You wake up exhausted. Was that overnighter a dream? Where did your black eye come from? Why is your arm in a cast? Why are there 13 missed calls from various parents? What speeding ticket?

If you’re like us, after a big event or activity the last thing you want to do is re-live all the details. If nobody died, you probably count your blessings and move on to the next order of business (or should we say the next order of “busyness”?) And it’s the busyness of youth ministry that typically keeps youth workers from taking the time to evaluate our events and activities.

After all, you spent 2 months getting ready for summer camp…why spend one day debriefing it upon your return (that’s a rhetorical, sarcastic question)? So, after a big activity, get some rest and when your head does clear of sleep deprivation, here are a few ways to debrief like a professional event planner:

Gather the troops to celebrate
Have an evening after a big event already marked on the calendar to take time to celebrate what God did at your event. Make a sort of reunion feel to the night, including pictures, video, even a student testimony or screenshots from Facebook™ of people talking about the event. Make it known that debriefing will be part of the celebration. We reserve this type of nights for camps, retreats, mission trips etc. There’s probably no need to plan a special night just to celebrate a successful bowling outing.

Talk about “The Good”
Start with the highlights – this will get everyone centered on why you did the event in the first place and get the discussion going so it’s easier to share the lowlights. What did God do? What were the stories and celebrations from the event? What went flawlessly? What was surprising?

Talk about “The Bad”
Potential improvements are easy for some people to see – so work on creating a list of what wasn’t best and quickly think of how to improve them. Time is best spent creating a list of things that could be improved rather than focusing on solutions – it is much easier to attach someone with a particular skillset to a problem later. Start the debrief asking people to “speak the truth in love”.

Talk about “The Ugly”
Things happen. Stuff gets broken and things bomb. Only the worst offenders get on this list – don’t put things that could be easily fixed here, only stuff you swear you’ll never do again.

Send off apologies/thank yous
In the course of youth ministry events you may be required to apologize for something that happened. You may want to offer to fix a lamp that was broken. Or return something that was stolen. And for sure a quick thank you to everyone involved in the planning, pulling off and follow-through of the event will go a long ways in making sure the next one is even better.

Here’s hoping your next event, and the debrief afterward, go great!

This post was written by Josh Griffin and Kurt Johnston and originally appeared as part of Simply Youth Ministry Today free newsletter. Subscribe to SYM Today right here.

Over the past several years we’ve begun to identify 4 key values that run throughout our entire student ministry. We want these four things to show up in our large group program on the weekend, in our small group program during the week and in all of our events, trips and even one-on-one interactions with students.

Want to know what they are? Glad you asked! Here are our 4, add yours in the comments section of this post, too!

Real
Students have the uncanny ability to sniff out the least bit of inauthenticity. If you’re faking it … they know it. We want our large group time to be filled with failure stories and real-life transparency. We hope that our small groups are hitting on real topics that matter to students and that real-life is being shared in each group. We want students to know that they can “be who they are” without the need to put on a mask, put on a spiritual performance etc.

Relational
Our student ministry must be relationally strong. While programs are important, there is nothing better than one-on-one time with students. We want to share in relationships and be personally involved and invested in the life of the students God trusted to us. We value people over programs and do everything we can to constantly provide opportunities for relationships. Note: Relational ministry is easy at first, but as your ministry grows, it becomes tougher.  Don’t take relational youth ministry for granted.  It doesn’t always happen automatically!

Relevant
One of the strongest advantages to youth ministry is the ability to relate the timeless truths of God to the teenage life. You’ve probably heard the old saying, “It’s a sin to bore teenagers with the gospel”.  Making relevance a key value helps ensure you never commit that particular sin! Being relevant doesn’t mean you have to be super trendy, know the latest Lady Gaga song by heart, or that you keep up with the Kardashians, it simply means you create ministry experiences that are relevant to the life of a teenager. Our ministry must matter to students and hit them where they live their life.

Relaxed
It is our hope that students walk into our youth room and breath a sigh of relief! That their shoulders would drop as the tension is released from their bodies. That the worries and pressures teenage life drop off them, even if only for an hour or two. We want the urgency in our steps, the pace of our conversations and the environment we create to be relaxed and unhurried in every way.

