Luke McFadden writes asking, “From what I have seen from your [youth group’s] site, your summer schedule is different than your in school schedule? Just curious of the reasons for this, and how you feel the church/youth take this as well.”

It’s actually not just me — our entire church shifts it’s ministry programming dramatically during the summer for a couple reasons.

1. Attendance is usually pretty low during the summer since so many people are traveling, at camp, visiting family, etc. We never stop events just because numbers are down. It’s more because this is the most natural time for reason #2 to happen.

2. Our volunteers deserve a well-earned break so they’re refreshed and ready to go in the fall. That doesn’t mean that the relationships and personal ministry to students stop — only that there’s not as many “official” events on the calendar.

3. It allows us, as church leaders, to take a step back from the normal ministry grind and reflect, evaluate and cast vision for the next school year. Otherwise we become so entrenched in the same ol’ stuff that we never take time to critically evaluate properly and implement changes for the next year.

Our calendar doesn’t reflect the actual ministry taking place (it never does!). We’re not “shutting down” the youth ministry — it just takes on a different form. It’s the perfect time for more personal hang-outs and building relationships to take place, especially when everyone’s schedules are not as conducive for programming and calendar events.

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Have a youth ministry question you’d like me and other readers to answer? E-mail it to me! Please keep your question brief and to-the-point. Thanks!

Another great question showed up in my Inbox last week. The author wishes to remain anonymous, but would love to have your feedback.

I am in my first year of Youth Ministry…. My biggest headache has been that all of my volunteers including my wife are super busy and they don’t have much time to really invest in these kids. We don’t have a huge youth group (20 or so) but I can’t invest in them all or I’ll just be another statistic. Some have said, “If your volunteers don’t have time then they shouldn’t be youth leaders.” But if I do that then I won’t have anybody. I have kids that are excited about the Lord and ready to go, but my people don’t have the time to do that well. I can do it with some but not all. Do you have some thoughts?

You have a couple options:

1. You can try to do it all yourself and burn out faster than belly button lint in a forest fire.
2. You can continue trying to suck more time out of your volunteers.
3. You can invest into a couple kids on your own knowing that it’s better to impact a few than none at all.

Your message indicates that you’re wise enough not to do #1 and you’ve already figured out that #2 doesn’t work, so it sounds like #3 is the best option you have left. If you don’t have enough leaders to be able to invest into every student individually, then you’ll have to start with a couple yourself and pour your life into them. Don’t worry about the critics who accuse you of playing favorites. Read about that here.

As you set the example and invest into a couple students on your own, here are some suggestions that might help the other adults come on board with their priorities and commitments:

1. Share stories with the other leaders about your time with the students.
Tell them about the life-change you see taking place, show them how excited you are, talk about the ways God has rewarded you and stretched you through it. In essence, make them feel like they’re missing out on a HUGE opportunity — because they are. The opportunity to change lives for Christ.

2. Hold the standard high for your volunteers.
Nothing communicates to a student “you’re not that important to me” more than showing them that “I don’t have time for you.” For the sake of your kids, don’t let adults do that to them if you have the authority to prevent it. For adults who commit to the higher standard, hold them to it. It’s better to have one or two committed adults than 10 half-committed ones.

3. Pray for God to raise adult leaders in your community.
And don’t just pray with the same passion most people equate with standing in line at the DMV. Beg God for leaders, plead with Him. Present your case in prayer and desperately ask God to supply role models to partner with you. But in the meantime, be willing to accept His answer of, “Right now I just want to use you in this community of students even though you’re outnumbered like Gideon.”

4. Lovingly challenge their priorities.
Only you know if you have a relationship with the adults that will permit you to do that, and even if you do, make sure you talk with your Sr. Pastor or supervisor first. Seek their advice on how to best approach this.

