision through leadership training and preparation. Here are a few simple steps to get the process started.

1. Dream, but not alone. It is hard for solo ministries to reach students. Dreaming with others creates ownership. Bring people together to hear your dreams and share theirs. Dreaming becomes contagious when it is shared.

2. Plan and give ownership. People respond differently when they have a sense of ownership. One of my early mentors taught me that the more volunteers you have in the process, the greater your reach.

3. Strategize by setting measurable goals and expectations. An easy way to look at this structure is in three parts.

   Run up strategy > event strategy > follow up strategy

   If you want to move the needle, focus on lead measures not lag measures. A lag measure would be a goal for how many people show up. A lead measure would be how many contacts you make. Lead measures become visionary while lag measures are the review mirror.

4. Stretch. Create a “can’t miss event” with a call to action during your launch for a future outreach event during the semester. I first tried this approach in launching a new sermon series for our church. We set a specific date far enough in advance where people could add it to their calendars. During the run up strategy we keep saying, this is a can’t miss event. On the day of the event, every person received a free themed tee shirt. After the event the extra shirts were put away.

   Note: a can’t miss event is something that is sharable and memorable. It is something people will talk about later or regret if they are not present. This is not easy, but with practice you will build a reliable reputation. 

   This stretch was costly but helped us build the reputation around a can’t miss event. One of the most effective events in my experience was when our Middle School minister planned a black out outreach event. He never shared details. For the run up strategy he said  be here, wear dark clothes. We hit a new attendance milestone that night. 

5. Evaluate. What did you learn? Check your measurements, Adjust and make notes for your next launch.

Using a launch strategy will engage your current students and give you the opportunity to share your overall outreach strategy. A big launch at the start of the Fall semester is consistently the best time. Other launch strategies could be in January or prior to a major Student Ministry event.

Are you ready for Senior Sunday?

Nothing gets me going like a good discussion with Youth Ministers about their Senior Sunday experiences.

There is every reason these should be good experiences, but it may be the most challenging event to pull off in Student Ministry. There is a high level of creativity, thought and tradition that goes into every Senior Sunday, and the margin of error is razor thin.

In order to keep a healthy perspective and make the most of what should be a celebration of students, consider this in your planning:

• Create a system for over communication about how to participate. Get feedback each year and make notes for next year.

• Get volunteers to do the heavy lifting. Some of this can be created through a tradition of succession. An example is involving the Junior Class each year in set up and serving.

• Keep perspective and genuinely celebrate those students that have remained consistent.

• Keep it simple and don’t overthink it year to year. Work to create memories outside of the event. Write notes, have a conversation, share your dreams for the student.

• Decompress. LIke all other big events, find a way that you can intentionally evaluate and recharge.

Youth Ministers are heroes and sometimes heroes take their shots. Keep shaping students to shape the world. We are cheering for you!

Deadlines Are Your Friend

I never met a deadline that I couldn’t ignore.

I have several decades now of bursting through deadlines. I consider myself a high level procrastinator and it’s not something I’m proud of although I’ve discovered that I’m not alone.

In order to leverage procrastination I’ve developed a few practices that help me stay on a more healthy track of productivity.

Create rhythms not lists.

I only recently discovered the importance of understanding our rhythms in regard to productivity.  When: the scientific secrets of perfect timing by Daniel Pink gave me a framework for creating intentional rhythms. I learned that I work best when my schedule is in rhythm.

Create self imposed deadlines.

When I was pastoring I decided to include an outline in the weekly program. I wasn’t necessarily a proponent of the practice, in fact, I found it distracting for good communication. I made the decision not for communication but for my discipline. Having my outline or a version of it for the weekly program meant I had to know what I was going to say by Wednesday at 5 PM. 

Review deadlines regularly with this practice.

Reviewing your deadlines regularly can be a daily, weekly or monthly practice. I discovered during one of my ministry transitions that you can pull off anything with a minimum of 6 weeks notice. 

Now, I look at my calendar 6 weeks out. I do this every week and then the last week of the month I will do a more detailed dive into my calendar and push it out 8 weeks. This keeps important deadlines in view. 

Do you have a special productivity hack to help you with deadlines? Please share by emailing me at shapingstudents@gmail.com .

Note: we use affiliate links and receive a commission for purchases. 

Spring Planting and Spring Planning

I like gardening, I’m just not very good at it. The reason? I don’t have a plan.

Gardeners are in their season right now. They have planned, ordered, tilled and got everything ready to reap a summer harvest.

The planting model is a good one for us to follow in good planning for Youth Ministry. I have always used Spring Break as the trigger for drilling down on my plans for the remainder of the spring and for summer.

As a procrastinator I need these reminders to give me a check on my progress. I have several checkpoints throughout the year that at least let me know how far behind I am.

With a little accountability, I’m able to push through these triggers and get things on track.

So, enjoy your Spring Break but when your break is over dig in and get it done.

If you would like to know more about our rhythm process email me at shapingstudents@gmail.com.

Sabbatical Moments

Everyone needs to experience a sabbatical in some form. While the concept is usually associated with a longer period of time, the value is understanding the underlying principles and striving to create those moments in your rhythm.

Start by asking yourself, “when is the best time for me to experience sabbatical moments?”

You may create sabbatical moments daily, weekly, monthly or annually. The goal is to intentionally schedule these moments with purpose.

Most organizations that offer sabbaticals require a proposal with a description of your intended activity and goals.

Google founders created a sabbatical concept with their 20% rule. This rule allowed employees to spend 20% of their work time on personal projects. The purpose was to encourage creativity and innovation, to help employees develop new skills.

Clearing the mind of work opened up their minds to refreshment and innovation.

Using these guidelines, explore what a sabbatical experience would like in your rhythm. Ask yourself, “when is the best time to …….?” and fill in the blank for what you would like to accomplish. Then, schedule it.

Evaluate your experience and start working on your next sabbatical moment. With each experience you will learn what works best for you. You will grow and face your work with more energy, clarity and intent.

A Hard Reset For Your Ministry

In part two of the visioning process you want to create a system where you occasionally perform a hard reset to your ministry. 

This term is familiar in regard to the devices you use but there is also application to your Student Ministry. A hard reset restores a device to its original settings by deleting all data.

Seldom in organizations do we go to this extreme, but in visioning, the fresh start is helpful. It will help you examine your current structure in light of your current reality. All structures and activities were created for a reason but as current reality shifts, we seldom have a system that allows us to shift our programming. 

In my experience, we would perform a hard reset every three years. Too often creates chaos and not often enough may be too late.

In reality, most of the primary programming will remain on the white board but the process will force you and your leadership  to evaluate more critically. The result is renewed focus and a better understanding of strategic nuance. 

Investing in the process will create a high level of evaluation well into the future. 

Renew Your Vision With a Reset

Visioning is art. 

With this understanding, we can see why creating and sharing vision is such a challenge for so many leaders.

When you create art, you want it to be appreciated and to varying degrees understood. The art of vision is about the experience of a desired future. One can learn different approaches to visioning but in the end it’s up to those who will interpret the vision that informs us whether or not we have art.

In Student Ministry the challenge in our art is that we have such a varied audience–teens, parents, staff, supervisors and outsiders. The best art in student Ministry needs to be simple. 

Art begins with a blank canvas, supplies, and the time to create art. 

In order to create art I’ve asked three simple questions.

1. Are you seeing new faces at your weekly events?

2. Does your meeting room look the same as last year?

3. Have you changed anything on your Student Ministry calendar in the last year?

As you consider your answers to the above questions, let the art begin. 

Stay in front of the canvas until you have art.