Like we talked about yesterday, you need to know why your ministry exists…that’s why a purposes or vision statement is important.  But you also need to know how you want your ministry to “feel”. That’s where values come in!

This post was written by Josh Griffin and Kurt Johnston and originally appeared as part of Simply Youth Ministry Today free newsletter. Subscribe to SYM Today right here.

Last week we talked about debriefing your summer calendar, and we got a great response from it (largely asking the question, “how?”) and thought it might be good to devote a whole article on the topic. So today we’re going to list 20 questions to help you begin to evaluate your summer youth ministry calendar:

• What did we plan that was a success?
• What surprised us that was totally awesome?
• Where did we get blindsided?
• Was there a good balance of evangelism, fellowship, discipleship, ministry and worship?
• Did we lose/gain momentum at any time this summer?
• What was an epic fail?
• Where were the wins with parents?
• Is there an event we need to move to a different place in the calendar?
• Was the format of our website/Facebook/blog/printed calendar clear?
• Was there enough promotion for our events? How could we make it better?
• Is there a sacred cow we need to shoot?
• Where were our leaders unprepared?
• Are there opportunities to integrate our students into the church body we should consider next year?
• What event should we never do again?
• Were there any surprising turnouts in numbers?
• Where did we communicate poorly?
• In what circumstances did parents contact us?
• Who is a key volunteer we need to circle back with now that summer is over?
• Was it easy for parents to find out information/download forms/get a registration packet?
• Were entry level – core students challenged this summer?
• What was so great we need to consider making it an annual tradition?
• Which volunteer was incredible and needs to be challenged to be a small group leader this school year?
• What events seemed best to invite friends to?
• Where did I as the leader have the most fun relationally hanging with students?
• Where did we see the most decisions made for Christ?

This post was written by Josh Griffin and Kurt Johnston and originally appeared as part of Simply Youth Ministry Today free newsletter. Subscribe to SYM Today right here.

Summer is winding down, in many places pre-season athletics are starting and it is just about time to head back to school. We’ve still got a full month of time off before our first day of school, but it begs the question – how was your summer? Vote in today’s poll!

JG

Growing up in the late ’80s and the ’90s when personal computers started coming into the mainstream, MICROSOFT was the bomb! They did everything well and they were everywhere.  Computer makers like Apple were struggling and no one even thought of Google yet. In fact, I can clearly remember back when I was hired to be the Jr. High Intern at my 1st church that my boss and I mocked the other intern for her love of Macs.  We made fun of her so much (in a nice way of course  ) that she eventually switched to PC – an Acer no less.

Well times have changed and now my former boss and good friend laugh at ourselves for how we tortured the other Intern because we, like so many of the rest of the world have switched from PC to Mac.  In less than 10 years, Apple, Inc has gone from on the brink of extinction to the most popular computer and home entertainment distributors in the world.  It was done in large part because of the creation of the iPod in 2001.  From there a halo effect the iPod created, Macs have grown in popularity, the iPhone is one of the best selling cell phones in the world and the iPad is crushing the tablet market.  Apple, Inc is on a roll!

In fact, if you look at Microsoft, it is struggling to compete in the mobile phone market, they don’t have a table computer that is exciting to consumers and their Windows OS is outdated.  So, what happened to Microsoft?  How did it go from greatness to an afterthought? Well, according to Fortune’s article “The problem with Microsoft” and Bloomberg Businessweek’s article “Paul Allen’s Revenge” there are a number of reasons for this:

