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My wife calls me a dreamer. My kids call me a dreamer. I am a dreamer. I love to let go and let my imagination run away. I think I've always been a dreamer. We drive by an empty store front and I dream up five possible uses for the space. A warehouse, and I think of ways of turning it into a church or youth center. Give me an empty room and a couple hours, I'll dream up a fun, creative way to use the space.

I like to dream.

Most of all, I like to dream about my ministry and how we might creatively think of ways to welcome, serve, and help students take their next steps of faith.

For the next two years, that old bank served as home base for our student ministry. We held our MS and HS Sunday school classes in that building each Sunday. Sunday nights welcomed students for our weekly student gathering.  On Tuesdays and Thursdays, we opened the doors for an after school program. On designated Friday nights we hosted various events and gatherings for students. It was great. And it all started because I let myself dream.

It's not about figuring everything out. It's ideas, goals, and hopes for the coming year or years. Some dreams may be nothing more than ideas, while other dreams will become amazing realities. The point of dreaming is not about coming up with the next best thing, but letting ideas surface, then with some help, sorting through those ideas to find the one idea that just might work.​

Consider these ideas...

• Make a day of it. Set aside some time, a couple hours to dream.
• Gather up some leaders or volunteers and have them dream with you.
• Ask your students to dream with you.
• Have a dry erase board and markers, or the large post sheets that you can hang up.
• Give yourself and those with you freedom to dream big, God-sized dreams.
• Record everything. Write down the ideas. Take pictures. Capture the dreaming session on video.
• Create a file to keep the ideas for future dreaming
• Talk with other youth workers and see what they're doing.
• Read a couple idea books.
• Check out a few youth ministry blogs.
• Join a youth ministry Facebook group and start a conversation or two.
• Have lunch with your pastor and ask about the goals or plans the leadership is dream up and how the youth ministry might fit in those dreams and plans.

It's Full Dream Ahead!

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There are a few things about youth ministry that just work. There are also a few things that we do because we've always done them. And, there are some things we do that we need to stop doing.

I remember when I started working with students, I had so many new ideas; things I wanted to try, risks that I wanted to take, things I wanted to change. I hated the words, "But we've always done it this way."  I lived by the idiom that said, "sacred cows make the best hamburgers." I wanted a ministry that was new, creative, and unlike what anyone else was doing.

The irony of that was, I was doing exactly what every other youth worker was doing. I would go off to the yearly youth workers conference with my bag of tricks empty and come home with all sorts of new ideas, gimmicks, fads, and products promising to bring about better worship, more compelling talks, deeper relationships, or more fun. With my replenished bag of tricks, I would plan out the student ministry calendar for the next year. 

After about 10 years of student ministry, I found myself not only doing what everyone else was doing, but I had created my very own, "this is the way we've always done it." It was the same rotation of series and messages. Sure they were freshened up a bit. Some phrases changed, stories and examples were slightly different, but we taught the same things over and over again.

The same was true of our activities. We knew what worked and so we did the same things year after year. Retreats, mission trips, summer camps, outings and activities; I had a great group of leaders and parents who supported our ministry. They knew what to expect and what to do. Our programs almost ran themselves.

On January 21st, 2020, we launched. It was great. Students came. Had fun. And went home. Leaders were learning, meeting students, and beginning to see the possibilities. Then on March 10th, we met in person for the last time, though we didn't know it at the time. On Friday, March 13th, the announcement was made, we're going online. About week after that, we were in full quarantine. 

It really is amazing what you can learn when you take a step back and evaluate what you're doing.

Covid has been tough. I've had my ups and downs. I've been frustrated. I've felt helpless, lost, and left wondering, "what am I doing?" As we navigated the waters of covid, like so many other youth ministries, we tried live streaming, Zoom calls, recorded content on YouTube,  and an increased social media presence. We had some success early on, but over time, we saw that the online formatting wasn't working. That led to us launching our in-person small groups.

Here we are, one year later, still meeting in small groups, and it's going really well. The response from students and parents has been great. In fact, it's what's prompting this series. With our shift to small groups, we now find ourselves taking a step back to evaluate our programs.

 Learning to evaluate what we're doing on a regular basis is a practice that leads to healthier ministry. Evaluating our ministries isn't a new idea. But I think sometimes, our evaluation process focuses more on how we can improve what we're already doing. For instance, following a retreat we take some time to debrief and evaluate the weekend. We note the good, the bad, what worked, what didn't work, what we want to do again, and what we might want to change for next time? While that's perfectly okay, how often do we evaluate our program and ask, what do we need to get rid of?

Covid has forced me to begin thinking differently about how I do youth ministry. Being displaced from our regular gathering space for a year is making me reconsider our purpose and need for weekly gatherings. With the "success" of our small groups, I'm thinking through their possible long-term impact for our students. And as I look at recruiting, training, and commissioning leaders and volunteers, I'm wondering what their future roles might look like.

