the Monday Morning Debrief: Now what?
So, Easter has happened and tons of new people (or just the yearly Easter service goers) have come to your church. Now what? What do you do? Here are some ideas...
- Follow up with all the people you met at Church yesterday or who checked off "interested" in the Youth Ministry from a bulletin insert or at a table. Whether it is by phone or email, contact them this week. Phone is probably the best since you can talk to the family in person.
- Touch base with the Student Ministry Leaders to see who they came into contact with and encourage them to follow up people they met.
- Make sure your next Youth Event is a home run. If you have new students potentially coming to "Youth Group" for the 1st time, it better be something that they are going to want to come back to. You never get a 2nd chance to make a 1st impression, so make your night great!
What else do you think? What have you found successful to do in following up from Easter? TAKE A MINUTE to process what you need to do and then share your thoughts and experiences below so that we can all benefit and learn from each other.
Possibly Related Posts:
- Chowtime – 6/15
- The Pool is the best place for Summer Contact Work
- the Monday Morning Debrief: Capitalizing on the Unexpected
- Great NEW offer from Orange!
- the Monday Morning Debrief: Are you the Amanda Bynes of Youth Ministry?
Some thoughts on Sunday School from Orange Tour in DC
I apologize for the format and structure but I typed these standing up the whole session...standing room only.
Sunday school was started when there was no public education and illiteracy rates were so high. So Sunday School was started to help combat that.
But times have changed since that start.
Switch from Sunday school to spiritual formation:
- partner with parents
- instead of thinking from teaching week to week, what would it look like if we had a strategic plan for children from preschool all the way to college
- repetition and variety...big stories and big truths...be intentional about repeating those
- strategically place volunteers...put the right people in the right place.
- think about your audience. Is the content in your message helpful for each age group you are speaking to?
- want the kids to follow in love with God, not just know the story...make sure you are hitting the core stories. You may not be able to teach the whole Bible so make sure you are hitting the core stories and repeating those
- help them understand God's story and my story (what do we want them to know and do)
- don't just spend time on content but also in how you share it. What is the environment you are creating? Be intentional about it
- is the setting geared towards your target audience
Thoughts? Comments? Suggestions? Share them so we can all benefit.
Possibly Related Posts:
- the Monday Morning Debrief: Honoring Single Fathers
- Chowtime – 6/15
- The Pool is the best place for Summer Contact Work
- the Monday Morning Debrief: Capitalizing on the Unexpected
- Great NEW offer from Orange!
NO ONE showed up! What the heck?
Yep, that's right. On Tuesday, I did an event and NO ONE showed up. Now, over my time in youth ministry, I've had a few events where just a small handful came, but at least I had a few people show. This week NO ONE showed up! The Big ZERO, Nada, Zilch, Null. Have you ever had that happened before?
So, as I processed this, I began to wonder where did I go wrong and I came up with a few conclusions:
- Wrong Promotion. For starters, even though I have it on the summer calendar and highlighted it on my weekly emails to parents, I didn't have it highlighted in the church services at all in the weeks leading up to the event. And, I failed to promote it and talk about it to students enough.
- No personal invites. So this event is a brand new event, never been done before and hardly any students knew about it. Let's be honest, they don't check emails or calendars you mail to them anymore. They need leaders talking to them, texting them, tweeting them and Facebooking them personally (sorry, Google+ no one goes to your site). When a leaders calls up a student and personally invites them to something, the chances of them coming to that event dramatically increases (I would love someone to do a study on that alone...anyone?). And, none of that happened this past week...not even from me, the Youth "Guy". So, if students don't know about it and aren't invited to it, how can we expect them to come to it?
- No student input. Probably the biggest error of my ways is that I didn't process this idea with students. I thought it would be a good idea to try but I never ran it by students to see if they thought it was good. For all I know they could have known about the program but thought it was too stupid of an idea to come to. How would I know...I never asked them.
So there you have it. No one showed up because I failed to do a few things that, after 14 years of youth ministry, I should definitely have known to do.
What do you think? Have you ever had an experience like this? What have you learned from that and how did the next time you did that event reflect the changes you made? TAKE A MINUTE right now and share your thoughts, experiences or comments so we can all learn and benefit.
Possibly Related Posts:
- Chowtime – 6/15
- The Pool is the best place for Summer Contact Work
- the Monday Morning Debrief: Capitalizing on the Unexpected
- Great NEW offer from Orange!
- the Monday Morning Debrief: Are you the Amanda Bynes of Youth Ministry?
The Monday Morning Debrief: New Year, Fresh Start
With the beginning of each semester, you have an opportunity to set the tone for what you are going to be doing for the year ahead. Especially in January when resolutions are flying out all over the place, it is a great chance for you to start all over and get your group focused on where you want to take them.