1. Can’t let go of the glory days.  In the Businessweek article, Paul Allen suggests that, “Microsoft continues to overvalue its market share of yesterday’s products rather than develop compelling new ones.”  He went on to say that Microsoft was addicted to the Office Suite and continued to bask in the that product which prevented it from developing in other areas such as internet.
2. Poor execution. In the Fortune article, it shows that Microsoft has been great at spotting trends and getting out ahead of the market on ideas.  They started talking about tablet computers 15 years ago and developing an e-Reader 10 years ago – long before anyone else.  The problem?  Poor execution.  Roy Ozzie, who was once the chief software architect for Microsoft after Bill Gates said, ”Our early and clear vision notwithstanding, execution [by competitors] has surpassed our own.”  They can’t get compelling devices out on the market anymore.
3. Not letting innovators innovate. In an effort to compete with the ever changing mobile phone market, Microsoft bought a mobile technology company, Danger (the developer of the popular Sidekick).  What Microsoft told those employees was, “You’ve got this great product, and we’re going to give you the resources to take this to the next level.”  The developers at Danger were excited and pumped for having the additional resources to innovate.  HOWEVER, what ended up happening was that those developers ended up getting folded into the Microsoft company and instead of being able to innovate and create, many were assigned to help develop a new Windows-based phone.  After months of frustration and delays, the team had to rush to create a new phone based partially on a new operating system.  Although the idea for the phone was great, the lack of support, the rush to get done and their inability to create and innovate destroyed any chances of this new phone from succeeding.  It was pulled from the stores after only 48 days on the market!

So how does Microsoft’s struggles possibly apply to ministry?  Simply put…

1. Let the glory days be glory days
2. Never stop innovating and creating with excellence
3. Take Risks for the glory of the Lord

Microsoft couldn’t let go of the past and they had to keep on putting more and more money into Microsoft Office.  Sure it was a great productivity tool, but no one this day and age is a one trick pony.  You have to keep innovating and creating.  Take Apple for example. They weren’t satisfied with just the iMac or iBook.  In 2003 they released the iPod which changed the music industry (Imagine that! A computer company changing the music industry).  They could have stopped there but they didn’t.  They went on the change the phone and tablet industries by releasing the iPhone in 2007 and the iPad in 2010.  They kept on creating and making things better for more people.

In the same way, as leaders of Christ to others, we need to constantly be looking for ways to share about Him to people.  That means sometimes we need to be changing and adapting the way we do that.  Whether it is introducing a new program, a new way to share the gospel or a new way to challenge the volunteer leaders, we need to be constantly creating and changing with the times.  What works today will definitely not work in the years ahead.  Things have to change as students are changing.

Students, like consumers, are not as loyal as the “good old days”.  They are going to go where there needs are being met and where the excitement is.  In order to be presenting Christ to as many people as possible, we have to be constantly changing methods (not core principles) and take some risks.

That is why it is so important to keep thinking of new ideas.  Don’t get fixated on the prior success of an old program or an old way to share the gospel.  Keep on adding, tweaking and changing things. When those new ideas get stall, invite some new fresh blood into the creative meetings.   This is a great way to include students into the process and give them ownership.  Not only does it encourage them but it is another way to include others and new ideas can begin to develop.

So right now, TAKE A MINUTE and think through how you can keep ahead of the game.  Take a look at your program and see where changes may need to take place.  What is old and outdated that need to be replaced with something fresh and new?  Don’t wait til attendance is down and it is clear things need to change.  Get out ahead of the game and make changes as needed so that students have every opportunity to hear about Christ in the best way possible.

Tom Pounder blogs very often at www.ministryblackboard.com and has been featured in several guest posts when Josh is on vacation or is just plain lazy.

Been learning quite a bit lately about youth ministry in the trenches here at Saddleback - here are 3 lessons I’ve known for a while but seem be be hitting me hard these days:

Never be OK with OK.
When you are coasting you are slowing down, just not admitting it. I’m not by any means encouraging you to give up margin or a day off – I guess I’m admitting coming off a season marked by a little apathy in my heart. Which means I was OK with OK. Which isn’t OK.

Fix it or kill it.
If a program is limping along you have to fix it or put it down. God has gifted you as a leader with discernment, so use it and take time to evaluate where you’re at. Be decisive. With a few adjustments you can probably turn it around, and if there’s no hope be a strong enough leader to admit failure.

If everything is working perfectly, it won’t be for long.
This is the harsh reality of youth ministry – it will never be fully dialed in. Just when you think you’ve got it all together, it comes crashing down. It seems like health comes in cycles and when it starts to turn downward you have to re-up the commitment to your church and gear up for another tour of duty.

Would love to know what you’re learning about youth ministry right now – leave them in the comments!

