Why did we do an outreach event and not reach out to the schools?

Well, before I answer this question, let me give you some back-story. 

September of 2013 our church plant started gathering weekly. Out of our love for the next generation, we decided that our first full time hire would be a Next Generations Pastor to oversee Kids and Youth. Over the past two years we have seen many great things happen in our kids and youth ministries. Eight weeks ago our Next Generation Pastor left to seek a position as a Senior Pastor. When this happened I knew that hiring another person to run these departments was not the fix. We had to firmly establish the WHY and the WHAT of our youth ministry before bringing in another person to run it. So I decided to step in and become the Youth Pastor as well as the Senior Pastor of our Church.

When you start leading something it is more important to discover “where you are” before you decide “where you are going”. So over the past eight weeks in leading the student ministry I’ve been looking at where we are as a group. Here is what I’ve discovered. 

It is not a large group.   Before April we had about 25 students coming to our midweek gatherings on a regular basis. 

Still building identity. The group of individual teenagers that gathers is still trying to discover their identity as a group. They are friendly with each other but there is not a lot of cohesion between individual students. We are in one place, but we are not together as one. 

Young in age and faith. The majority of the students that attend each week are between the ages of 12 to 15 and many are very young in their personal walk with Jesus. 

Not enough trained volunteers. The few people that are a part of the youth ministry are incredible, but there is not very many of them and most are not trained in how to walk out leadership in a youth ministry environment. 

The students are hungry.  From the very first week in meeting with the students, I could see that they are hungry to do be a part of something special. If given the chance they would bring their friends, serve in ministries, and make an impact in their friends. 

Once we took the time to discover where we are, we started looking at not only where we want to be at in the fall, but what steps do we need to take as a group in order to get there. 

We will begin to grow the group.   Numbers matter because people matter. Every Number is a name! Every name has a story and every story matters to God. We want to reach more teenagers for Jesus! 

We will establish clear vision.  Vision is the thing that brings different types of people together. Give people a “common cause” and you will have “community”. 

We will build a strong, well trained team. Take the summer to establish teams of students and adults to run and facilitate the weekly work of the ministry. 

Use students hunger for more to gain momentum. The students want to have more fun, hang with more friends, and have more gatherings. So we will use the desire they have for more physical things, to give us the opportunity to see God do the spiritual things they need. 

Ok, now that we have the back-story set up. Lets answer the question that I’m blogging about today. Why did we do an outreach event and not reach out to the schools? 

Knowing that the students are hungry for more, we need to build a volunteer team, have a common cause to build community, and reach more students than we currently are. We decided to do an outreach event. We wanted to give teenagers a physical reason to attend, so we could share Gods word personally, and they could begin to be renewed spiritually. 

Four weeks ago we started planning out, and building momentum toward our first ever "Black Light Food Fight". Here is what the night consisted of:

Before the service- the first 25 teenagers at the door would receive a free T-Shirt.

During the service  - we would do a message titled “The Value of You”.  You can view this message by Clicking Here

After the service - we would give away a Hover Board and do a giant food fight. 

In order to reach out to more students on this night, we decided to: 

Announce it for four weeks in Youth Service. 

Announce it for four weeks in our Weekend Services at TheCHURCH. 

Do Social Media Pushes. 

Give students “food fight” bracelets so they could hand them out and personally invite their friends. 

The reason that we decided to not do anything “corporately” as a student ministry in the local schools like; school lunch visits, school assemblies, or passing out flyers to students. The reason we did not work with FCA, Sports Teams, Music Departments, or other student organizations is simply because we know all of those things work. Reaching out to the local schools, would have caused a lot of students to attend our event and that is exactly what we did not want. 

With where our youth ministry currently is, reaching out to the schools would have caused us to have more students attend than our student and volunteer base could have handled. 

We would have had an incredible night. If we would have done what we know to do in the schools, we could have had 150 to 200 students show up for the Food Fight and it would have been a complete loss.

Here are three reasons why:

Current Students:

Our current students would have felt completely lost by the overwhelming number of visitors to their group. They don’t even know each other yet. With the size that we currently are, to have 100 to 200 strangers in the group would not have brought the group together it would have torn it apart. We need our students to know this is their group, so they stick around, get plugged in, pursue Jesus and become a foundation that can be built upon. 

Current Team:

The team we assembled could have run the Black Light Food Fight with out much trouble. However, we could not have continued to minister to 100 to 200 students on a weekly basis, The team currently lacks the size and training to minister effectively on a weekly basis to that size of a group.  

Lost Momentum:

Because the ministry is not ready to add 100 to 200 teenagers. Going into the schools and getting all of these kids to show up would have been an incredible night, but we would have quickly lost all of the students that we gained. Pouring 5 gallons of milk into a one gallon container makes a mess. We are not looking for a mess, we are looking for spiritual momentum in the lives of teenagers. 

