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Josh GriffinMore Posts Church Office Hours and Youth Ministry

article.2013.01.29 Church office hours—what a great subject! And while this might not specifically apply to everyone getting the newsletter, we’re hoping there are some principles that will help everyone, whatever their role is in youth ministry. So how do you make the administrative side of ministry work? Here are a few ideas that have helped me a ton:

Make your preferred method of communication known.
If you are a phone person, put your phone number everywhere and on everything. If you hate the phone (like me!) make sure that everything points to the way you work best. In my case, email is the most effective way to manage the incoming streams of information, complaints, and requests. I still check voicemail occasionally and have learned to live with another inbox (thanks, Facebook) but I want to make sure people know where I’m most available and where they can get the best results. Otherwise someone may be expecting an immediate phone call in return when that priority is much further down on my list. Go public with how you tick.

Don’t let others manipulate your time.
Every meeting has a starting time; why shouldn’t it have an ending time as well? Meetings, committees, and unexpected drop-ins have a way of eating up an enormous chunk of our day. And I need more Facebook time (just kidding). So when you start a meeting, lay out the goals and the time they need to be met by. When someone drops by, early in the conversation let them know your boundaries to help them find their way to the point of the drive-by. Of course, the idea here is not to create an assembly line of care or artificial community, just a candid revelation that at times you have to have good boundaries in every area of your life—even office visits.

Drop everything for pastoral care.
Okay, you might read that and go too far with it. But you are never more valuable then when there is a crisis. Get to the hospital as soon as you can. Rearrange that lunch with an old friend from college so you can go to the funeral. Don’t miss the big things, and at least be aware of the small things. Of course, remember this principle has boundaries as well, but as a general rule: When a crisis shows up, you do, too.

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.

1 View Comments February 4, 2013

Josh GriffinMore Posts GUEST POST: Managing Expectations Part 2: Parents

Last week I wrote about the need to manage the expectations of our students so that we can avoid leaving them disappointed or frustrated by unmet needs that they have of our time, teaching and their taste. We get pulled in a lot of directions and its unavoidable that we are not going to appease everyone so its important that we are proactive in our approach, especially to parents.

With parents its important to manage their expectations, especially the ones who think that since their tithe pays for salary, that they can tell you what to do and assume that you are doing very little.

Time: Students covet your time, and parents covet your time for their children. We have all been there, when a parent calls and asks if you would spend some “Pastoral” time with their student who has gone astray. For some its reactive and some its proactive, but the calls are coming and sometimes it can be a lot to deal with and schedule. In a ministry that has small group leaders, its vital that we be open to meeting with students, but help parents understand the importance of the relationship students have with their small group leaders is. I love meeting up with students, but when the culture shifts to one where the small group leader is having those meetings, you are not only able to multiply the ministry, but you have facilitated a much more sustainable relationship.

Teaching: I really do like when parents care about what we are teaching, but I am not sure about you, but I have a few parents have an expectation that we would teach would teach their students the entire Bible in the 3-6 years that we have them in our program. If her daughter has not have a full understanding of the Old Testament genealogies, am I really cut out to be a Pastor? The reality is that this is just not possible. Our aim is to teach God’s word to our students, help them understand how to read it and how the Bible continues to intersect their lives today.

Taste: This is easily the hardest thing for me to reconcile because the fact is that despite each of our best efforts to avoid this, there are students who will just not stick at our program. The hard part is that they might be kids who have been in the church for years and come to youth and never feel that it’s a place that they can go. We do out best to let parents know up front that we will make effort to help their students connect, develop relationship and land in a small group that will cultivate their student’s spiritual growth but our best and most intentional efforts are sometimes not enough.
Parents need to hear that we care deeply about their students and that we are concerned about cultivating a culture where students grow in relationship with Jesus and each other. There are a lot of expectations on us as youth workers, some expressed and others not and the more we can do to be proactive at managing and speaking to them, them more positive and healthy our relationship will be with the whole family.

Geoff Stewart is the Pastor of Jr & Sr High School for Journey Student Ministries at Peace Portal Alliance Church and regularly contributes GUEST POSTS to MTDB. Be sure to check out his Twitter stream for awesome ministry goodness. Want to get in on the fun and write up a guest post yourself? Send it on over.