JG

I have been in a student ministry paid staff position for three years, nearly to the day (another three years of volunteer ministry before that).  I am, well actually my family and I are in a place of transition, I just resigned from my position as Youth Pastor at our church yesterday.  We will be presented to another church in view of a call in a couple of weeks, and although we are not assuming this church will call us, we truly believe this is where God is leading us.  That said we felt our time at our present church is coming to a close, and regardless of the outcome of the vote we have decided that it’s time to step down.  All this has got me thinking about how to gauge our effectiveness in the three years we have spent here.  How effective has our ministry been?  Has it been a huge success or a monumental failure?  If I’m being completely honest, it’s been keeping me up at night.  A conversation with a mentor in ministry has helped to put my mind at ease, so I share with you what he shared with me hoping it will keep you from long nights staring at the ceiling.

“Your going to be miserable in ministry until you get over this.  Eventually, it may drive you out of ministry.  You will always have naysayers, you will always be criticized by some.  Here is how you need to evaluate yourself.  Have you acted on principle?  Have you acted in agreement with Scripture? You have worked harder for this church than any two people, and that’s all you can do.  While we absolutely should consider people’s thoughts and opinions, do so understanding you will never be everything to everyone.  Do your best, do what God calls you to do, and love people.  When you evaluate yourself and your ministry, if you’ve done these things, then you have been successful.”

Ministry is tough, and for those of us called to either vocational or volunteer service the critics can sometimes be harsh.  Regardless, I have finally been put at ease by this wisdom shared to me, and now to you.  It’s the kind of thing we as pastors tell everyone else.  It’s the kind of thing that when we hear someone share it with others we think to ourselves, “Yep.  I would tell them the same thing.”  But having it said to me instead of coming from me has been powerful.  Maybe it can help you too.

Stephen Trainer is a husband, father, school teacher, youth pastor, dog owner and technology geek. What else could you want? Find out more at his blog: www.delightedtoshare.com

You will never arrive.

I know that thought might be frustrating to you. Week after week, year after year, you’re headed toward some goal, and it is a goal you will never reach. In our calling, you’ll never reach the finish line. Here’s what I mean:

You put together the best 5-year plan ever created. You put into action a strategy to build your ministry on the eternal purposes of God. You had a moment where God showed you where you should lead your group. So you write it out, you take the first steps. You gain some momentum. Things are going great.

In fact, you’re moving from what started as a dream into seeing it actually happen in your ministry. Lives are being changed. It is going better than you ever dared to dream it might. You’re close to the goal. You can see the finish line.

Then … you realize that the area of your ministry that was so strong last year was starting to drift away from the original vision. What worked like crazy two years ago has plateaued. You lose a key volunteer. Apathy sets in, or spiritual dryness becomes commonplace. The amazing group of seniors graduated and the batch of incoming freshman are … well, freshman.

You may get closer to the goal, but you’ll never really get there. You’re not supposed to. You need to be OK with that fact. Youth ministry is about seasons of success, seasons of failure, busy seasons and busier seasons. Youth ministry is good, bad and ugly all wrapped into one. You will never arrive – God’s church and your leadership will always be a work in progress.

So wherever you are today in this cycle of never quite arriving – setting goals, almost reaching your goals, evaluating where you are at or completely starting over – celebrate! Celebrate that God wants you as part of the process and His church. Celebrate that God wants to use you to reboot, retool, relaunch or redo something.

It all keeps you humble, and those are the best youth ministry leaders. Leaders that never arrive.

JG

Noticed that Doug and Matt’s YM Daily yesterday had some great thoughts about looking back and taking time to debrief, evaluate and celebrate the past season. They had some great questions to think about (which I think I’ll answer in a future blog post) that would be good to think about this week as you enter the new school year.

• …| What happened during the summer that was great? What do we want to be sure to repeat in the future?
• …| Where did God show up? What victories could we celebrate?
• …| Where was I surprised? What last minute “audible” or changes was I forced to make?
• …| What went wrong? What could have been better?

JG

No leader enjoys the notion of failure.   In the split categories of good and evil, failure is considered evil, success is considered good.   Just thinking about certain failures in my own life brings back emotions that stir the depths of my being.  Why? Because failure in front of those we live, play, and work with is embarrassing.  It just plain hurts.

But we all fail.  And some of us are persistent failures.  It happens, it is how humans learn, and how we deal with it makes all the difference.