So, what are you thinking about doing? This week is the perfect opportunity for you to set the tone for the rest of the semester. What do you want to do/need to do to take your program to a different level? New years are great times to come out with new excitement, new energy, new focus and new direction.
One of the new things I am doing this year is holding more Parent "town hall" Meetings. The 1st one is this coming Sunday. I want parents on board and excited about our program - especially since we have so many young middle schoolers in our program. So I am holding these meetings in hopes that parents will come out, learn more and ask questions about the direction of our program. It's just one change in a series of others that I hope will catapult our program a new sphere of impact.
So, with this in mind, what are you doing? TAKE A MINUTE and process what you need to do to effectively set the tone in your program so you can take students deeper in Christ unlike any other time in your program's history.
If you doing something exciting or group changing to kick off your January, post a comment so that we can all benefit and try it out on our group eventually.
Possibly Related Posts:
- the Monday Morning Debrief: Honoring Single Fathers
- Chowtime – 6/15
- The Pool is the best place for Summer Contact Work
- the Monday Morning Debrief: Capitalizing on the Unexpected
- Great NEW offer from Orange!
5 things I did in Starting Over
For the past year I have been known as the "Family Guy" at New Life. My job was to oversee the Youth and Children's Ministries as well as being involved in the nZone making sure we strategize how we get families from the nZone to New Life. Well, on Thursday, this "Family Guy" became the "Youth Guy" as our current Youth guy is no longer with us. That means for the time being (however long that is), I was asked to take over the Youth Director position. I am really excited about this opportunity but definitely not expecting this so here is what I did when I found out my new job:
- Dusted off the old stuff. Before I was the "Family Guy" at New Life, I spent 13 years in direct ministry of youth ministry. So as I was trying to wrap my mind around turning around the youth program at New Life, I broke out all my old stuff to start brainstorming ideas on how to run the program.
- Prayed! I wish I could say that was my 1st thing, but my mind is crazy. As my brain started getting overstimulated, I paused, and prayed. I prayed for wisdom on how to lead the program and the students and families.
- Contacted Key Parents and Students. I let them know that I was now leading the program and I enlisted their help to get the youth program up and going as I shared the vision/direction I was taking the program in.
- Started assessing where the program is at. Even though I oversaw the Youth program as the "Family Guy", I didn't know exactly kind of cool "stuff" the youth had. So I had to go around and figure out what we had and what we could use.
- Contact and Meet with the Volunteer Leaders. I wanted to get ahold of them, set up a time to meet and begin working together as a team. This was the last thing I did as I waited for the previous youth director to send them a farewell email. Once he sent the email, I immediately contacted the leaders to start the process of getting to know them and uniting them in the direction the youth program was going in.
Those were the top 5 things I did (and I'm sure I did a few things in between). But what about you? What would you do (or have you done) if you had to pick up a program and start over? TAKE A MINUTE and share your thoughts, comments, questions or experiences so that we can all benefit.
Possibly Related Posts:
- Chowtime – 6/15
- The Pool is the best place for Summer Contact Work
- the Monday Morning Debrief: Capitalizing on the Unexpected
- Great NEW offer from Orange!
- the Monday Morning Debrief: Are you the Amanda Bynes of Youth Ministry?
The Monday Morning Debrief: The Big Game
In case you missed it or just don't like college football, the BIG GAME this past weekend was the #1 ranked LSU Tigers vs. the #2 ranked Alabama Crimson Tide. It was being hyped for the two weeks leading up as the Game of the Century. CBS had it playing in primetime and over 500 media members requested a Media Pass to the game. After it was all said and done with, LSU won the game in a defensive struggle 9-6 in overtime. To say it was the greatest game ever would be a bit of a stretch but it was a good game to watch and it gives LSU the inside track over Alabama to the BCS Championship game.
So how does this BIG GAME apply to ministry?
In ministry, we have big games every year as well. Sure your battles may not be on the football field but these battles are weighed upon some big momentum opportunities and big impact possibilites. For instance, here are some possible big games:
- Outreach and Bridge Events - These kinds of opportunities have great potential. For instance, an outreach opportunity like a Super Bowl Party is just one example. Sure, a lot of people and groups have Super Bowl parties, but you have an opportunity to separate yourself from the other parties by doing something unique and outreach oriented where you can draw tons of students and families into your program. Here are some thoughts about the opportunity and planning.
- Creation of Small Groups. These are great opportunities to build trust, friendships and community within your group. When these are established and developed, small groups can be very effective in helping your ministry grow.
- Leader Development (both student and adult volunteers). The more you are investing in your leaders the more they are going to be able to catch the vision/direction on the program. Click here to find out how to build a leadership team that works for you.
These are just a few of some big games you'll encounter each year that have the possibility of impacting your year, one way or another. So what are your BIG GAMES this year? TAKE A MINUTE and think through by yourself or with your team of some of the big games you have coming up and how are you preparing for them. It is never too soon to start planning ahead and casting vision for how you can be using these "games" to be instrumental in how your year turns out.
