Posted on by Dave Miers

Interested in youth ministry?

I’m keen to write more frequently on Youth Ministry related topics. Last year I began writing some papers, but couldn’t sustain them. I think I’m ready to share a bit more in the way of strategy and youth ministry thinking. Are you involved in youth ministry? What type of posts would you find helpful? I’ve got some blog drafts ready, but keen for input.

The above pic is from SOULIES Summercamp.

13 Replies to “Interested in youth ministry?”

  1. i guess one thing i wonder about is how to oversee youth ministry well while not necessarily being directly involved in it. we’re working on training up the youth leaders and discipling them, but in many ways they’re still autonomous and we’re exercising our oversight at a distance.

    hope all is well dmdc.

    1. hey doug,

      good stuff to think through.

      i think often in this scenario those with oversight are good at discipling but need to offer more in the way of thinking through specifics of the youth strategy. not that they need to be on the ground, but they ought to understand what is happening on the ground and help equip key leaders in specific skills for the ministry.

      will keep thinking.

      i’m well, hope you and your clan are well too!

    1. dude – i’d love to hear YOU on country youth ministry! while i previously worked in a regional area, it was only 1 hour from sydney, so haven’t had to deal with the specifics of country ministry.
      i’d be keen to hear your observations and your wisdom so far.
      cya soon :)

  3. Hi Dave – I am keen to explore how youth minsitry changes as you grow in number. We are starting to wrestle with that here at Creek Road.

      1. Well we have just about hit 90 in small groups with 15 leaders. On top of that we connect with a bunch more in our Friday night outreach program. But with the rate our youth ministry, and church in general, is growing that will continue to rise.

        1. good one.
          stoked to hear things are growing up at creek road chris.
          i reckon one of your big tasks will be to manage expectation and help prepare people for growth.

          this might include helping leaders to see how the program needs to adjust if God continues to grow the program.

          these aren’t the numbers you’re talking about, but if a group of 20 regularly plays all-in soccer at the start of the night… it will be tricky to do that if the group were 80. so helping them to see that 40 on 40 soccer doesn’t work (as fun as it is!)… so either ditch soccer or rethink how you do teams and/or use space.

          one strategy i’m working on at the moment is doubling the number of small groups.

          lots of the larger youth ministries in sydney anglican churches will have 12 small groups. one for each gender and grade in highschool.

          a few months ago i shared a vision for doubling how many small groups we have without necessarily doubling the number of small group leaders.

          rather than having 2 leaders look after 8-12 kids
          have 1 leader look after 4-6 kids.
          hopefully that group then has some space to grow again to 8-12 kids.

          this strategy means that leaders need better training if they don’t have someone else to tag-team with.

          we had 12 last year. we are about 15 now. i’m hoping for 18 by the end of the year. and 24 by the end of next year.

          anyway, just a few thoughts.

          what are your thoughts chris?

          1. Sounds like we are pretty much on the same page Dave. Increasing the number of small groups has been something I have worked hard on in the lead up to this year. I have worked hard towards the ideal of 1 leader with 4-6 youth, but I started from a base of only 1 leader per group anyway, so it has meant pushing hard to recruit. Especially as we just added grade 7 to the high school ministry for the first time this year as well (A qld thing). I am thankful we have been able to get some experienced youth leaders back who have had a year or so off. So rather than across the board it has been on an as-needs basis. But I can see that this sort of growth & leadership development will have to be planned ahead more and more. We had one group start with 3, and was up to 5 by the end of their first meeting!

            One of the main reasons I have been moving towards this is to make one-on-ones more manageable. We spent all last year working hard on building a meeting one-on-one culture with the youth leaders. This year I want our youth leaders to “go and do likewise” with our youth. I am convinced that these one-on-one meetings can be really benficial in discipling. It is in these meetings you can really get down to dealing with where the rubber hits the road. I have the aim of saying that each of our youth will have at least one meeting one-on-one with their youth a term. But this is leader-resource heavy and only do-able if you have a manageable ratio. It will be interesting to see how we get on with this over the year.

            The expectation is not such a hard thing here, as preparing people for growth is something that has been worked on across the whole church for a while now. Change to cope with growth is almost expected now, so that is at least one less barrier.

            So thanks for your thoughts Dave. I am keen to explore beyond this as there is so much rattling round in my head. As it says in Sticky Teams – growth changes everything. I might even see if I can get a trip to Sydney in sometime this year to check out some larger youth ministries.

  4. Hey Dave,

    really digging your site mate…long time listener, first time caller!

    I’m currently involved with a team who are about to start up a brand new youth ministry at Marrickville which is exciting and a little bit scary too :)

    I guess it would be good to know your thoughts on creating a youth ministry from scratch and the best way to make it sustainable. My pastor and I have been reading through Ken Moser’s books to start the discussion.

    At the moment I think we’ve got 5 keen kids and 5 keen leaders, so the ratio is great at the moment haha :)

    Thanks so much for your online ministry, it’s a real blessing to people like me! Who does your graphic design by the way? it’s top-notch!

    In Christ,
    Matt.

    p.s. i’m not sure if you remember me or not (I wont be cut if you don’t!), but I remember serving with you at an Equip Women’s conference at Darling harbour about 4 years ago(?).
    Good times, my team members thought you were a crack up haha.

  5. Hey Dave,

    Love the site and your tweets.

    My question, how would you go about starting a youth group in a church that has never had one before? About to embark on a new adventure with your mate Jono Smith in Caroline Springs and I’d be interested to see what you think.

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