People say that you need to focus on your weaknesses so you can develop them to be stronger. I disagree. Don’t focus on your weaknesses; focus on your strengths! God made you with special abilities — use them. Don’t waste time on the stuff you’re bad at when you could be spending that time doing something you’re great at. That’s not to say you should ignore your weaknesses. On the contrary, you should know what they are so you can surround yourself with people who are strong in those areas. That’s what teamwork and the body of Christ is all about.

Plus, people tend to enjoy what they’re good at and dislike the tasks they’re weak in, so if everyone in a team focuses on their strengths and balance each other out, then that should be one happy and highly successful team!

Bill Allison of Cadre Ministries really does an awesome job with all the materials he generates for training and equipping volunteers for ministry. I learn a lot from him and the materials he gives away on his site and really respect his wisdom. (Now if I could only recruit him to work for my youth group…)

In a recent email discussion between us, he pointed me to one of his previous e-newsletters titled, “I don’t like volunteers.” His premise is that the term “volunteers” connotes “second best” or “not really that important” in comparison with paid staff. The example he uses is the difference between a used car and a pre-owned car. Both mean the same thing, but the connotations are different. So, Bill suggests using the term “ministry partners” instead of “volunteers,” stemming from the biblical principle that all believers are called to be full-time ministers, just that most just don’t actually get paid for it.

But I guess the term “volunteers” doesn’t really have any negative connotations in my mind, whereas “partners” makes me think of a business agreement. In that respect, my perspective is almost the opposite of Bill’s, but I’m not too confident in my opinion while I have tremendous respect for Bill’s opinion. What do the rest of you think? Read Bill’s brief article and then check out this pastor’s response to Bill’s recommendation. Post your opinion in the comments here. The difficulty is that it’s important to have balanced input from both “ministry partners” and paid staff, but I think most of my readers are paid staff. Sparking the discussion is better than nothing, though.

Also, take a second to place your vote in this poll:

Can I be honest for a second? (Of course I can, it’s my blog.) My church launches all our fall ministry programs this Sunday morning and I still don’t have everything lined up. It’s not because I’ve been lazy or slacking off, but because everything is moving and growing so fast. I started at this church last February with about 20 adult volunteers, but since I wanted to drop our adult/student ratio to about 1/5 in order to start jr. high small groups and be more intentional about building relationships, the existing volunteers and myself started hand-picking new volunteers that we thought might be a good fit. Well, we now have about 50 adult volunteers on our youth team, but due to growth, I still need to confirm 6 additional volunteers by this Sunday just to operate! Fortunately I’m in touch with a couple people who are thinking about making a commitment, so this may just all come together at the last minute, but still… And our church is completely out of space on both Sundays and Wednesdays. I even have some 9th graders meeting in the gym’s basketball closet. By January we definitely need to start meeting at different times, utilize homes more often or start using the hallways.

I guess it’s a good problem to have, but I’m totally confused about how we got to this point over just one summer. My church traditionally slows down their ministry programs during the summer, so I followed suit by having nothing more than two Bible studies at my house each week and a couple big trips. Most of our expansion is with the jr. high and I know several of them got fired up by hanging out at my house. Without any initiative, the jr. highers invited many friends to my house (some of them said it was the highlight of their summer!), but that doesn’t account for all the growth. Our youth ministry also made some pretty significant scheduling and programming changes based on months of dreaming a new vision, several volunteer trainings and solidifying as a team. We communicated well with each other, with parents, students and church staff, so it all seemed to flow pretty naturally as we progressed to this point. I know there also were several teams of incredible volunteers working diligently to overhaul programs, organize new ones, plan events and a secretary who took over many of my administrative tasks just so I can focus more on students. Having a new youth pastor in place naturally adds excitement and everything we do is based on prayer, asking for God’s wisdom and guidance.

So why all the growth? I don’t know. I’m not complaining, just perplexed, but maybe I shouldn’t be. We didn’t plan for this on purpose, we just wanted to be as effective as possible in all that we do in order to bring glory to God throughout all generations. I guess He’s honoring that and deems us as faithful stewards. What a tremendous responsibility; what an overwhelming privilege.

