For longer than I can remember I have been a planner and used the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day to map out the next year and set some goals. This worked- most of the time. Then, there were times when I was interrupted, then New Year’s Day passed and in April I’m struggling to get my New Year files set up.

I needed more time—a longer runway to get things done well. That’s why several years ago I began this practice at the start of Advent—the New Year on the liturgical calendar. This way I would have more time to develop plans and set goals. Then, there is the added rush of adrenaline the week after Christmas for the final push of preparation.

Youth Ministry is challenging. So many students have many things going on in their life in addition to the movement of everything around them. In many ways, it’s the reason we do this BECAUSE there is so much going on. But there are also so many possibilities.

This Thanksgiving, know that I am thankful for you and for your call to work with students. Thank you for your sacrifice and for believing more in the possibilities than the problems.

Youth Ministers are not known for being good planners. There are exceptions that disrupt the curve, but not enough to create a majority shift.

It’s almost as if we think that if we planned, we wouldn’t be fun or spontaneous. Of course, this is not true.

Despite the hesitation, read more to learn a few planning principles worth remembering:

There is a rhythm to ministry. If you pay attention to this rhythm you can avoid some of the chaos that is stereotypical in youth ministry.

October 31 is one of the markers in your rhythm where most of the activities for the fall have been planned and for the most part completed. The remaining weeks you have with students between now and the New Year is minimal. The next two weeks are a window of opportunity for you to do some critical planning for yourself, your family, and your ministry.

Creating a camp culture doesn’t happen overnight. There are some ministries where there has been a strong culture and others where you will have to start from scratch. Either way, these steps and our download on the monthly process will set you up well and get you started.

We have been doing camp at Horizon for close to twenty years. We hosted our first camp in 2003 at Oklahoma Baptist University in Shawnee, OK. Since then we have been all over the state of Texas and a couple of places in OK.

We have now centrally located our two sessions of camp at Heart of Texas Camp in Brownwood, TX.

Our philosophy is that camp starts the first week after you return home. For a meaningful camp year after camp, take these actions:

This time last year we never dreamed that we would ever ask that question. However, after 7 months of living through a world-wide pandemic, maybe we have learned something.

When our world seemed to “shut down” in March earlier this year, we tried to hold on to our hopes of having camp for quite some time. But, as the spread of COVID continued, we officially made the decision to cancel our summer camps in the first few days of June.

Though the decision to cancel camp was very difficult, here are some thoughts on what we have learned.

For the first time in my ministry career I didn’t go to youth camp. It was strange—less stress—but strange.

The decision to cancel camp was extremely difficult. For many youth ministries, if not most, camp is the heart of their summer. To think about a summer without youth camp is like having Easter without church. How can that be?

Obviously, we have faced many challenges over the last few months and whether to attend youth camp was one of them. As we struggled with our decision on whether to host camps, I remembered our mantra, “Life happens after camp”.