As a church, we're looking to grow younger; passing along the keys of leadership, becoming more and more multi-generational. We're asking, "How can our students connect more, serve more, grow more, and lead more as they minister alongside adults?" 

​Because of covid, as a church, we're rethinking the why and how. We're looking at what's to come and asking, "what's next?" And we're dreaming, praying, looking forward to the growth that we believe will come. These questions, these conversations, are leading the discussions that are helping to reshape our student ministry.

We have an opportunity before us, a choice that we will have to make. On one hand, we can choice to continue doing what we know to do. We go back to what was. We allow what we know to "work" fill up our calendars. We simply slide back into what once was. Or, we can take a good look at what we were doing, evaluate our programs, our activities, ask hard questions, and face the harder answers.

Don't look at what you did before and simply ask, "what was good, what was bad, what worked, what didn't work, what do we want to do again, and what we might want to change for next time?"

Instead consider these questions...

• What have we learned about our students during covid?
• What do you see as your students greatest needs during covid, and now post-covid?
• What have your students really responded to during covid?
• What are your students responding to now, as we move closer towards a post-covid reality?
• What about your student ministry has become a sacred cow?
• What parts of your ministry are no longer as effective as they once were?
• What parts of your ministry suck time and energy, and pull you away from being with your leaders and students?
• Can those parts of your ministry be delegated or eliminated?
• What do your student miss about your youth ministry? And why?
• What do your students not miss about your youth ministry? And why?
• If you could dream big, what would you do differently as you move into this post-covid reality?

Don't be afraid to think outside the box. Pull in some of your students and invite them to dream with you. Ask them to share ideas of how they might want to reach their peers.

Talk with parents and see where they are. What are their needs? What do they see as their students needs? What have they learned about their student during covid? What expectations do they have for their students, for the youth ministry, for you? What did family life look like before covid? What does family life look like moving into a post-covid reality?

 Step back. Evaluate. Take the time to look carefully at at what was and what could be.

Finally, pray!

Before you make any changes. Before your role out a new strategy? Before you turn everything upside down. Pray! Ask God to lead you, inspire you, and give you wisdom. When you have an idea, pray for conformation. When you have a plan, pray for its process. When you're ready to launch, pray that God might renew and restore. And when you see him moving in your ministry and in the life of your students, pray and thank Him for His faithfulness.

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It's not a new thought. But it's something that I think we too often take for granted. Relationships over programs.

I've heard it more times than I can count. I've said it more times than I can count. Youth ministry is about relationships. Our ministries are built on the idea of developing relationships. 

But let's be honest, there are times when we get caught in the details of our programs and miss hitting the target of relationships. Whether it's leading during a retreat or mission trip, or just losing track of students while running our weekly gatherings. It's easy to do. And if we're not careful, our focus can shift from relationships to programs.

Coming into 2020, we had just started welcoming some new volunteers, a bunch of new students, and launching a reboot of our overall student ministry. I was about 10 months into my new role, still meeting everyone and still getting to know students and folks from the church, when Covid-19 hit and our governor shut everything down. At this point, all I really had in the way of connecting with students was our programming. Like everyone else, we jumped into the online medium, hoping to maintain our students with our weekly programming. And like so many, we were initially pleased.

For the first couple of weeks, it was a novel experience. I can remember at the time thinking, "Oh, this won't be too bad. We'll be back to normal in just a few short weeks, and everything will be great." Well, that was when we thought we'd be back to normal by Easter.

Easter came and went. Spring came and went. Summer was now in full bloom, and we were still not meeting in person. In fact, things were worse. Everything had shut down.

Students completed the school year online. All summer activities were canceled. And we were losing our students. Like I said, I was still the new guy. Most of my leaders/volunteers were new. We were just starting to establish and build relationships with our students,;how were we ever going to survive this season?

By the end of May, I was spent. We were trying all sorts of ideas; Live Facebook streaming, Zoom meet ups, recorded content posted to YouTube and live Instagram posts. We amped up our social media efforts, utilizing a number of great resources from our friends over at Download Youth Ministry. We even started a Tik Tok account. Once summer had officially begun, we tried meeting at different times/days during the week, hoping to get students to connect with us. In late June, the church began hosting outdoor services, so we set up a 'drop-by table" and invited students to "drop by" and say hi! But in spite of our efforts, we felt like we were still losing our students.

I took some time to consider the situation and I remembered what I had always known, student ministry is about the relationships. Right. "But I'm still too new; I don't have a lot of relationships with our students yet." At least that's was what I thought.

But as I thought about it, I did have some new relationships with a handful of students. And a few of my leaders/volunteers had new relationships with a few students. Then the thought hit me; it was time to go old school.

The online thing wasn't working for us. In order to connect with our students we were going to have to do something different. So I rallied my leaders/volunteers, and I launched our Old School initiative. (Though, it wasn't that formal.)

​We switched our focus from hoping to reach students through social media and an online presence, to actually reaching out to our students individually. We divided up our mailing list by High School and Middle School, and asked all of our leaders/volunteers to begin reaching out to students on their lists, not through social media, but through the mail with notes and cards. Then we said, follow up that note or card with a text message, then a phone call. Then we asked that they make the commitment to continue connecting with those students throughout the rest of the summer.

