"So we're making history?!"
That's what she said when I told them about the First Ever Countywide Youth Music Festival our church was organizing.

Have you ever noticed how NFL announcers can make anything sound monumental?

"This is the first time in history that Brett has thrown 3 touchdowns on a rainy Tuesday against the Rams at a home game in a playoff game."
It sounds impressive when they say it. But really? How often does Brett have a chance to play the Rams on a rainy Tuesday during play offs season? And do those qualifiers really matter anyway?

I'm a soccer fan. So I've thought about football's unapproachable popularity in America a lot. This is my theory for why Americans love football more than soccer:

1.) Football has tangible, incremental accomplishments to celebrate as opposed to soccer's constant unending play. (more on this point in my next post)

2.) The announcers have a way of making every moment sound like the most important thing that has ever happened in the history of sports.

The truth is, none of it matters. Nothing that happens on the field actually matters. But it does matters. Because they make it matter. The entire sporting industry, and especially NFL announcers, do an unbelievable job at making every moment feel like it's the most important thing humanity has ever witnessed.


So why aren't people coming to church?
Because it doesn't matter.
At least that's what it feels like.
Failing churches are churches that do very little to sell people on the idea that church matters.
So if we want to fight the decline, first and foremost, do things that matter.
Second, get people to feel it. More than intellectually understanding that this church thing matters, people need to feel that this church thing matters.

That's why every time I brought up the Music Festival, I always made sure to call it, "THE FIRST EVER Fairfield County Youth Music Festival." And they picked up on it.

And really, it didn't matter. It was a bunch of amateur kids playing music in a room.
But really, it mattered a lot. It was actually a life-changing, history-making, earth-shaking experience.

There's a moment where one of the kids says to the audience, "I'm nervous. I've never performed in front of this many people before... God is great!" And then he launches into a song he wrote about his faith. That matters.
There were other kids dealing with the death of parents who were given a chance to sing their heart out. That matters.
These kids were given a chance to publicly express their faith through an art that they love. That matters.

But only if you tell them it matters. Only if you sell them on why it matters. Only if you talk like an NFL announcer and say, "Yes, we are making history today."

"We are open to the best candidate, whether that person is ordained or not."

This seems like a perfectly innocuous statement.
Most often, God calls the best people through non-traditional pathways.
And some of my to 15 favorite ministers of all time are not ordained ministers.

But intention matters.

And for many churches, this statement is not made out of a principled stand for alternative paths, nor is it a clarity of God's call.
For many churches, this statement is made out of a lack of vision.

The last time I heard someone say this, I had volunteered to be the guinea pig practice interview for their Youth Minister Search Committee.
Or was it the Youth Coordinator Search Committee?
Or was it the Associate Minister Search Committee?
Or was it the Children and Youth Programming Coordinator?


They couldn't decide.
But it didn't matter, because they were open to hiring both ordained and non-ordained people so that they didn't limit their search, right?

Wrong.

Here's why it matters:

Because each one of those titles communicates a different vision, a different desire for our kids, a different set of expectations for the person hired. Each one of those titles will attract a different set of applicants. Each one of those titles will communicate a different set of expectations and produce a different relationship. Each one of those titles will turn you into a different kind of church.


I asked what happened to the last person they hired for this role. Apparently they went down in flames, unexpectedly leaving the church due to great conflict. As they rehashed the conflict for me, one committee member offered an example of the previous Youth Minister's failings, "He didn't even know my 5 year-old's name." A scathing condemnation, if that were his job.

But it wasn't clear if it was his job because the church wasn't clear about what his job was.
Most importantly, they were setting themselves up to repeat the conflict because they weren't very clear about what they wanted from the next person they hired.

It may seem callus to say, "It's not a minister's job to know your child's name," but that's why titles matter.
If you advertise a position as "Youth Minister," you are defining their job by who they are supposedly serving. Their job is to serve the "Youth." Certainly, you can make an argument that to be effective a "Youth Minister" should also be connecting with adults to get them involved in supporting the youth, and also connecting with 5 year olds so they start looking forward to being in the high school youth group when they're old enough. But by making that argument, you are claiming that you no longer want a "Youth Minister." You no longer want a minister who works exclusively with the "Youth." You want a minister who works with 5 year olds, 15 year olds, and 50 year olds. You want a generalists, not a specialist. You want an "Associate Minister" not a "Youth Minister."

But maybe you don't want a generalist. Maybe you want to communicate to your youth that they matter. I hear this from many churches. We don't want to hire an Associate Minister who is a generalist. We want to hire a Youth Minister who is exclusively focused on our Youth. That's great. But it also communicates that Youth Ministry is an isolated endeavor. If your Youth Minister is exclusively devoted to Youth Ministry, not involved in worship, not expected to minister to the adults, then you are communicating that you don't expect your Youth to be integrated into those activities either.


My grandfather, Papa, always used to talk about how back in his day, the entire football team used to play the whole game. Papa would play both offense and defense. They were generalists. But now, when you hire a QB, you don't expect him to jump into the defensive line. So the question is this: when you hire a "Youth Minister," do you expect them know your 5 year-old's name? Do you hold it against them when they don't?


I guess part of how you answer the question depends on how you define that ever ambiguous word "Youth." Is it 13-18 year olds? Is it 10-35 year olds? Is it 0-50 year olds?

I think of that book/movie "Money Ball" where they move one of their players to first base who has never played the position before. You would think that a professional baseball player could handle playing any position, right? I mean, it's all throwing and catching. But when he moves to First Base it's almost  as if he has never played baseball before. Same is true of ministry, not all ministers share the same skill set and not all ministry requires the same skill set.



I obviously have my biases. I also recognize that these questions have different answers for each church. What works for my church won't always work in your church.

But I'll tell you what never works: being unclear.

You need to do that discernment together. You need to have that vision together. You need to have clear expectations for what you want for your youth in your church. Because there's a big difference between hiring someone who's good at working with youth and calling a pastor to minister to your church. Sometimes when we decide to search for a minister, we may find that a lay employee is a better candidate. But it is important for us to be self-aware to realize that we are making a shift in our expectations. Otherwise, you're going to lose an amazing minister when they can't understand why you're so upset that they don't know your 5 year-olds' name.

I may be a Reverend, but I am not a Pastor.

I find that most ministers are some combination of 2-3 of the following: preacher, programmer, professional, or pastor.
The Preacher loves the teachable moment, loves to sermonize with fiery passion.
The Programmer loves to schedule activities, plan events, seasonal series, retreats, studies, groups, etc, etc, ad infinitum.
The Professional loves to dig deep into the institutional development of the church. Committee meetings are their comfort zone.
The Pastor has a much gentler touch than the rest. Even in the pulpit, the Pastor's word is healing, prayerful, contemplative.