Thou shalt not be a solo act. Don’t build the ministry around yourself. If you do, the ministry dies when you leave. Focus on building and training solid volunteers who can do ministry just as effectively as you can. Function as an adult team leader even more than you function as a youth leader. You can’t possibly reach every kid in your community, but with a strong team of qualified individuals, you multiply yourself and your reach goes a lot further than it would otherwise. If you find that you do more than 80% of the total work load for your ministry, you’re doing too much. For larger youth groups, that percentage should drop for you, too. Delegate. Train. Equip. Guide. And whatever you do, don’t be a control freak. Give your volunteers the freedom to maybe not do as well as you could on their first or second try. (I find that most of them actually do better than me!) The old cliché is true: work yourself out of a job.

1. Be careful with who you accept as an intern.
Interns are role models to your kids. Before you unleash anyone on your students, you must be confident that they will serve as respectful Godly examples. Internships are not a loophole for letting graduating seniors hang out at youth group longer.

2. Each internship should be unique to the individual.
There should not be a standard “once size fits all” internship program because every intern is different with unique gifts, passions and ministry focus. When I have an intern, I usually meet with them first just to find out where their heart is, what they enjoy doing, what makes them tick, what they think they need from the internship, what they think would be most beneficial to them and what they need to learn most. And then I come up with a plan to help meet all those things. Really, this isn’t much different from what I do with my own volunteers.

3. View the internship as a teaching opportunity.
Interns are not people who do the work you don’t like doing. In fact, having interns should probably cost you more time as you invest into each individual. Don’t give an assignment and then turn them loose for the summer without teaching them how to do it well. Ensure that they successful.

4. Always back your interns 100%.
Your intern needs to know that you believe in them, that you support them and that you trust them. After you’ve equipped them, remain as hands-off as possible in their area of ministry. When they fail and make mistakes, see #3.

5. Prepare your interns for life, not just for ministry.
Ministry training is important, but developing their spiritual lives, their character, their knowledge of scripture, and their prayer life is even more important.

6. Meet with each intern once a week.
Don’t just give your interns a couple youth group assignments and let them go for the summer. Meet regularly to review, debrief, follow-up on assignments, pray together, study scripture, encourage them and thank them for their investment into teenagers (even if it does cause you more work!).

7. Push your interns to go a little further than they think they can go.
Don’t let them stay in their comfort zone. Find out what they feel comfortable with and make them take it to the next level. We all need to be stretched from time to time.

8. Find areas of weakness, but focus on strengths.
It’s necessary to address areas of weakness, but don’t focus on making those areas strong. Instead, use the strengths God’s already given them. We all have weaknesses and that’s okay. That’s why we’re a part of the body of Christ.

9. Let your intern tag along side of you.
Some of the best teaching opportunities will come as they just hang out with you and shadow you in ministry. They’ll start to ask questions, observe what you do, and even provide insights to your routine that you never thought of before. Remember, passion for ministry is caught more than it is taught. I’m in ministry today because of this.

10. Invite them to critically evaluate the ministry.
Interns become more involved in the ministry than a regular volunteer, so encourage them to always offer their perspective for improvement and necessary changes. It’s amazing the observations they make that you’ll never see.

11. Keep your expectations high.
Hold them accountable to their commitment and make sure they follow through in their areas of ministry. As you attempt to be as hands-off as possible, remind them that there is no backup plan if they drop the ball. When they don’t follow-through, address it frankly with the intern and remember that there’s always room for mercy.

12. Make it age-appropriate.
If you have an intern who is a freshman or sophomore in college, assign them to the Jr. High. It’s difficult for a young intern to earn respect as a leader with high school students who are so close to their own age, especially if the intern graduated from your ministry and knows the underclassmen. Plus, it may be tough for an intern to successfully exercise authority over their own peer group (i.e. discipline situations). I experienced this first-hand back when I was an intern in college.