Those are the reasons why we did an outreach event and didn't reach out to the schools. However, what we did do was inspire and equip our students to bring their personal friends to the event and it worked. 

8 weeks ago we had 3 adults volunteering ... at the food fight we had 18. 

8 weeks ago we had 25 students attending ... at the food fight we had 73. 

This outreach event was a great win. Because it gave us what we need the most. It gave us momentum and not a mess. 

We will take the summer to cast vision, build teams, build relationships, and build disciples so that in the fall, we will be ready to reach out to the area schools! We started.  

welcometoecho.com

Here are some questions for you and your team:

Do you know where you currently are?

Do you know where you want to go?

Have you thought through the steps you need to take in order to get from where you currently are to where you want to go?

Nine Things Your Team Needs You To Have

1 - Personal Pursuit of Jesus

I Timothy 3:1-7 

Here is a trustworthy saying: Whoever aspires to be an overseer desires a noble task. Now the overseer is to be above reproach, faithful to his wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him, and he must do so in a manner worthy of full respect. (If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God’s church?)  He must not be a recent convert, or he may become conceited and fall under the same judgment as the devil. He must also have a good reputation with outsiders, so that he will not fall into disgrace and into the devil’s trap.

The reason you should pursue Christ is not so others will follow you more effectively,  but because you are a sinner, in desperate need of a Savior. That being said, you cannot lead someone anywhere that you either have not been or are not going. You cannot lead people to follow Jesus if you are not passionately pursuing Him yourself.

2 - Unwavering Courage

Each week you are working with the toughest thing on the earth - PEOPLE 

People are a tough crowd. They have their own language. They have their own style. They think they know everything. There will be weeks where you feel like you are absolutely waisting your time. In those moments you are going to need, courage. Courage to keep talking to someone that doesn’t seem to care. Courage to keep serving someone that doesn’t seem to want your help. Courage to look past who this person currently is, and see who they could be in Christ. 

If you are going to be successful in Ministry, you are going to have to have and model unwavering courage. 

3 -  Self Control

A leader can’t expect to control others, if he is not able to control himself. 

If there is one thing I would encourage you to control, it would be your thoughts. What you think, is what you speak. What you speak is what you do. What you do becomes habitual. Your habits will develop your character and your character will determine your destiny. Who you are and who is around you in five years will be in direct proportion to what you think today. 

4 - A Road Map

No one will follow a person if they do not know where they are going. Because of this, a great leader takes time to map out where they are going in great detail. It is very important to have short, medium and long range goals for the ministry you lead. What is your small group, registration team, or worship band, going to be like in 3 months, 6 months, 12 months? If you don’t know, why would anyone join you?

5 - Something EXTRA

The only difference between ordinary and extraordinary is the word, extra.  If you want to do extraordinary things in life or see God do extraordinary things in the lives of people. Then you are going to have to add something“extra” to all the ordinary things you do.

When you give extra-time, extra-study, extra-prayer and extra-planning, you open the door for God to do the extraordinary. So give something extra. 

 6 - A People Personality

A leaders greatest asset is not money, facilities, or programs. His greatest asset is people. A great leader knows how to communicate with, respect, enthusiasm and love for people. Here are some tips for having a people personality. 

Smile.

It is very hard to be distant or “shut off” to someone that is smiling at you. So every time you talk with someone, pull them in and open their heart with your beautiful smile. 

Ask questions about them.

Peoples favorite word is their name and their favorite story is their own. When you talk with people ask them questions about themselves. Get them talking about their life and they will love you.

Leave your problems at home. 

Don’t bring your stress, drama and life issues with you to the ministry. Carrying that stuff around makes us angry, irritable, and frustrated. Those three things do not open peoples hearts to God. So check that stuff at the door and turn your heart towards the people and not the problems around you. 

7 - Great Communication

There is nothing that we will ever do in ministry that only effects one ministry. Everything we do will include other departments of the church in one way or another. Because of this, we need to keep other people and ministries in the loop with all of the pertinent information. 

Without teamwork, we will fail. To be a great leader you will need to communicate well to the people above you, beside you as well as under you in ministry.

8 - Attention to Detail

It’s not the big things that will hurt you. It’s the small details that will kill you. Pay attention to details. 

9 - Responsibility

If you are going to be successful you must be willing to accept responsibility not only for your own mistakes and shortcomings, but also for those of the people under you. When things go well in your department give the credit to those around you. When things go wrong in your department, you step up and take responsibility for your team.  

Nothing ever gets accomplished by pushing the blame off on others. We all make mistakes from time to time. 

Three things to do when you make a mistake. 

1- Own up to it. 

2 - Learn from it. 