I am not a Pastor. I try to be, especially because that's what many congregants need me to be.
But I like to spit fire from the pulpit, I like to dig deep into the institutional structure, and I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE to create programming.

In fact, programming is my default. I think it is a product of my upbringing. I grew up in a town that was a "Type A" factory. Greenwich, CT just pumps out go-getters who have all the vocational drive in the world. We like to accomplish things. I also grew up in a church that was considered a "Programmatic" Church in size. 5-6 Youth Retreats a year, a couple different theatrical performances, Mission Trips like whoa, our calendars were so full it would make your eyes bleed trying to color coordinate everything. And that doesn't even take into consideration all the extracurriculars and the homework I had to keep up at school, AP Physics, band, soccer, PowerNap Club (yes, that's a thing), etc. etc.

I guess that's why I started this blog and wanted to tackle this question of church's place in the Sports Culture. I have sympathy for today's Youth. Their over-scheduled nature, and the endless pressure to succeed, and the hyper focus on college applications is so native to my heart.

I have always thrived best when over-scheduled most. I couldn't function unless I was over-functioning. While many of my colleagues suffer from churches that expect too much of them time-wise, I suffer from setting those expectations for myself.

This has been one of my greatest strengths, and one of my greatest weaknesses.

In my first 3-4 years, it was a huge asset that I was always looking to find the next best thing. I'd hear kids report, "All of our friends are jealous because our Youth Group does so much cool stuff all the time." And I'd respond, "Great! Invite your friends along," and I'd add on another bowling night.

As I've talked about in this blog before, that drive is part of how we grew from 8 kids on average, to 25-30, sometimes as many as 50 for special events. (#HumbleBrag)

But before I get too big of an ego, this year has been different. I finally hit critical mass. I have reached a point where my ministry has become too much about events, and not enough about ministry. And I had heard all the warnings, all the lectures, all the brilliant advice that ministry should be about building relationships not going skiing.

But for me, the way I've been trained my whole life, I only know how to build relationship through programming. I only know how to minister through events and systems.

And so my numbers are down this year, which again shouldn't be the measure of success or failure. But when the numbers are down and you know you could be doing better, it's hard not to take it as a sign. And so I've been trying to readjust. I've started cutting down on the number of events we hold per month. I've tried to remind myself that it's often better to do less whole-heartedly than to do more half-assed.

And this is the most important thing, the heart of ChurchVSports, the idea that there is no single answer or best approach, the belief that ministry should be an ever-evolving experiment, adapting to the times, fitting the program to the kids not the kids to the program.


Because in trying to combat the increasing demands of the Sports Culture, it is important that we not fall into the same trap of tyranny that Sports play on the lives of our congregants. It's always a fine balancing act between raising the bar just high enough that your kids have to reach for it, but not raising it so high that church becomes another anxiety-producer in their lives.

And one of the approaches that plagues churches the most is the inability to let go of something. If it works three years in a row, it's bound to last 30 years in a row, even 15 years after it stops working.

And so as I preach the need to schedule more daring adventures in order combat the monopoly of sports on our congregants' lives, that also comes with a word of caution, a note to continually self-reflect on when it's time to let things go. That is also a great act of self-care.

Work-Life balance is key. And often, work-life balance means dropping balls at work, a thing I am learning each week as I figure out how to be a minister and a dad to my 16-month-old baby.
I have told my colleagues and friends on multiple occasions, and I need to tell myself more often, that dropping balls at work is actually a good thing. It helps us discern what is actually a priority in our ministry. It helps us discern the difference between what we want to do and what we can do, and often we confuse what we want to do with what God wants us to do. But God's call often sits somewhere between want and can.

And so I cancelled most of our events last month. And while I'm still feeling a little blue that our numbers are down for our ski retreat in a couple of weeks, I try to remind myself that less kids mean I have more meaningful amounts of time to build better relationships and do better pastoral care with each kid on the trip. And I try to take heart that even with our numbers down, I still have 2 of my most devoted athletes skipping practices and games to come on the trip.

So as you kick yourself about your impossible schedule, as you carry the guilt for dropping the ball again, as you sit at your computer past midnight for the third time this week, think on this: if it doesn't get done because you don't have time to do it, maybe it shouldn't get done. Maybe it's God telling you, "Be still. And know that I am God." Maybe it's God telling you that doing less means you're doing better.

Maybe it's God telling you to be less of a Programmer and be more of a Pastor.

"We really want to get to church, but it's the only day the kids have to sleep in."

Have you heard that one?

Yeah I've heard it too.

I want to be sympathetic because I get it. I was that over-scheduled kid too.

But less than 5 sentences later, this mother, who basically just told me church isn't worth the 15 minute drive on a Sunday morning, is telling me about how they drove 6 hours to get to her daughter's lacrosse tournament last weekend.

My outward response is understanding and sympathy. But of course, my inward response is seething with anger.
My mind is swimming with comments that I won't say out loud accusing the mother, "What priorities are you teaching your child?!"

I've heard plenty of ministers ramble off the same list of complaints. But Devil get behind me!

In scripture, often the word that is translated as the "devil" is "haSatan" in Hebrew, which is really more accurately translated as "the Adversary" or "the Accuser."

If our response, whether spoken or filtered, is to blame someone else, then we are doing the devil's work.

If we are to follow Jesus's teaching, then we are meant to remove the plank of wood in our own eye before we remove the dust from our neighbors.

We need to move past our initial anger response. Be slow to anger, quick to listen (James 1:19).

Instead of blaming these parents for having the wrong priorities, we need to do some self-reflecting, looking at the church. Maybe we're the ones with the wrong priorities.

If people aren't willing to wake up in time to make a 10am service, then maybe we need to start asking ourselves why church doesn't feel worth the 15 minute drive? Because eternal salvation seems like it should be more worth it than throwing a ball in a net, but apparently we have not done a good job making our case.


Instead of getting mad at the sports culture for stealing away our flock, instead of getting upset about sports culture encroaching on a Sunday morning, we need to learn from the successes of the sports culture.


It's just lacrosse. You can play lacrosse anywhere. There are plenty of kids between Connecticut and Virginia that play lacrosse. You don't have to drive 6 hours to find other people to play against. And yet there is something about that lacrosse tournament that makes it feel worthwhile.


If you want your church to start thriving, then you need to make it feel worthwhile. Because that waking up Sunday morning and 15 minute drive is a lot harder than we realize. The people in your pews woke up early enough so they could shower before the kids got up. Then they made breakfast for their kids, got them dressed, did their hair, survived their 3-year-old's tantrum, put them all in snow boots, strapped them all in the car, ran back inside because they almost forgot to bring their donation for the food pantry and their offering envelope, then had to scrape off all the ice from the windshield, then make that stupid left turn at that one obnoxious intersection, only to arrive 5 minutes late and have to park 2 blocks away, run with the kids down the street while one complains about needing to go to the bathroom. All of that in order to go sit with a bunch of grey-haired strangers giving them the stink-eye while they fight to keep their kids quiet so they can listen to some boring ass sermon and sing some outdated dirges that barely pass as hymns.
 
