One of the toughest things about doing youth ministry is measuring how successful you are being. As I taught a bunch of youth ministers this week though, it's our job to be faithful, not successful. God is the one who grants success.
However, there is always this nagging question of how well are we doing? The trap that is all to easy to fall in to is to use numbers as a guage for how well your youth ministry is doing. What I have come to realise though is that this is not a good measure of success. Time and time again I hear stories of youth groups that have large numbers, but that see little fruit in the years to come ('fruit' being students who actually continue on as Christians beyond the youth ministry). The reason for this is invariably that the youth group attracted kids with a bunch of stuff that was really pretty frivilous and although it looked great at the time, it actually produced little of value. Success can also be measured by how others speak about your ministry, how many paid staff you have (bizarre!), how big your budget is (even more bizarre!), or just how many programs you run, ie. business.
Real fruit can only be measured by being patient and seeing what happens in the years to come. Are students continuing in their faith, or did they graduate their faith when they graduated high school (to use an American phrase).
I say all this because of twothings that happened this week. Firstly, on the day I taught the fellow youth ministers, I received a letter from a student who has just gone to university which basically said thanks for the past 4 years or so and confirmed in my mind that he's committed to his relationship with Jesus for the long haul. It was a good feeling. Secondly, last night we had almost double the amount of kids at our 11s-14s program than we had the week before. We've been running the group for a couple of weeks since school began, and have been struggling to get kids to come. It was a good feeling.
I'm tempted to leave it there...! But I think what it taught me about myself is that I am actually starting to understand what is more important, not just in work, but in life. For once, I realised that the second feeling wouldn't last. It's tempting to measure your success in life by the world's standards (how much you make, what you do, what you have, how many friends you have, how much you know etc), but actually it's really about the long haul, being faithful to the ones you love the most, and making sure that you are committed to what is truly important, not the temporal, but the eternal.
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7 comments:
Have to agree, our aim must be to help people develop a faith they take with them in life, which is their own and capable of withstanding the rigours that life throws at them.
Hopefully this will encourage you: you were a big influence in my life and without wanting to get all emo on you, I suspect that I wouldn't have the faith I have now without you. Thank you and thank the Lord you came to Heswall!
Just to throw in a few pennies worth... I think you should be counting your success on more than this 'fruit' measure.
As you may or may not know, I no longer consider myself to be Christian, but that certainly does not mean that time/money spent on/with me in my teenage years was a waste. Far from it. YF gave me a valuable group of friend, and lots of support at a time when kids can go off the rails. My time also gave me an understanding of Christianity which I'd never had before, and that's valuable in these times of religious conflict. It's really hard being a teenager, but I wouldn't have come out the other end of that process as the person I am without... well... you, and other people from your group.
What you're doing for young people is much more far-reaching than perhaps you realise - and I, for one, appreciate that :)
i love the fact that Jesus changed the world forever through 12 less than perfect men and a couple of dodgy women from some small insignificant outpost of the Roman empire. he didn't take mecca with 10,000 men and conquer nations. when he died it wasn't even clear if he had any faithful followers left.
don't they say that the majority of people that become Christians in their 30's first encountered Jesus in their teenage years. the work you do JB is invaluable to giving people a hope for the future and freedom from the past.
P.S. i really like the new derek webb album. its not just the same old christiam rhetoric but is actually having a go and questionning what we are doing
Thanks for the comments guys, I appreciate your kind words. God has certainly been gracious in letting me be involved in the livesof so many great young people and in helping disciple them.
Have to agree about DW Tim. Saw him live just after he released the album in a tiny bar here in Mt Pleasant and he was awesome. His new album is incredibly convicting.
how jealous am i that you get to see these artists live?
tried to download that derek webb album, but do you have to email 5 people to do it? really interesting debate here, JB. success is just so impossible to define - whatever you judge it by, you immediately set yourself a goal, whether you mean to or not. sometimes you achieve the goal and feel great, but when you don't... well, that's when it sucks! you have so much to be proud of, and your faith is strong enough to sustain you through the highs and lows. as rach says, the good effects your work has on kids is sometimes impossible to spot, but rest assured that you're doing a great job, i'm sure of it! :-)
Youth work should obviously be measured by the budget that you get allocated!!!!!! (Oh no i am a failed youth worker!!!)
I second both stino and rach's comments. You helped me in my journey find the faith I have, youth work def helps prevent/ prolongs the time til other folks "going off the rails" and youth work helps peoples social lives. All pretty much amazing but immeasurable things until we are face to face with the only dude whose measurements should count.
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