Thoughts? Comments? Questions? Experiences? Post a comment and let the discussion begin so that we can all benefit from it.
Possibly Related Posts:
- the Monday Morning Debrief: Honoring Single Fathers
- Chowtime – 6/15
- The Pool is the best place for Summer Contact Work
- the Monday Morning Debrief: Capitalizing on the Unexpected
- Great NEW offer from Orange!
The Monday Morning Debrief: Going the Extra Mile
Two weeks ago, in our effort to teach about Jesus and how he values fun (i.e. Genesis 1, Luke 15), New Life did something really different and special at our Sunday Morning service. Right before our speaker came on, the worship team did a medly of "Girls just want to have fun" and "Everybody have fun". Our Worship Director, Brennan, did a great job getting the audience pumped up for this "fun" time. As they were singing and getting people clapping, people in the back started throwing out beach balls for people to throw around. It was really cool. After that, as the song was winding down, we had 2 people in the back of the stage launch confetti cans over the worship team so confetti came down on them. Finally, to top it all off, we played 1 game of Minute to Win it involving 2 different contestants.
Over all, it was a really cool and the people in the audience had a blast. What a great way to communicate "fun" to people in Church than
to do some things like that. If new comers came (which there were some) they were probably in awe thinking, "this is church" in a welcoming, fresh way. Judging by the laughing and the excitement amongst all the people I saw, this was a real win for the day.
What I was most excited about what that New Life went the extra mile in breaking down barriers so that people could 
discover who God is. They didn't just sing a song and then have the speaker share. The creative and worship team went the extra mile and made this unique and special. Now I know that there were probably new comers who came (or even current regulars at New Life) that probably thought "this is church?" and were dismayed because of a lack of perceived "reverence" to church. But overall that did not seem to be the case.
So what about you? What are you doing or have you done in the past that have gone the extra mile so that people could discover God? Whether you have done something or not, TAKE A MINUTE right now and jot down some of the topics you are currently presenting at your service (whether it is youth, children or adults). Then, write down what you could do during that time that would be an extra step to help break down barriers so that others may be more open to hearing about and discovering God on their own.
Possibly Related Posts:
- What are you reading?
- the BLACKBOARD: Making an impact in the Community
- The Monday Morning Debrief: Do we always have to tear down?
- Some Ministry Lessons Learned from the Battle of Gettysburg
- Always teaching
the Monday Morning Debrief: Fall is here…now what?
If you live in the East Coast you'd notice a pretty significant temperture drop this weekend. Not only was it cold, but it was rainy as well. Couple that with a slew of big time NCAA football games, NFL games and Playoff baseball, one can honestly say that fall is officially here. I do love this time of year!
So how does this apply to ministry?
As the fall is in full swing, so should your ministry be. For most programs, you are a good 1 month into the semester, so as you move forward, it is always good to reflect on the past month. Here are some questions for you to think about now as you look back:
- How is your attendance? Are you up, down, or flat from where you ended last year? How are you tracking year over year?
- How is your follow up with new students? Do new students feel welcomed and appreciated?
- What are some needs you are noticing in your program?
- How are your leaders doing? Are they doing what you expected them to do?
- How are you doing leading your leaders? Have you had a leaders meeting yet, updating on "business" and talking strategy? When is your next meeting planned?
Possibly Related Posts:
- Chowtime – 6/15
- The Pool is the best place for Summer Contact Work
- the Monday Morning Debrief: Capitalizing on the Unexpected
- Great NEW offer from Orange!
- the Monday Morning Debrief: Are you the Amanda Bynes of Youth Ministry?
The Monday Morning Debrief: Stick to what you do best
Last Tuesday Howard Shultz, the CEO of Starbucks held a Town Hall meeting. So what do you think this Town Hall was about? Coffee maybe? NOPE. Well then, about Customer Service? NOT EXACTLY. Well how about marketing and promotion? WRONG AGAIN.
Mr. Shultz had a Town Hall meeting about...yep, you guessed it...Politics! Now, although I applaud Mr. Shultz for being engaged in our democratic structure and encouraging others to share, of all the things to he could choose to hold a Town Hall meeting about, politics is probably the last thing I would peg him to do.
As I read and processed Mr. Shultz's new endeavor, this made me think about what we, as ministers, do on a daily basis. Do we stay focused on our tasks and mission or do we allow ourselves to get sidetracked on other, non-mission related work? As I examined my life, I know it can be easy to get sidetracked. That is why I believe that we need to stick to what we do best so that we can stay focused and on mission. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't try new things or engage in different strategies to reach our target audience. After all, we do need to be growing in our leadership and effectiveness as ministers all the time.