Is that really worth it?! Hell no!

To be honest, I'd rather drive 6 hours to a lacrosse tournament too.

So what is our lacrosse tournament?
What in the church makes the Sunday morning hurricane feel worth it?


I propose this: As a church, we need to stop doing theology.
Theology in its literal meaning basically translates to "talking about God."
We need to stop talking about God. We need to start experiencing God.
We need Active Experiences of God.
We need Theopraxy.
Etymology nerds, did I get that right? Theopraxy, "God Action"?
Whatever, I'm going with it. Theopraxy.



I want people to walk away from church not only having thought about God, but having experienced God.


And that was what we did.
When we went through a re-visioning process for our Middle School ministries, we kept that saying at our forefront:
"Active Experiences of God."

Our Middle Schoolers' experience of Sunday School would no longer feel like Sunday "School."
They're educational experiences would be just that: Experiences.
No more of this sitting around a table, read a story, and draw a picture.

Our Middle Schoolers now make short films. They go on trips to the Heifer International Farm. They go outside and do photography. They build labyrinths. They do science experiments. They go on hikes. They gather donations and deliver them to Animal Shelters. Not as some separate Youth Group program, but as an integral part of their Sunday School curriculum.

Across four grades (5th-8th grade) we went from an average attendance of 4-8 and overnight found ourselves with an average attendance of 15-30!

15-30 kids active in our Middle School ministry every week!

But more important than the numbers is the quality of the experience.

They are engaging with the world, engaging with each other, engaging with God.
And our sportiest kids will even skip softball practice on a Sunday morning to come to church.



Honestly, I don't blame those parents for choosing sports over church, because we weren't even giving them a choice before.
If Sunday School every week is just Sunday School, and my kid has a game, I'm taking them to the game every time.
If you look at it as having to choose between two teams, and one team has a practice as usual, but the other team has a game, you're going to the game no question.

Church has been in practice mode for too long. After all this time, what are we practicing for? We've got to start having games and tournaments to make all that practice feel worthwhile, meaning this: we've got to start making Sunday morning feel important, special. We've got to make it feel worth a 6 hour drive.


Think of Church as your best friend who you get coffee with every week.
You love your weekly coffee dates with Church.
You talk about life together, but that's all you do, talk,
because you don't really have time to do anything with your friend Church.
So you don't really experience life together.
You only really have an hour each week to talk over a cup of coffee.
After a while, you start to drift apart.
You have to skip this week's coffee date for a doctor's appointment
and next week's for a parent-teacher conference.
One day you realize it's been 3 months since you've talked.
You really want to reconnect, but it feels super awkward to call out of the blue like that.
And you just don't have the energy this week to explain why it's been so long
and you don't really feel like explaining that scare you had with cancer
and you're tired of talking about the drama with your kid's school.
Maybe next week.
Yeah. Next week.
You'll call and set up a date next week.
But then next week comes and goes.
One day you realize it's been 3 years since you've seen your friend Church.

This is why I'm proposing Theopraxy as the saving of the church.
Any true friendship, any true relationship requires common experiences.
If all we do is talk about God, then God just becomes some story.
If all we do is talk about God, then God just sits on the sideline.
If you want your church to matter to people,
if you want your church to feel worth the 15 minute drive,
if you want people to choose church of sports,
stop blaming them for their choices,
get up off the sidelines, and get in the game.

As more and more churches update to the 20th Century (that's right, I said 20th. A lot of us are still working on the 1900s), I'm sure you've all heard some of these same refrains:

"We don't want to be one of those churches with a projector screen."

"But if we post the service online, then people will just stay home and they won't come to church."

Don't get me started. Well, I guess I got myself started because I'm writing this blog post.


First of all, projector screens are terrible if they are used weekly and just for screen lyrics. But they can be invaluable tools for making worship feel more inclusive, more visual, more synesthetic, more spiritual, more church if they are used with some artistic sensitivity. And no. Stock photos of someone's feet walking along the beach at low tide does not count as artistic sensitivity.


More importantly, for this post, I want to talk about our fear of posting our services online.

This is something my church is currently discerning.
Beyond the basic logistics of technology and funding, and beyond making sure we have the appropriate licensing (PSA: MAKE SURE YOU HAVE THE APPROPRIATE LICENSING!), there is something really important being said here for us to reflect on as a church.


I have talked with many a lay leader and many an ordained colleague who have expressed this worry. In trying to enrich our ministry, are we making it easier for people to just stay home? That question carries with it the implicit consequence that worship attendance and thus the offering plate will dwindle. Are we investing in something that will weaken our institution?


My response is always the same: "If that becomes a problem, then maybe it's a sign that we need to do a better job leading worship." If sitting at home in your jammies with your cup of coffee by yourself and listening to the podcast version of the service sounds better than the authentic and in-the-moment feeling of being surrounded in person by a community and spirit of worship, then we have to do some serious self-reflection about the way we do worship together. And to be honest, even just writing that description now, as I'm trying to write in support of real-time church worship, I would definitely choose to be curled up on the couch listening to a podcast.

Even at the high school level of sports, before big games, they're watching tapes of the competition. And after each game, they're watching tapes of their performance. They're constantly self-analyzing to see where they can improve.

Confession time here: I haven't listened to a recording of myself preaching in well over a year. That's a problem. It may sound egocentric to say that I should listen to tapes of myself preaching, but anyone who has been made to watch tape of themselves in a preaching class can tell you that we preachers take no pleasure in it. That discomfort in self-analysis, that unease is a sign. In order to grow, we need to be self aware. We need to watch the tape.

I just don't have time for it. That is a problem. As ministers, a lot of us fill our schedules so that we are just barely making it all work. Don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about. As congregants, in response to centuries of ministers just barely making it all work, a lot of us are learning to embrace mediocre worship. This problem of mediocrity is becoming a problem of mediocracy. Church is a weekly ritual, not a place I go to be transformed. Sunday School is a place I send my child each week, not a place I expect to change their lives. It's an unspoken deal we make, and the sign of our covenant is a firm handshake accompanied by an insincere, "That was a lovely sermon, Pastor."

Mediocre worship is my biggest pet peeve.

I've been so judgmental my entire career. I disdain nothing more than a mediocre minister leading a mediocre worship service, especially when that mediocre minister is me. That disdain has gotten harder and harder to bear since my child was born. I find myself renegotiating this whole work-life balance thing and life is winning a lot more than it used to, which is probably as it should be. I'm trying to teach myself that sometimes mediocre is enough because otherwise I don't have anything left to give my daughter or my wife or my parents or my four sisters or my friends. I barely have time to get through next week, so forget about watching the tape from last week. Forget about the deep self-analysis that is needed to continually improve my craft.

