Relational Ministry

Relational ministry might be described as any step toward building a relationship with a student in your ministry. It could be a big step, it could be small—either way, it's simply the effort toward truly living in community and sharing life together.

Ministry with young people should be known for this! Students that are a part of your ministry are there to be known, loved, and cared for. All of these things take time—and time is what we can offer that the world (and too often, parents) isn't giving. 

Relational ministry takes time—but not as much as you might think. Here is a list in order of significance for you to follow.

Be Present - going to a student’s sporting event or school performance such as a band concert or play is major. Other colleagues of mine see this as an opportunity to have a date night with their significant other. The key is staying and making sure that the student knows that you were there.

Talk with Them - in a world of texting and emailing it’s often nice to hear someone’s voice. Take five minutes and give the student a call to check in with how their week is going. This will mean a lot to the student but also to the students family that you care enough to individually call them and ask how their day was.

Send Handwritten Notes - this may sound old-school, but everyone including my 18 month old daughter loves to receive mail. The art of writing a handwritten note is going by the wayside, however, for certain students this could mean the world. Whenever I receive a handwritten note from someone I cherish it, and so will your students.

Connect Through Social Media - if you are not Facebook friends with your students, you should be. If they have a twitter account, you should be following them. From time to time write an encouraging word on their wall or send them a direct message through twitter. You could also use other social media platforms like Insta Graham, Interest and others. This takes very little time but this is the world in which most students live and to see that they have an adult who understands the media and uses it, shows that you care about meeting them WHERE THEY ARE.

Text message them - I’m not talking about a mass text that you sent to all your students, rather, a personal text just to them so that they know that you are thinking about them. Again, text messaging is where most young people live today and it youth and young adult workers are not using that media, we will quickly become irrelevant.

I would offer you this challenge. This week try to begin a habit of relationship building with your students. Relationships are the hardest and most time-consuming part of the Young People’s Ministry, however, I would argue that it is the most important.

PS: don’t forget to encourage your leaders as well. 

To Love Another Person Is to See the Face of God

Recently the movie adaptation of the highly acclaimed Broadway musical Les Miserables has come out. If you haven’t seen the play or the movie, I would highly recommend you go do so. The setting is during the French Revolution and the main character is a man who was put in jail for trying to feed his family and his journey to find redemption and salvation. (The dork in me says you should go just for the music)

There is however a very strong message at the end of the story that I had forgotten until I recently saw the movie adaptation. There is a line in one of the final songs that goes:

“To love another person is to see the face of God”

If I had to sum up the gospel into one word it would be love. Too often we forget that loving someone is one of the most important things that we can do as a Christian. The fact remains that each and every one of us (good, bad, skinny, fat, male , female) are all created in the image of God. That is something incredibly special that we should not so easily forget.

So my request to you this week is this: First, go see Les Miserables (it’s money well spent); Second, show love to your neighbor because as the song says “to love another person is to see the face of God!”

Think Big

There is a tension most youth workers face in a smaller ministry setting: They want their group to be bigger! Ironically most youth workers in a large setting face a similar tension: They want to be (or at least feel) smaller!  So if you are leading a smaller ministry, here are a few “big thinking” ideas that will help you where you’re at, and help pave the way for where you’re heading:

Think About Infrastructure
As you grow, how many volunteers will you need? Start recruiting volunteers now, so you are ready when growth happens. How will your follow up strategy need to evolve? Start tweaking it now! Do you have room to grow or will you need to ask to move your ministry to a larger broom closet? What will growth demand of your budget? These are just a few areas of infrastructure worth thinking about in bigger ways while you’re still smaller.

Think About Scalability
Look at virtually every aspect of your ministry and ask yourself if it’s scalable…in other words, can it handle a growth spurt? Pretend 10 new students joined your small groups—could your current system handle it?  Thinking big means organizing in such a way that growth can be accommodated without completely upsetting the apple cart. 

Think About Communication
More students, more problems! And one of the biggest problems larger youth groups have is in the area of communication. As your group grows, gone will be the good old days of calling every student once a week, or taking each volunteer out to lunch on a regular basis. You won’t be able to stop each parent in the church foyer to touch base.

The good news is we minister in an era that has seemingly unlimited tools and technology to meet our communication needs. Start experimenting now, so you are ready when growth arrives.

Prepare now for the students that God will trust you with in the future. Get ready…because they're on their way!

(I got these ideas from a weekly e-mail that I get about youth and young adult ministry)

Social Media's Impact on Personal Relationships

There is a great post over on ChurchMag.  They highlight the amount of time spent on social media and ask the question, How much is too much?  Check out the infographic and let me know what you think.