A REAL-LIFE EXAMPLE
To help make all of this a little more concrete, here is a summer internship plan I put together for a guy who worked with me a couple summers ago. He was in his mid-20s working as a middle school teacher, but felt a calling to youth ministry and wanted to check it out a little closer. You’ll notice that the program is geared toward that end.

SUMMER INTERNSHIP PLAN

My youth group volunteers and myself are getting ready to go into a recruiting phase. Our current ratio of leaders to students is about 1 to 10, which is obviously way too high. I will never send out a plea for help because then I almost have to take whoever responds. Instead, we’ll recruit by approaching individuals we know possess the qualities we’re looking for in adult roll models and will ask them to consider joining us. This often is initially met with several excuses. These are the top three I’ve encountered and ideas for how to respond to them:

1. “I just don’t have the time.”
People make time for those things they count as important. Share the importance of leadership in the body of Christ. Cast a vision for life change that can occur in students as they rise to the occasion and accept the privilege of leading a group with you.

2. “I don’t have the gift of leadership.”
Encourage people by reminding them that leadership is mostly character. It takes time to develop character and skills. If you believe an adult has the basic character qualities of a potential leader, remind them that you will make sure they get the appropriate training they need to be effective (but only say that if you will really follow-through with it).

3. “I’m not the leadership type.”
At this point you need to simply explore what the person means by “leadership type.” Perhaps they have a definition of leadership that is not biblical. Perhaps they view a leader as someone who is in charge and in control, as opposed to someone who can facilitate life change by caring for, shepherding, discipling, and loving others.

I saw this old commercial video clip at Gman’s blog and thought it was a great illustration of what youth ministry is like. So, this weekend I showed it to my volunteer team on our vision-casting retreat. After seeing it and having a few good laughs, they renamed the volunteer team to “Cat Herders.” So, Cat Herders we are! In tribute, I edited the end of the video clip a little. Here it is:

[youtube]FEU1lPzD5RQ[/youtube]

UPDATE: A couple people requested to have this video with a generic ending to use with their volunteer staff, so here ya go! Just right-click on this link and select “Save target as” (Internet Explorer) or “Save link as” (Firefox).

My church’s budget runs from July to June, so the new budget proposals from each ministry are due pretty soon. As I work on modifying the student ministries finances for next year, one of my core values becomes apparent: Invest into the volunteers! A couple weeks ago I suggested that adult volunteers should never pay out-of-pocket when serving the ministry, but it should go a lot further than this. Not only should they not pay, but the budget should generously invest into them, as well.

I believe the best investment the youth budget can make is not to buy curriculum, big promotional banners or even to purchase Bibles. The best use of budget money is to invest back into the volunteers with training and appreciation gifts. The youth ministry cannot function without the volunteers. They’re serving students spiritually and emotionally just as much as I am. There’s no greater gift I can give students than well-trained passionate volunteers.

There’s no greater gift I can give students than well-trained passionate volunteers.

Curriculum and promotional materials may be necessary, but they won’t ever leave the lasting impression on a hurting student that a hug from a volunteer will. An unused Bible will never change a life for Christ, but the Holy Spirit working through an effective volunteer that encourages a student to start reading scripture will change a life forever.

So train them well, both in-house and with outside seminars, and then shower them with gifts and appreciation. Let them know that they are valued. It doesn’t have to be anything big — two movie passes for the volunteer and their spouse and free babysitting from a student communicates, “You put so much time and energy into these students, go relax and have a good time with your spouse.” A valued and trained team is a happy and effective team, which leads to longevity in ministry.

Again, I think the difference comes down to doing ministry because of who you are, not because of what you do. It’s about building character in ministry, not building a ministry calendar. Invest into the people and the program will explode, not the other way around.