Just posted a fantastic new article from Judy Gregory over on PDYM’s website. If you’re heading into a season of change here’s a great story and some principles to communicate it to your church. Excerpt:

The more people involved, the longer it takes to make a directional change. For example, a couple of months ago, the Senior Management Team (SMT) member overseeing the high school and middle school ministries changed. The transition was quick and clean because of the number of people it affected — a total of six. In essence, we really didn’t make a directional change, but simply changed one of our behind the scenes drivers. There was no need to inform parents or students because it didn’t impact them in any way. If you were to ask students or parents who Corey, Judy and John report to, most would never have had a clue to begin with.

In the coming days, however, the organizational chart for our youth ministry is going to take on a radical new look that will impact everyone. We’ll go from staffing based on program to staffing based on shape (or gifting). I’m excited about this change and, if it were possible, I’d make the official switch tomorrow. Personally, it will free me up to do some youth ministry stuff that I’ve wanted to invest myself in for a really long time. However, realistically, it will take months to make the transition. Why? Because in addition to title changes, the “way” we do youth ministry is going to change as well. It’s not just about who is in the driver’s seat – everyone in the vehicle, including staff, students and parents – will have to make a turn. The whole youth ministry will reposition itself to move in a new direction. In light of that, here are a few things we found that we need to obtain or navigate in order to lead change effectively.

1. Approval. We need to cast vision vertically by ensuring that that those above us are on board with the change.

2. Advice. We need to talk about it horizontally. Who do you know that has a “youth ministry mindset” that can provide great words of wisdom? These need to be people who live and breathe youth ministry and probably have been around the block a few more times than you. I talked about our change with a friend of mine down south. His words, “Judy this is an incredible idea on paper. In fact, I’ve wanted to move this direction for a really long time in my own youth ministry. However, I haven’t seen it work anywhere yet for one reason and one reason alone…in order for it to succeed, your youth ministry staff has to trust each other. Most youth ministries don’t have that level of trust among their staff members.” Those were great words that stuck.

JG