On top of that, I made a list of students, divided them in to manageable groups of 5 or 6 a week, and I sent them a personal, hand-written note with an invitation to connect. Some students responded and eventually I was able to call or meet face to face with them.

We also started mailing out birthday cares or celebration cards as we learned about personal milestone. We did our best to stay connected with our students in a way that was personal and relationship focused.

As the fall came around, we were still very limited in what we were able to do. We attempted to go back online with a modified weekly program, but learned pretty quickly that our students weren't too excited about meeting online. So we took the next step in our relationship building hopes and we launched our in-person small groups.

Schools were working to get back to in-person school days, and area guidelines allowed for groups of 10 and under to meet in-person. So that's what we did. In October, we launched our first in-person small groups based on those original contact lists, with the leaders who were reaching out to those students becoming the leaders of that small group. We started small, 4 groups; 2 middle school, 2 high school, guys and girls respectively. Two weeks in, and we noticed a huge difference! Relationships really do matter!

Our small groups were great! Students were excited to be back. Our leaders were sharing stories of connecting and getting to know the students. And the parents, were delighted. Then the bottom fell out. A spike in local covid cases shut us down again.

So, we went back to the intentional contact through note cards, text messages, and phone calls. We managed to get through the holidays, and the first two months of 2021. Then, just now this March, we were able to get back to our in-person small groups.

So here's what I've learned. Relationships really do matter!

It's super important that we are taking the time to get to know our students; to establish and build a relationship with them (or at least as many as we can.) I am so blessed to have a great team of volunteers who were (and are) willing to step into a students world in order to know them.

Now, as restrictions are being lifted, and the hope of things returning to a new normal becomes more and more a reality, I am asking the very serious question of Programs or Relationships? Sure, there will always be the need for some kind of programming. But this season has left us with a new reality; that what we do with students isn't about how fun and exciting we can make our programs, but how we take the time to establish and grow relationships with our students.

As my team and I begin to plan for the future, I think we're going to be looking for more ways that we can focus on relationships. What programs, events, or activities promote the opportunity to build relationships? What of our current or past ministry is no longer effective when it comes to building relationships? What do we need to start, continue, or stop, so that we keep the emphasis on relationships and not programs? And maybe most importantly, how do we keep ourselves from falling back into the trap of over-programming?

Personally, I don't want to see the, "what we use to do" ever come back. At least not in the "we've always done it this way." Students want to be known. Yes, they want to have fun. But over and over again, what I see in students is they want know that there is someone how truly cares about them, and the things that are important to them. When we are that someone, the doors are open for an exciting journey of evangelism, worship, fellowship, discipleship, and ministry! And that is what I hope for for my students.

Before I get into what I learned, you need to know that I had my up's and downs during this time. I felt the weight of failure. I struggled with the feelings of loss. I was frustrated with not being able to be with students. And at times I was envious of other youth workers/ministries whenever I saw pictures on social media of their youth gatherings. I say all of this, because this last year of ministry has been a tough year. However, throughout the year, I forced myself to see beyond my emotions, frustration, and struggles to look for the things that God was trying to show or teach me in this season.

This new series of blogs comes from what I think God was teaching, or at least, reminding me of when it comes to student ministry. I share this with the hope of encouraging you to look beyond whatever hurdles you might have faced, or are continuing to face as you navigate this season of ministry.

I've decided to break these "lessons" into a series of posts to allow space to share clearly. I'll do my best to keep their short and to the point. ​

I know I have talked with a number of youth workers, many of whom shared that this season has been a bit of a challenge, forcing them to evaluate, adjust, and grow in new areas. If that's true of you, I'd love to chat with you! I'd love to hear what you've been learning or experiencing. In the meantime, these posts will post one after the other, starting today. There will be at least 6 in total.

I look forward to hearing from you!

- the youth worker daily

Who's ready for some new content?

I know I am.

It's been quite a start to the new year, but after taking some time to focus on some student and kid ministries needs at the church, I am finally ready to get back to some sort of regular activity here at The Youth Worker Daily.

Starting next Monday, March 15th, fresh new content will begin posting again! Yes! New Content!

2020 made a significant impact on the youth ministry world. Online gatherings, hybrid in-person meetings, Zoom, masks, social distancing; all I can say is, WOW!

But with things slowly beginning to improve, many youth workers, including myself, are looking to get back to some sort of normalcy. As I begin to bring my student ministry back, there are a lot of things we're going to do different. Covid has reminded me of some basic ministry moment that have been overlooked or forgotten. My hope is to share some of these "lessons". And as I look at bringing a "basement to attic" remodel to our student ministry, I want to share what we're doing, what will be different, and how we hope to do a better job caring for students as we step into the future. 

So come along and let's see what God does. 2021 is going to be an exciting season of student ministry!

​- the youth worker daily