But what it does mean is to not get distracted (too long anyways) with things that are not in your field. For instance, if you believe that your ministry needs to become more tech savvy and do a few more powerpoint or video ideas for your group, then by all means try it out. But if you are not so tech savvy yourself, you do not need to be spending countless hours each week trying to make it work. You shouldn't be focusing all your energy on making this happen because it is going to take you away from what you do really well.
That is where delegation comes in. If you believe you and your team need to change things up or get into other areas that you are not engaged in right now, then by all means explore that. But if you do not have someone who can pick it up and take charge of it, then you may want to hold off from really putting a lot of time and energy into it. Because, as a good friend tells me over and over again, "When you say 'yes' to something you are saying 'no' to something else". So we need to stay focused on what you need to do to make you and your ministry the most effective. If you can find others who can pick up some of the work and allow you to get into new areas, by all means do it. But until you have the right leadership in place to make that happen, be very careful to what you say "yes" so that you don't get too distracted.
So TAKE A MINUTE right now and look at all the things you are doing. What are you currently doing? Is there something you are doing that you can delegate to someone else? Or do you simply need to stop doing that? Don't get spread so thin that you end up not being able to do what you do best - whatever it is.
Thoughts, comments, questions? Post a comment so that we can all benefit.
Possibly Related Posts:
- the Monday Morning Debrief: Honoring Single Fathers
- Chowtime – 6/15
- The Pool is the best place for Summer Contact Work
- the Monday Morning Debrief: Capitalizing on the Unexpected
- Great NEW offer from Orange!
Making Changes – Part 2: Strategic Changes
Last week, HP made a HUGE decision. In the wake of lackluster sales of their new tablet (the TouchPad) and smartphones (the Pre and Veer), HP decided to discontinue their PC division. This was a particularly big decision because just last year, HP bought Palm which made the TouchPad and other Smartphones because they believed they could compete in this market. Unfortunately for them, their products did not resinate well with consumers. However, fortunately for everyone else, they are selling their remaining inventory for $99 and $149 each - a deep discount from the original asking price of $499 and $599 respectively.
HP getting out of the PC business was a strategic change of business. They changed the way they were going to approach making money. This will change the shape of their company forever.
On Monday I started a 3 part "series" on making ministry changes. Monday's topic was on making programmatic changes. Today's topic of discussion is on making strategic changes. Ultimately, when you are making strategic changes, you are working smarter, not harder. You are adapting with your mission field and seeking to find the best way to reach them for Christ.
For example, you may have a strong discipleship based ministry where your programming and ideas are centered around the fast, sharp students who are leading your program. But then all of a sudden they all leave for college and you have a bunch of young, immature in their faith students who like to invite their non-believing friends. At that point you probably want to take a really hard look at changing your strategy so that your programming and mandates to leaders can coincide with where your students are at.
Being strategic and evaluating how effective you are at reaching your mission field always starts with your mission statement. What is God placing on your heart for your ministry? For more information on mission statements, click here. Secondly, you have to start being strategic on how you are to fulfill that mission (i.e., curriculum, experiences and program). You can read more information about that here. Then, set up some goals based on your plan so that you can be know how successful you are being in reaching your target audience.
Making the necessary changes to your strategy can be extremely important to making the greatest impact in your ministry. However, I have learned over the years two cautions that you should consider when you are making strategic changes:
- Remember, making strategy changes is not the same as changing the overall mission of your program. Your mission statement and vision for what you would like to accomplish should remain as consistent as possible throughout your time in that particular ministry (unless there is a major shift in your church's vision). Making strategic changes works within the overall mission. Your ultimate goal remains the same, however your strategy to reach that goal may look different. It could be making programmatic changes or curriculum changes or teaching style changes. Any of those changes are strategic changes.
- Make sure your superiors and other affected staff (i.e. the Children's minister) know your intentions of strategy change. The reason for this is because your strategy of ministry really affects more than just your youth program. It affects the whole church. However you choose to reach the people you are ministering to will affect the church in some way. In many ways, the church hired you because of your specific strategy so if you are going to change your approach, best let people know so that they are not thrown off guard if you have a complaining parent or child.
Possibly Related Posts:
- the Monday Morning Debrief: Honoring Single Fathers
- Chowtime – 6/15
- The Pool is the best place for Summer Contact Work
- the Monday Morning Debrief: Capitalizing on the Unexpected
- Great NEW offer from Orange!
Connect:
Tom’s Twitter Updates
Error: Twitter did not respond. Please wait a few minutes and refresh this page.
Recent Comments
- pg923 on Ways to get Parents Involved
- Matt Norman on the Monday Morning Debrief: Prepping for Orange ’13
- Introducing your Student Ministry Minor League Team | Ministry Blackboard on The benefits of volunteering in the schools
- Rachel Blom on Chowtime – 3/16
- tapounder on the Monday Morning Debrief: Closing Shop