Youth ministry myth: A good youth minister is judged on how many plates he or she can keep spinning at once.
We all fall into the trap of plate spinning – some of us are even pushed into it by well-meaning mentors and supervisors. We think that to be a successful ministry, you have to “one up” the church down the street. Your program has to be bigger and better than last week. The summer calendar can’t skip a beat. You can never coast. Bigger, better, more, more, more!
The problem is, you can’t keep all of the plates spinning. It’s impossible, but we’ll keep trying until we burn out. I’ve found myself sitting with 12 broken plates at my feet and I’m still trying to spin what’s left in hanging the air. We run from one plate that is about to crash to another. From an all-nighter to an early morning discipleship class all while trying to keep a handle on our kids and marriage.
I remember a skit at a YS convention a few years back that had an expect plate-spinner on stage. Even he couldn’t do it, and neither can we. Sticks with me to this day.
Youth ministry fact: An effective discipleship process is way more important than spinning plates.
JG
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Josh Griffin has been in youth ministry for 15+ years and serves as the High School Pastor at Saddleback Church. [
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Geoff Stewart serves the Jr / Sr High School Pastor at Peace Portal Alliance Church in Surrey B.C.
so I agree , but I disagree… I can certainly see how someone can get burnt out keeping more plates spinning than they are equipped for, but if your ministry is defined by X number if spinning plates, you have to figure out a way to keep it going… Either through your own efforts, or by enlisting more volunteers and converting yourself from the spinner of plates the manager of volunteer plate spinners…
I have been a volunteer plate spinner for 5 years and am leaving the ministry at the end of this month, because I am frustrated by seeing the paid staff let the plates fall to the ground that they have the ability to keep spinning or re-vamp, through their own efforts or with the help of the volunteers…
We are in a high growth church which creates a high growth student ministry, but are not responding… I call it complacency, but the term used at NYMC conference that I thought was applicable was “sleep walking”.
I hope to find an opportunity to volunteer in another youth ministry or come back to this one that I love, but can’t until someone agrees that the plates need to stop hitting the ground…
FWIW,
Bryan
Bryan,
I agree that it should be our responsibility to keep the plates spinning by recruiting other plate spinners. but i think there are times that some plates have to stop spinning. you said, “but if your ministry is defined by X number if spinning plates, you have to figure out a way to keep it going.” I would disagree with this. I would say if your ministry is defined by the things your do and not the One you do things for then Josh’s article is right on target when he says, “An effective discipleship process is way more important that spinning plates.” If plates are spinning because they define the ministry we need to redefine the ministry.
I sense your frustration at what you see as complacency and my I can understand that. But plates spinning is not the definition of success.
Rooster
Rooster, thanks for the reply and I can see your points… And I totally agree that forming disciples is where it is at. What I see is that X number of plates were set in motion when the Jr. High ministry was 100 kids strong and they all have their piece in the discipleship process..
This year we were at about 225 students and the plates are starting to drop, either because the programs are stale or because they are not scaling… So I am for re-inventing and in that process helping to figure out what things look like going forward. Also very critical as we are opening our second remote campus and are behind the rest of the church in how we shape student ministry to that model.
We surveyed the leaders for what we are doing well and where we could grow. Great idea right?? Most of the growth items were in regard to things we have done that are starting to not work well anymore… One comment was “Listen to our feedback”… I have found out who that leader is and their point is you ask us for feedback over and over and nothing happens with it… In the leadership meeting where we discussed it , more energy was spent on how to defend that statement, vs. assigning working teams to go address the issues…
Bryan
Thanks for posting this Josh, I needed to hear that.