3 - Move past it. 

Which of these do you poses and which ones do you struggle with? I would love to hear from you in the comments below. 

Three things every Youth Pastor needs to do when arriving at a new Church.

Transition happens to all of us. Here are three things that you have to do when you arrive at your new Church. 

When you transition from one student ministry to the next, you will see so many things that need to change. That is great but you can’t change everything at once. 

I read a very good book one time that had a phrase that went something like this “The steps of the righteous man are ordered of the Lord.” If you notice, the scriptures do not say the leaps of a righteous man are ordered of the Lord. God orders and ordains our steps … not our leaps.

Coming into town and trying to tackle, facility, recruiting, outreach, discipleship, small groups and team building all at the same time would not be a step – that would be a very large leap. Because of this you have decide to accomplish His vision for your ministry one step at a time.

3 things you need to do when arriving at your new Church.

Side Note – Changing the Youth Group Name is not one of them!

Step One – Build relationship with students.
When you first arrive, you will be so excited to get to know all of the students in your new family at the Church. However, they don’t have a clue who you are, what you are like or if they can even trust you. They most likely have gone through several Youth Pastors and they all came in talking about how much they love them, and how God is going to do some great things in the ministry. They have heard it all before. When you first arrive don’t tell them you love them… show them! Take every opportunity during your Youth Services, weekend venues, off day trips, ball games, gatherings at your house and retreats to simply get to know your new friends as well as let them get to know you.

Relationship trumps everything!
Teenagers are your ministry so, build relationships with your students and you will be building your ministry! 

Step Two – Build relationship with parents.
You have to begin to look at everything through the eyes of the parents. You have some incredible families at your new Church. So take some time to establish trust, build friendship, as well as cast the vision of where you are taking the student ministry and inviting parents to bring their teenager along for the journey. 

Talk to parents in the halls of the Church. Set up times to grab a coffee. Go to one of their Children’s games, sit on the bleachers and just get to know them. Other than your relationship with your Senior Pastor, your relationship with Parents is the most important relationship in your ministry, so be authentic, be real, be a servant and get to know them. When you do, they will love you! When they love you, they will make their teenagers come to your meetings!

Step Three – Build the team.
Nothing can be done alone. In order for you to do what God is calling you to do, you must build an incredible team. When I transitioned to a new church a few years ago, we had an amazing summer planned. We also had a brand new launch coming up in the fall, so we took 13 weeks of the Summer to cast not only cast vision, but to recruit, train, and release new workers into the roles they were going to play at Student Ministry in the fall. 

We arrived at the new Church at the end of May. We took time to build relationships with teenagers, build relationships with parents, we recruited and trained 70 new volunteers and in 13 weeks the student ministry went from 40 students at our first service to 395 when we launched in the fall. 

When Jesus came to the earth, He did not come to promote or push a program, He came to the earth for people. It is the same with each us us. God did not call us where we are to promote or push some program! He called us to live and to love His people. 

Build HIS people and HE will build HIS church! 

If you want to find out more ways to grow, and build your team, be sure to check out Youth Ministry University. Click (HERE) to find out more.  put link to YMU page on website 

Five Keys to Life Changing Small Groups.

Lets face it “Small is the new Big. If we don’t learn how to master the art of small groups we will never be effective at raising disciples. 

Here are Five Keys to Life Changing Small Groups.

Fun
Be sure to keep the mood light and fun. People open up when they are laughing and having a good time. Think ways to break the ice and have a good time each week with your group. 

Food
Many times Jesus taught people while eating a meal together. You don’t have to have a full meal at your gatherings but some beverages and light snacks will go a long way in setting the tone for the evening. 

Friendly
Everyone wants to go where someone knows their name. Make your groups strategically friendly. Pick a few people to help you make sure everyone is not just greeted but feels completely welcomed and a part of your gathering. 

Faith
Faith comes by hearing and hearing the word of God. Every week make sure that you put some element of God’s word and prayer into your group. Also, give everyone a chance to be a part of the discussion every week. Groups are not so much a time of “preaching” as they are “participation”. Every week give your group a chance to grow by participating in the discussion of faith. 

Follow Up
John Maxwells statement, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care” is so true.Because of this, follow Up is one of the greatest keys to a healthy small group.

Let people know you care about them.
Let people know you were glad they were there.
Let people know you want them to return again.
Let people know that you missed them when they weren’t able to attend. 

Three easy ways to follow up every week.

1. Send a personal text message. Don’t ever send a message that does not include their name.

2. Send a hand written Post Card. Make it personal to them, not just a push to attend your group.

3. Make plans to connect with them at Church on Sunday or grab a coffee before or after the service. 

If you have some things that have worked for small groups I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU! Just email me your ideas and tips at growmoore@gmail.com