I guess it's "that was a lovely sermon, Pastor" for the rest of my career. I guess it's people choosing to stay home in their jammies to watch well-written-produced-and-edited shows and podcasts instead of hastily written sermons delivered by a minister who is half-asleep.

This is literally my nightmare. I actually have dreams about this and the anxiety from these dreams lives in my shoulders. This is how it is. This is how it is going to be. Mediocre Ministry is the only way.

Or...

Or maybe there's another option.

Maybe we can do better.

Maybe we can hold each other to higher standards.

Maybe we can create the kind of work environments where we make time for improvement.

Maybe we can create the kind of professional development groups that watch the tape together.

Maybe we can offer each other honest critique without taking it so personal.

Maybe we can work together to be better. Not for our egos. Not for the church. But for God.

But for the grace of God go I.

How can we preach the gospel, how can we preach grace, how can we preach the Spirit, if we don't stop to listen for it? We have to watch the tape.

I studied Indian classical music in college. My teacher learned from the most world-renowned players of Sarod, Tabla, and Sitar. I'm talking about the musicians with whom the Beatles traveled all the way to India to study. My teacher once talked about when he was young, he was so eager. In tuning his Sarod he would pluck a string, turn the peg, pluck the string, turn the peg, without pause, pluck the string, turn the peg, pluck the string, and he just couldn't get it in tune. His guru would walk by and reprimand him, "If you want to tune your instrument, you have to listen."

He plucked the string.






And he waited.






And he listened.









And then he turned the tuning peg. 

If you want proof that Church and Sports have a lot to learn from each other, that we're more similar than we are different, check out this podcast from Boston's Hubspot called "The Growth."

"The Growth" is a show where they interview various leaders in the business world about how to grow a business. There is a particular episode where they interview Senior Vice President of the Boston Red Sox Brand and Marketing.

A lot of churches in the mainline progressive traditions are afraid of marketing. A lot of churches, mine included, don't even have it in their budget. It reminds us too much of the proselytizing in more evangelical and fundamentalist churches. But there's a HUGE difference between proselytizing and evangelizing. Proselytizing is shouting, "You have to believe what I believe or else." Evangelizing is, "I've got an amazing story to tell about all the good things happening in the world." Proselytizing is coercion. Evangelizing is sharing. It's telling a story. It's invitation.


It's important for us to remember that people won't come if you don't invite them. Even more important is to remember that we aren't trying to get people to come because we need our ministry to grow. If that' the case, then you're proselytizing not evangelizing. We are inviting people because we believe in what our church does. We believe it has something to offer the world, something to offer that individual, something that matters and makes a difference. And if you don't believe that, if you don't believe your church or ministry or youth group is making an important difference in the world, then marketing isn't your problem, and you should probably go fix that before you finish reading this post. But let's assume you do believe your ministry matters. Then why would you not want to share it with the world? Why would you not want to invite your neighbors into this beloved community? In the church, we call it evangelizing. In the sports world, they call it marketing.


Our best marketing is our buildings. And our worst marketing is our buildings. People know our buildings. Often they're in the center of town. We are a fixture in the community. But often, no one knows what's happening inside those buildings. So everyone thinks of us as nothing more than museums or pretty places to get married. It's not enough to exist. It's not enough to be an architectural fixture in town. We need to tell our story.


We need to spread our message. We need to build relationships. We're hesitant about the idea of proselytizing because it makes us feel too fundamentalist. We're hesitant about the idea of marketing because it makes us feel too much like a institution and not a community. But we are an institution. And we need marketing to sustain the community that we are and the ministry that we do. We need to be in control of our narrative and our institutional image. Otherwise, those loud, obnoxious, fear-mongerers in the media will do it for us. So we should sit and listen to the best marketers talk about what works.


Take a Listen Here - The Growth interviews Boston Red Sox SVP of Brand and Marketing, Adam Grossman



In the first few minutes, it's easy to see the parallels. It's almost like you're listening to a show about Church Growth.

 "For us, what we try to focus on is how to build relationships."

"For us, especially now as technology has expanded and as fans want to consume more content and have more interactions, what we're trying to do is build 365-day-year relationships with our fans."


Just replace "fans" with "congregants." Adam Grossman might as well be a minister.

How many of us have scolded our congregations, "Church isn't just for Sundays. You should be living your faith everyday"? But how many of us have actually taken the steps to make that a reality? If you tell people faith isn't just for Sunday morning, but your church only functions on Sunday morning, and the only thing outside of Sunday are committee meetings and choir practice, then your actions are going to speak louder than your words. Church will only be a Sunday morning affair, and it will die, and it should die. If we listen to the words of Mr. Grossman, if we focus on true relationships, 365-day-a-year relationships, think about what a different kind of faith that would be. Think about how much the Red Sox means to its fans. If they can instill that amount of meaning into a game, think about what we can do with God.



As Mr. Grossman continues, it's almost comical how the parallels grow deeper. He talks about becoming more family-friendly. He mentions the difficulties of maintaining brand allegiance when the players change. He talks about the nostalgia of going with your parents and grandparents. He talks about fair-weather fans. What he calls "Pink Hats," we call "Chreasters" (Christmas-Easter Christians).

Listen to him and seriously take to heart how it applies to your church, especially when it comes to serving our youth and children.

"A child who goes to his/her first game before the age of 5 will go to 58% more games over the course of their lifetime than someone who goes 14 or older. So what we're trying to do is - how do we make sure that we get kids as part of the normal daily elements of Fenway."

I'm gonna go out on a limb here, and bet that this stat is probably true for church too. If you want to build a successful High School ministry,even young adult ministry, even old adult ministry, you need to build it from the foundation up. You need to give kids positive experiences of church from the youngest years onward, otherwise they will reach high school and have already decided that church isn't for them.

Most important, Mr. Grossman goes on to talk about how it's not enough to get the kids in the park, you have to provide the kids with an experience true to their needs and their families' needs. That looks different in every community and every church, but the important lesson here is this: the most important thing is that the kids learn church is for them and that the church actually be for them. No matter how good you teach kids in Sunday School, they're not going to remember the details of most Bible stories you tell them. What they will remember, is the feeling they had when they were at church. Was my church set up for me or was I just a nuisance that got sent to the basement so the adults could worship?


These concepts, marketing, building from the foundations up, being more family friendly, creating a 365-day-experience, it's not just another "how do we save church for the church's sake" pondering. It's a "how do we be better Christians together" exploration. So listen up because we have a lot to learn.