A while back I was not a Youth Director, but rather, I was a Youth Ministry Assistant.  In gradations of youth ministry scales, that is just above an intern, and just below a director.  You’re supposed to know a few things about youth ministry because you’ve already been an intern and now you are set loose to discover freedom with a few oodles of responsibility.

Upon being hired and oriented, I was given the reigns to a very important ministry in the youth group: the Friday night outreach program.  The youth director told me that I had the freedom to brainstorm, propose, and implement the program with hopes that I would be successful in creating a space that community youth would like to come.  The guidelines were that it would involve food, music, fun, and some form of evangelism.

Given freedom, I was terrified.  When someone is in charge of you and gives you orders, you can always blame the orders or the one giving the orders for failure.  Freedom changes that.  I had to take responsibility for what would be implemented and I would be making a culture all by myself.  In charge of the programs destiny, I began to worry.  What if my ideas were not received well?

I tossed and turned during the nights, and wrote up drafts and proposals for the program and presented what I had come up with.  It was very practical.  We had been moving into a new building with a gym,  a game room with pool tables and ping pong, and we had a stage in a gathering area with a nice sound board.  So I decided that each week I would bring in a local band.  We would start the night off with a big game in the gym that would bring everyone together, and those who didn’t want to listen to the band could hang out in the game room.  It seemed simple, and so I presented the whole shebang with schedule from band load in to sound check to a quick devotion and the night would end.  The presentation was well received and I was given the go.

And I was terrified.

As I thought through my simple plan I realized that there were many moving parts.  (1) I had to bring a team of volunteers along to get used to a new building and a new program culture.  (2) I would have to email and call and MySpace about 15 bands in order to fill in every Friday night for a season.  (3) I would need a sound tech to work with several servant oriented people to help get the bands in and ready.  (4) Amidst the hubbub, I would be giving a short devotion, a reflection, or a scripture verse.  And (5) I would have to build relationships as the host to all the students coming through the doors and ensure that they were connected to each other and to leaders in a positive way.  Lastly (6) I would have to get the gym game up and running.  Oh, and I forgot to mention (7) I would be self conscious of my evaluation from my director.

Thinking through all the moving parts made me more nervous than ever, and as the first date got closer I became somewhat paralyzed.  There was a point while I was searching for bands, in which I did not know if I wanted to move forward.  I knew I would, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to.  But I thought about how I felt and the notion of failure continued to weigh on me.

In passing with my director I decided to let him know how I felt.  I told him that there was a lot to get going and I wasn’t sure of the excellence of everything that needed to come together.  Time was going by and not all the t’s were crossed, nor all the i’s dotted.

I’ll always remember how he responded.  He said, “Don’t be afraid to fail.” It was simple.  He told me that I was allowed to try, and if it failed, then it failed.  What was I going to do?  Permission to fail!  I couldn’t believe it.  Suddenly I felt much better.  Being a perfectionist that often falls short of my own expectations, I realized that the possibility of failure should not stop someone from doing something that needs to be done.   So I went ahead and booted up the program.

After four years with spits and spurts of growth pains, and with the perspective and help of a new Youth Pastor to work with midstream, I would say that the program got to where I wanted it to be.  But it took many failures and people still believing in me to get it right.  In the end, students were getting connected, leaders were doing relationship evangelism, student leaders had developed, I scrapped the band every night idea (allowing it to be special when a band did come) and added video games and music from an iPod set list, and the gym games continued to be popular.  The program grew, and new elements added either failed or succeeded.  Even after leaving, that program continues to minister to students.

If only I had listened to Christ’s words on the Mount:

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?  -Matthew 6:25-27

All ministries are a risky venture.  Many of us will fail, but the weight is not squarely on our shoulders.  The spirit of God is looking out for us when we are trying to do good for Him.  Trusting, obeying, and in that, not worrying too much about failure is a part of serving God.  He is greater than us and takes us to places and builds things we cannot imagine.    Fear and trembling at anything other than God will paralyze you and you cannot do the work you are called to do in a state of paralysis.  Just start doing what God is calling you to do.  Persevere, and you will find something valuable at the end of the road.

Daniel Griswold is the Director of Youth at St. Andrew By-The-Sea UMC in Hilton Head Island, SC. Check out his blog at http://danielgriswold.wordpress.com or on Twitter.