I posted when the first article came out on the subject of Good to Great Youth Ministry, but now Chris Wesley has 6 of the 7 posted up on PDYMBlog.com. Lots of great questions and observations aboutyouth ministry using Jim Collins great business bestseller as a model. Here’s an except:

A lesson that I’ve learned is that our ministry budget is never going to compete with the gaming world. Meaning, just when we save up enough money for an XBOX 360, the Wii becomes the next big thing, and then by the time we get that there is something new and so on…and even if you get all that technology the teens will either love it or be bored of it. And then you think to yourself, “Was it worth the money, the effort and the time?”

It can be so intimidating for ministries to compete in a world with so much technology. It is so easy to get caught up in the fads of technology, thinking, “I’ve got to do that!” We see the families in our community spending thousands of dollars on cell phones, game systems, personal computers, gadgets and gizmos. But how do we use it to accelerate our vision or mission? How do we use it so it’s not just a fad?

Technology needs to be something to accelerate your ministry to where it’s helping your mission. Don’t just have a webpage, to have a webpage, don’t just use power point to have power point. Ask yourself, “Is the technology that I’m using helping or hurting the ministry?” One thing Jim Collins warns the reader is just as technology can accelerate you to success it can also accelerate you towards failure. By taking a “Crawl, walk, run” approach to technology, you can take better steps to preparing accelerated destruction.

JG