Many Mainline Protestant Churches shot themselves in the foot at their very founding without even realizing it.


You can find numerous articles attributing the decline in Mainline Protestantism to the church being stuck in the past, not moving fast enough, not being visitor or new member friendly, not being Open and Affirming, not being racially diverse, being too desperate, etc etc.

Those are certainly all the places to start when it comes to church growth.
But I've seen concrete, step-by-step solutions offered to all of those problems.
There is one issue I haven't seen addressed anywhere, and certainly have not seen a clear cut path offered to remedy this fact.

It comes down to this one word: GEOGRAPHY.

For many churches, it's in our very name.
The First Congregational Church of Newenglandville.
United Methodist Church of Generictown.
Third Presbyterian Church of Southerncity.


Our churches are defined by our denomination and our location.
Our very identity is limiting our scope.

Imagine your church is located in a town of 15,000.
There are 14 churches/synagogues/mosques/temples/etc. in this hypothetical town.
Assuming an even spread of people who identify with one of those 9 places of worship, and adding in a category for people who identify with none of those religious institutions, that means as the First Congregational Church of Newenglandville, you have limited your potential clientele to 1,000 souls.


Some studies show that in many places, 15-45% of people consider themselves unaffiliated. That means your potential clientele is limited to more like 910 best  case scenario and 589 worst case scenario.

So let's assume best case scenario, you've got 1,000 people who would be potential church members.
It wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility, that 200 of them decide your church isn't for them because they don't like the minister. And maybe another 200 think the church is too liberal, or too conservative, or they don't like the music. So now you've got 600 people who "go" to your church.

Of that 600 people who "go" to your church, 200 only show their faces on Christmas and Easter. And another 200 only come every 6-8 weeks. So now, by defining your church as the church that serves Congregationalists in Newenglandville, from the very start, you've limited yourself to a pool of 200 people likely to attend on a weekly or semi-weekly basis.

Say your annual budget with two full time ministers is $500,000. That's a heavy financial burden to put on 200 people. That means, people attending are offering $2,500 a year, which translates to every person attending putting $50 in the plate every single week of the year.

What's that you say? Most people just reach in their wallet and put in the smallest bill they find? Thanks for that crumpled up $5! The church, surprisingly, is not making its budget, so you have to cut your second minister. Now you have only one minister to serve the 600 people in the community who identify with your church. People feel less connected to the institution because they're getting less and less face time with the solo minister. Your solo minister has less and less time to create quality worship experiences, so less and less people are attending. Pretty soon, your solo minister is being cut to a part-time minister. And now you're screwed. You're caught in a downward spiral of irrelevance.


Churches are "dying" because of all of that other important stuff. But also, churches are dying because the numbers are against us from the start, just because of the basic premise of church as a geographically confined community. Churches are dying because from the start in American Christianity, we defined ourselves by geography.

Here in Connecticut, in the early colonial days, in order to incorporate as a town, you had to first establish and get permission to have a church. The church defined the town. But now, it's reversed, and the town defines the church. And that's a problem.


It's no coincidence that the churches I've seen thrive are churches who have members coming from hours away on a regular basis.

Professional sports franchises have faced down a similar hurdle. You can map their fans onto a literal map of the US.
Like church, at first this geographic identity was a source of strength. It helped build a sense of community. But at some point, that geographic boundary becomes a hindrance to growth.

Enter: Fantasy Sports.

Fantasy Sports Leagues have become an industry unto themselves. Whether this was an intentional marketing move or a grassroots movement, the teams are reaping the benefits.

In the old days, if you lived in Boston, you watched the Patriots play and maybe some other rival teams from nearby locations, but the average sports fan wasn't quite as concerned about watching other teams play. But now, with Fantasy Leagues, "your team" is no longer confined by geography, or even an actual team. If you live in Boston, you'll watch the Patriots play because their your city's team, but you'll watch the Sea Hawks, the Giants, and the Bears with passion because "your team" has players spread out across the country.


What's our Fantasy League in the church? How do we build a community that is not confined by geography?

My Connecticut church's Facebook Page has followers from Canada all the way to Nigeria, but that's peripheral. We've also done a lot of great work building local and global partners, from Bridgeport to Jamaica to Palestine, but that's different institutions connecting across borders, not a single ministry open to a wider population. My former church in Boston had people listening weekly to the worship services online as far away as China, but that's only passive participation.

The brilliance of the Fantasy League is the active participation. People gain a sense of involvement and even control. How can we redefine our church's purpose in a way that defies geographic boundaries while still building an authentic, engaged, and meaningful community of Christ? As Ephesians 2 says, Jesus came to preach peace to those who are far off and to those who are near, for we are no longer strangers and aliens, but we are citizens with the saints.

Maybe we need to think bigger.
Maybe we need more nationally recognized ministries and ministers like Rob Bell.
Or maybe the answer is to build online communities like the Salt Project or First UCC of Second Life.
Or I just discovered this quirky online community started by Joseph Gordon Levitt called "Hit Record" that is centered around the idea of collaborative art. Isn't that what church is supposed to be? A community that works together to collaboratively and creatively explore and express the meaning of life?


Or what if we built a nomadic church? A church designed around the idea of pilgrimage? Not confined by a single building or a single space.


Maybe this is already happening, and I just don't know about it. So send me your stories. Share some of the ways your church or community of faith has found a way to transcend borders, to not define yourselves by limits, but by possibility, to not define yourself by your local community but by the global community.



DESEGREGATION


As an a addendum to this posting...
After I wrote this post, I heard this great two-part podcast on This American Life, called "The Problem We All Live With," Part I and Part II, named after the Norman Rockwell painting of Ruby Bridges.

It chronicles some modern struggles of desegregation in America's public schools.

I love this two-part series for so many reasons. It reminds us that systemic racism is not a thing of the past. It reminds us that perfectly well-intentioned people often inflict a lot of hate.

It also provides a great lesson for the church around this idea of geography that I discussed above. Schools, like church, were founded with geography in mind. Our public schooling system was founded to be run by and to serve the local community in which they reside.

That's why I love Part II of this series. Part II examines a case from Hartford, CT where the school system tries to use incentivize desegregation. As it relates to my above rantings, the Hartford school system re-imagined what public schooling can look like if it's not confined by geography.

As church, we are supposed to live above the injustices of the mundane world. We are supposed to provide a glimpse of God's world.

If we as a church continue to define ourselves by geography, we will continue to be defined by the unjust segregation of this world. Instead of providing an example of what could be, we will be feeding the fire of what is. Instead of providing an example of justice and diversity, one body with many members, we will be a hand disconnected, segregated from the foot, and the heart, and the brain.

Overcoming geography is an imperative of our faith. The New Testament is story after story of Jesus and the Apostles trying to overcome mundane and social borders. It's time for the church to be the church.

We had asked the Juniors to share their spiritual journey with our Freshmen Confirmands.

I asked them to answer three questions:
1.) What in your life has made you, you?
2.) Why did you choose to join (or not join in one case) the church?
3.) What is God to you?

One kid responded in a way that sums up everything this blog is about.

With hesitation, she said this:

"Sports and music are what make me, me.
Sports have taught me teamwork.
Music has taught me how to express myself."

Then she paused for 30 seconds and said, as if realizing for the very first time,
"And I guess church too.
I never thought about it this way before, but
Church is where I do both.
Church is where I get to practice both teamwork and expressing myself."



Have truer words about church ever been spoken?
Church is where we practice teamwork.
It's where we figure out what it means to live together in Christian Community.

And Church is where we learn to express ourselves.
It's where we learn to speak our mind and to discover the language of our faith.



This has become my new mission statement,
and has basically been my guiding principle for my Youth Ministry based on my own experience of church growing up.

My home church did an unbelievably job at two things:

1.) It offered me sincere leadership roles in the church. Not the pat-you-on-the-head-because-you're-an-adorable-youth-pretending-to-help kind of leadership. I did things like serve on the Senior Minister Search Committee as high schooler.

2.) It gave me opportunities to bring my passions and talents into the life of the church. We put on plays and musicals. We led worship. We sang. We went canoeing. We did things that I already loved to do.



I would say that this, above all else, is the mark of a successful Youth Group.
It's not the attendance numbers. It's not the number of deep philosophical conversations you have.
Those will be natural by-products of any program that offers kids sincere leadership roles and the opportunity to show off their passions and skills.


That's why kids will often choose sports instead. Sports programs are the epitome of combining leadership with passion and skill. We have to recapture that sense of accomplishment.

There's nothing I can't stand more than that moment when you're in a committee meeting and someone suggests an idea for a "great" program, and then people realize that it takes work and it's going to be hard to get adults to do that work, and so someone says, "What if we got some high schoolers to do it?"

NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

High Schoolers are not your work horses. They are members of the congregation, who, more than anyone, need to be offered tasks that feel like an honor, not jobs that no one else wanted. They need to be our Lay Readers, not our dish washers. They need to be our musicians, not our vacuumers. They need programming specifically designed for them, not rejected adult programming.


I used to think that teens were leaving the church because they had trouble with the faith, that our biggest problem as church was that we weren't properly teaching the kids about our theology and history. The more and more I work with teens, the more I see that the real problem is that they lack meaningful experiences of church. Why would they want to discuss important matters in a place which matters nothing to them?

So give them a reason to care by making church care about them. Give them a chance to shine.


Sports win because they give kids a chance to shine. There are trophy ceremonies. There are MVP awards. There are Captains given the level of respect usually reserved for adult leaders. Even for the kids who aren't the best, there are awards for Coach's Choice, Player's Choice, Most Improved. The local paper writes stories about the high school teams. They wear their jerseys around school. They dress up for game day. There are all of these opportunities in the sports world for our kids to be publicly celebrated for doing what they loved to do.

Compare that to some churches that stick their Youth Groups in a dank corner of the church, hire a part-time intern and call it a day.


It is my fervent belief that everyone needs to experience a standing ovation at least once in their lives. And Church can be the place that does that for both our young people and our adults. It's an easy 3-step process:

1.) Find out what your kids love to do for fun.
2.) Do that.
3.) Make sure the whole church knows about it.

Let your kids shine. Make it known that church cares about them and they in turn will care about church. Make it known that church is a place where they matter and church in turn will matter to them.

You also have to make sure church is a place that matters. But that's for a later post…

I had one kid.
That was it.

After all of that prep work,
all of that advertising,
all of that anticipation,
Only One Kid Showed Up!

Have you been there before?
Maybe not that bad,
but I'm sure you've felt that all too common anxiety:
"No one is showing up for this amazing Youth Event I've planned."


I talked to this one colleague who had 5 kids from her Confirmation Class of 10 signed up to go on a field trip to visit a local mosque on a Saturday. She was beside herself. She felt hopeless. She would say things like, "No one is coming," and "I feel so lost," and "what am I doing wrong, are there better ways to advertise?"

My answer is that it's not the method of advertising; it's the story we tell about ourselves.
Are we a half-glass full or half-glass empty church?

When we look at 5 kids out of 10, we can look at that as a literal failure.
That's 50%, which is literally failing.
And that is most often the story we tell.

Or, we can look at that as 5 kids,
5 kids in this over-scheduled, church-is-not-a-priority culture,
5 kids spending an entire Saturday at a church event.

That's not 5 kids coming to paintball on a Saturday.
That's not 5 kids coming to a pool party on a Saturday.
That's 5 kids dedicating their entire Saturday to interfaith learning.
If that isn't a win, I don't know what is.

Now, as for our personal feelings as ministers, we should totally feel frustrated that we didn't get half of our class out.
We should always strive to improve participation and challenge ourselves to do better.
We will never be able to improve if we are not honest about our program's short-comings.

But that's not the story you share with the rest of the world.
To the rest of the world, you talk about what a success it was.
Because the story we tell becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy.

If we keep talking about our groups (even to ourselves) as if they are failing,
they will continue to fail.
No one wants to join a sinking ship.

If we talk about the vibrant, growing, life-giving ministry we provide,
we will be a vibrant, growing, life-giving ministry.

Think about professional baseball.
In the Major Leagues, players are played unimaginable amounts of money to hit less than 30% of the pitches thrown their way.
30% makes you a superstar.
30% in most other contexts is failing.
But the story they tell is that 30% is superhuman.
Thus, 30% makes you a millionaire superstar.

So I say it again,

If we keep talking about our groups (even to ourselves) as if they are failing,
they will continue to fail.
If we talk about the vibrant, growing, life-giving ministry we provide,
we will be a vibrant, growing, life-giving ministry.


In the same way, we have the choice to build our programs off of a sense of inadequacy or a sense of success.
Most often, it's better to build off of what works than to dwell on the things for which you have no control.

That's why I always remind myself leading up to any event,
plan to have 3-4 kids drop out last minute and 3-4 kids add on last minute.

Even with the extremely successful and popular program I run now,
I still struggle with that anxiety of "will this work? will anyone show up?"

Even just now, writing this post, I debated using the word "extremely" in describing my Youth Group.
I was going to change it to "moderately successful," because I didn't want to sound to braggy.
Then I realized I was doing the exact opposite of the advice I was giving.

I've been trained all my life that the Christian attitude is one of modesty and humility.
And so I was worried about falsely aggrandizing the level of success of my ministry.
But who wants to be part of something that is moderately successful?
When I have control over the story of my Youth Group,
why would I choose to undersell myself and my church?

5 kids on a Saturday is a success.

Even one kid on a Sunday evening is a success.

And here's how:

When I started my current call, I made a promise to myself to follow the advice of my previous post,
to see the potential success in every experience, to not blame myself for things that didn't work how I wanted them to work.

Instead of kicking myself the entire night, instead of apologizing to that kid who showed up for what could have been,
I decided to make the most of what was.

We sat. We talked. She doodled.
I let her plug her iPod into the speakers
and blast whatever music she wanted to share with me.
We talked about nothing of consequence.

A few days later, her mother called me just to say
that our one-on-one Youth Group night was
the most meaningful night of church this kid had ever had.

This kid,
who would not have considered herself much of a churchy kind of person,
and probably still doesn't,
went onto become one of my core Youth Groupers,
and one of the kids who has made it possible for us to get 50 kids at an event.
And I know for a fact it was in large part due to that supposedly "failed" Youth Group event.


On top of that, I learned a valuable lesson about not scheduling major events on a 3-day weekend when the Giants are in the play-offs.



When I was a lowly intern minister preaching my last sermon at a church in downtown Boston,
I was really struggling to find the right words.
Nothing felt right about the sermon.
As we gathered to process into the church, my senior minister saw me frantically scribbling notes in the margins,
slashing out paragraphs, sweating bricks, trying to fix it in the last few seconds I had.
She put her hand on my shoulder and said, "It is what is. Now go preach it like you mean it."



So don't be so hard on yourself.
Hold yourself to high standards,
but when you feel like you failed,
try to look for what worked,
and build off of that.

And when the moment comes,
and only one kid shows up,
make the most of it.
Preach it like you mean it.
Because it might just be
the most meaningful night of church
that kid has ever had.

We ministers can be really hard on ourselves.
Like, really hard.


When a program fails,
when kids don't show up,
when kids look like they aren't having fun,
when we can't get any adult chaperones,
when we're not sure we have enough drivers,
when we have to work 20 hours extra to make it work,
when a youth program is a huge success but adults still complain about it,
basically, when anything happens ever,

a lot of youth ministers blame themselves.

At least that's what I've found in talking to my colleagues.
And that's what I experience.
In past positions, when an event has failed,
My first thought is, "What am I doing wrong?"

What am I doing wrong?
Did I not advertise correctly?
Do they not like me?
Am I not cool enough?
Am I the worst minister ever?


Granted, some people are just the worst ministers ever.

But more likely, it's not you. More likely, it's the system around you.


I'm going to say that again to make sure it really sinks in:

It's not you.



I can't tell you how many times I've talked to colleagues in Youth Ministry
who are hired "Part Time" to do work that takes 3 Full Time Employees to achieve.


The Job Description:
Run the High School Youth Group single-handed.
Run the Middle School Youth Group single-handed.
Organize the entire Sunday School Program for kids ages 1 to 14.
Teach Confirmation Class.
Also create your own original curriculum for each program because we don't have enough money to buy one.


Oh, and by the way, we're only going to pay you for 10 hours a week, even the weeks that you lead a weekend-long confirmation retreat or a week-long mission trip, and we're only going to pay you $8/hour because that's all we can afford, and you're just playing games with little kids, so really, what are we paying you for? Plus, it's church. You should want to donate all of your time and money to the church even though you have tens of thousands of dollars in student loans and can barely afford to stay in your apartment, but golly-gee it's church and you should be willing to donate your time to church just like us even though you're a paid employee. Wait. What do you mean you're not available exactly when I want you to be available? Aren't we paying you? Oh, and don't forget about staff meetings every week that have nothing to do with you. And my kid is performing in the school play this Friday, so I assume you'll be there. And my youngest is second string on the football team, so naturally you'll be at all the games to watch him sit on the bench. And of course, you'll be able to provide sage spiritual advice whenever my kid is in need. And my teen hasn't been to church in a while. Do you think you could meet with her one-on-one to convince her to come? By the way, when you brought the little kids into church for communion, they were kind of loud. I found it a little distracting. Maybe they could have their own Communion time separate from the adults.



And that, my friends, is why sports are winning.

Because even the best ministers are often surrounded by the unhealthiest of systems, churches that say they want a thriving youth program, but don't put their money where their mouth is.


Have you seen this map that was going around online? It's a map of the highest paid public employee in each state.

In just about every state, the highest paid public employee is a football or basketball coach.

What was it that Jesus said about wherever you put treasure, there your heart shall follow?

Sports work because the system invests in their teams.
Sports succeed because the system invests in their leaders.
Sports dominate our culture because the system pays people what they're worth.

You might say, well of course schools pay coaches so much, winning teams bring in the money.

But sports weren't always this lucrative.
A lot of people had to work very hard a long time to make sports as lucrative as they are.
A lot of people had to invest A LOT of money to make sports as lucrative as they are.


So how on earth is a youth program supposed to survive when it's run by a college student getting paid nothing for a supposedly 10 hour work week that's actually a 90 hour work week?


My first foray into Youth Ministry was when I was a freshmen in college. I decided to check out a nearby church, it happened to be Youth Sunday. Having grown up in a vibrant and life-changing youth group, I took it as a sign that this was a good place to pass on those positive experiences I had inherited.


I found the ministers and asked them if I could help with their Youth Group, thinking I'd show up once every couple of months for special events as a support person. Turns out they didn't have a Youth program, but they were looking to start one. And don't ask me how, but somehow I ended up being put in charge of their entire high school and middle school youth ministry.

Keep in mind, I was a freshmen in college, and a young one at that. Some of their high schoolers were older than me. How on earth did that ever make sense to anyone?! But I didn't question it then because, again, I was a freshman in college.

I had all these visions of creating a thriving youth group like the one I knew growing up. I had visions of 20 kids and 5 cool adult advisors sitting in a circle playing games and talking about things that matter.

So when I only had 3 kids who would show up ever, it kind of bummed me out. That's an understatement… It made me question my value as a human being. I was burned out putting all this effort into a program that had no traction and I thought it was all my fault. There must be something wrong with me that I'm not as amazing at youth ministry as my own youth minister growing up.

Of course at the time, I had no perspective because, again, I was a freshmen in college running a high school youth group. I mistook my feeling that I was called to ministry someday for the egocentric excitement that I could do that ministry now. My youthful arrogance made me believe I could do the impossible.

The image of successful Youth Ministry I had in my mind, the thing I was comparing myself to, was run by a full-time professional minister who had been running that Youth Group for 25 years in a large, wealthy, family-filled town in Connecticut at a church in its prime. I was an 18-year-old with no training, trying to start a Youth Group from scratch as a volunteer in a church with dwindling membership and lacking substantial resources, a church with ministers who thought it was a good idea to put an 18-year-old in charge of their entire youth ministry program.


I wish someone had been able to give me this perspective then. I wish someone had grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me awake saying, "It's not you." I wish someone had told me, "Re-adjust your idea of successful youth ministry, because successful youth ministry looks very different in a church that only has 3 teens to start."

In talking to my friends and colleagues, I find this kind of negative experience is shockingly common. People are thrown into situations for which they are unprepared, for which they are not properly trained and for which they have zero support systems.


So what's changed? How did I go from an absolute failure of a youth leader to leading a group that pulls in 50+ kids?

Later on, I'll talk about my training, my Masters, my time working at camps,

But to be honest, it has nothing to do with me.
I always like to say that our ministries are successful both because of us and despite us.

Before I was hired,
the church I serve spent two full years and hundreds of thousands of dollars completely renovating the parsonage.
Before I was hired,
the church took a vote to reaffirm that they wanted to fund a full-time Associate.
Before I was hire,
the church made a special push in their Stewardship Campaign to make sure they could afford the best candidate possible.



The success of my Youth Group is only in part due to my leadership.

The success of my Youth Group is 100% a direct consequence of a church investing a meaningful amount into their Youth Ministry, a church investing a meaningful amount into their ministers. It's a recognition that a thriving ministry requires serious support, and that thriving ministers need to be taken care of by their churches.


All too often, when churches want to take on a new project or introduce a new ministry, they try to find the cheapest path to getting it done, instead of trying to find the most successful path.

But you don't get to the SuperBowl on a shoestring budget.
Teams that take care of their players and pay their coaches attract the best players and the most die-hard fans.

If you want a Youth Group that gets a couple of kids together for pizza once a month, then recruit a volunteer to babysit.
If you want a Youth Ministry that changes lives, then you've got to put life-changing amounts of money into it.


Pay people what they're worth.
If you pay them for a 1/4 time position, you're going to get 1/4 of a program.
If you pay them for a full-time position, you're going to get a full program.

And remember, even professional athletes paid millions of dollars for their talents still have off-nights.
Even LeBron James loses some of the biggest games.
The key is to set appropriate expectations for the amount of work a church can get for their investment in a Youth Minister.

So, here's a very general guideline to what you can expect to get for what you pay (or the amount of work you should put in for what you're getting paid):


If You're Paid for 10 Hours of Work
Option 1: You only have time to run one program. That's it. And by one program, I mean like one Youth Group gathering a week. 2 hours of quality programing takes 8 hours to plan, prep, recruit, and advertise. That also means no retreats, no worship leading, no mission trips, UNLESS YOU ARE COMPENSATED FOR THE EXTREME OVERTIME YOU ARE PUTTING IN.

Option 2: You can train existing volunteers to run 2 different programs. That means you're not running the program in any way shape or form, you're just helping to coordinate lay leaders who are running the program.

In either option, general staff meetings and Committee meetings are extremely questionable uses of your very limited time. Only do one or the other, not both in a single week. I might even say, don't do either.

Another important thing to keep in mind: If you are paid for 10 hours of work, you are not the visionary of the program, you are the hired hand. Your job is not to envision what could be, your job is to enact what is.


If You're Paid for 20-25 Hours of Work
You only have time to run one program yourself and oversee volunteers to run a second program. That's it. You're not running High School Youth Group AND Middle School Youth Group. You're running High School Youth Group and acting as a consultant for the lay leaders running the Middle School Group. And definitely say no when they ask you to ALSO run Sunday School. The woman in charge of our Sunday School program works 25 hours (in theory she only works 25 hours. It's probably more like 30, and that's JUST the Sunday School Program). You can consider hosting and leading overnight adventures like lock-ins or super local service projects. But by no means should you lead a weekend retreat or week-long mission trip. You can help do prep work. You can train lay volunteers to run the show. But you shouldn't even consider actually going unless you are either being paid significant overtime or are given serious comp time off. When you lead a week-long mission trip, that's a 24/7 job. That is 168 hours of time. Even if you take off sleeping time (because any youth minister can tell you that you're on duty all night) that's 120 hours of work time. That's worth 6 weeks of work time. Are you prepared to take off 6 weeks extra to make up for the extra time you're working (not vacation time, 6 weeks of comp time)?

Again, your time is extremely limited, so Committee meetings and general staff meetings should be rarely attended if ever. Instead, have a lay representative you trust to present your monthly report to the Christian Ed Committee, or just e-mail it.

I get that it's important for team cohesion and to sell your programs to committees for you to attend staff meetings and committee meetings, but if that's the kind of time they want you to commit to the church, then they should be prepared to compensate you for that time. Which brings us to the next category:


If You're Paid for 30 Hours of Work
Again, you only have time to run one program yourself and oversee volunteers running 2 or 3 other programs. Some people might say, 30 hours gives you enough time to run both High School and Middle School groups yourself. To put that in perspective: I am a full-time employee and I only run the High School Youth Ministry. We have lay volunteers running the Middle School Youth Group. I still help provide some visioning and support and occasional presence, but that is of my own choosing, not my contractual obligation. And that is another reason why the structure surrounding me has played into the success of my Youth Ministry more than anything else. The church is committed to taking care of me as a minister, which means not placing too high a demand on my time, and in turn, I can apply all of my passions and skills without burning out on them.

At 30 hours a week, you can start to consider weekend retreats and week-long mission trips. But if you lead any big adventure, you should be compensated in a serious way either with extra money or with extra time off. 120 hours of work in a Mission Trip is worth 4 weeks of work time.



If You're Paid for 40+ Hours of Work
I'm struggling for how to write about expectations for this level of work.
And I realized that's because there are so many successful models for how to make a successful Youth Ministry happen when you invest in a full-time person. But there are also plenty of ways to fail even with a full-time employee. Even churches that invest financially in their youth ministries don't always invest enough emotion, openness, passion, volunteers, etc. etc.

There's also always the question of whether you are being paid for 40 hours of Youth Ministry exclusively or some portion youth ministry and some portion general ministry. That's for another post.


Some things to remember about being  full-time employee:

Full-time doesn't mean they own you completely. A full-time work week is 40 hours. Don't get sucked into doing 60+ hour work weeks. If this is the case, either ask for more money, more support, or let some balls drop and reduce your hours.


Just because you're there does not let the laity off the hook for doing the work with you. Your job is to create a sustainable program, which means a lay-led program, not a you-centric program.

Just because it's advertised as a full-time position doesn't mean it comes with a full-time worthy salary. Don't be afraid to negotiate to get paid what you deserve. If they can't offer you more money, ask for some non-financial benefit instead, like more time off.

What's really important for a full-time person is to really ask the question what kind of ministry do you want to create and what kind of minister do you want to be?

And when you feel like you're failing, read my next post, "Losing with Dignity"……….