Blog by Jeff Dunn-Rankin 

I just got back from the Simply Youth Ministry Convention #symc, where I was reminded that youth workers are great storytellers. There were 2,500 people grabbing each other’s undivided attention with 2,500 different stories. We talked about heroes and villains, fire and snow, slapstick and tragedy – all within the metaphorical walls of our own churches. If there’s one thing we know how to do, it’s grab someone’s attention with a good tale …

… unless we’re talking to the Board of Elders or our senior pastors.  Then we yammer and stumble, offering feeble arguments and weak data. And behind the scenes we grumble that no one listens to us.

How sadly ironic that we know the power of telling a story when it comes to teaching and motivating students, but we often set that powerful tool aside when we try to raise money, recruit volunteers or ask a board of deacons for permission to paint the walls.

People are trained since before they were toddlers to love stories. The people on your board of trustees, just like everyone else in the world, are predisposed to enjoy a good story.

I’ve been reading “Tell to Win” by Peter Guber, the CEO of Mandalay Entertainment. He was the brains behind movies as diverse as “Rain Man” and “Soul Surfer.”  He says that somehow he knew that ticket-buyers wanted to see a hero, a challenge and a resolution or they wouldn’t buy a ticket. But it was 20 years into his career before he realized that the same elements would capture people’s hearts and imaginations when he was making a sales pitch.

He writes: “Stories are not lists, power points, pleas, instructions, manifestos, threats, statistics or raw fact.  Non-stories may provide information, but stories have a unique power to move people’s hearts minds feet and wallets in the story tellers intended direction.”

If you want to remodel your youth room, tell a story. If you want more volunteers, tell a story.  If you want people to celebrate your youth ministry, tell a story.

Which of the following scenarios is more likely to create an atmosphere that will attract volunteers?

If someone asks us how the youth ministry is going, we can say, “Not bad. We have about 20 kids coming on Sunday night. I wish we could get some more volunteers though.”

Or we can say, “This church has the greatest kids.  Do you know Jack? He just started coming this year.  He’s in sixth grade, and he’s the smallest guy in the group. But he’s ready to take over the world. He’s in the middle of every game, taking on the 12^th graders. And he brings his Bible everywhere. He looks like he’s not paying attention during the lesson, and then during the discussion he says something brilliant that makes you say – man, I love doing youth ministry. You should come join us one night. You’d love it, and you’d be great at it.”

This story has two heroes – Jack is one, and the potential volunteer is the other.

People lean in when they hear a story. And if we tell it right, they want to participate somehow.  Every youth pastor should have a story in her back pocket about how the church is blessing the youth and another story or two about how the church is blessed by its kids.

If we don’t appoint ourselves as the chief storyteller for our youth ministry, you can be sure that someone else will step into that role. And we might not like the stories they tell.

Jeff Dunn-Rankin
Vice President of Consulting
jeff@ymarchitects.com

Jeff has been director of Youth at ChristUnitedMethodistChurchin Venice, FLsince 1998, after more than a decade of volunteering, including Young Life & 1st Presbyterian Church, Nashville, TN.Previously, Jeff was managing editor of the Charlotte Sun, the country’s fastest growing newspaper in the 1990s, nearly doubling in circulation. Jeff is a graduate of Sewanee & has his MBA from Vanderbilt University.
In 2011, Jeff wrote two books,  Before You Hire a Youth Pastor and The Indispensable Youth Pastor (Group Publishing), both co-authored with YMA President & Founder, Mark DeVries.  Jeff lives inVenice,Florida, with his wife Mary Lou, & two children, Matthew and Katie.

Jeff Dunn-Rankin – Vice President of Consulting
Youth Ministry Architects / Children’s Ministry Architects
Building Sustainable Ministries……One Church at a Time
Phone/Fax (877) 462-5718     Twitter: @ymarchitects
Jeff@ymarchitects.com           http://ymarchitects.com

Blog by Mark DeVries

The first fifty years of the experiment we now know as the vocation of “professional” youth ministry was marked by tremendous expansion.  We went, in just a few decades, from almost no churches with full-time youth pastors to now, when most churches are paying someone to lead their youth ministries.

I’ve been wondering how our profession might change in the next 50 years.

I made the suggestion in my last blog that it is possible, likely even, that somewhere in the next fifty years (maybe the next 15!), fewer and fewer churches will be able to afford full-time youth pastors and that we would be prudent to think like Joseph when he was warned in a dream that a famine is coming.  He used the years before the famine came to reposition the country he served so that the famine would not be a crisis.

What if we created our own Joseph Project in youth ministry, if we planned ahead for the coming scarcity in the church?

If my hunch is right that a season of scarcity is likely to come in the American church in the next few decades, would it not be prudent to prepare to fund our ministries creatively?  Would it not be wise to start thinking about multi-vocational ministry as a norm for the typical youth pastor, not simply for those who have to work at Starbucks because their churches can’t afford insurance

If my hunch is wrong, well, we will have developed a cadre of ministry entrepreneurs who support their “habit” of youth work by starting their own small businesses on the side.  And as a byproduct more and more youth workers would stay in the game longer, no longer automatically forced out of youth ministry once their families start getting expensive.

Either way, the kingdom wins.

I wonder if anyone else shares this dream with me.

Mark DeVries is the founder and president of Youth Ministry Architects (www.ymarchitects.com) and the author of Sustainable Youth Ministry and Family-Based Youth Ministry. Since 1986, Mark has served as the Associate Pastor for Youth and Their Families at First Presbyterian Church in  Nashville,Tennessee.
Mark DeVries – President
YOUTH MINISTRY ARCHITECTS
Building Sustainable Youth Ministries….One Church at a Time
Voice/Fax (877) 462-5718             Direct: (615) 424-2304
Mark@YMArchitects.com            www.YMArchitects.com
Twitter: @YMArchitects
If you need a response more quickly than a week, please forward your email to: colyer@YMArchitects.com

Blog by Dave Sippel

A few months ago I was sitting in a seminar listening to Mark DeVries share his model for volunteer recruiting. During the session a young leader in the room confessed, “Most of the time I am the only adult at youth group on Sunday nights.” At first I was shocked. Then I reflected back on my early youth ministry experience. There were many Friday nights where I was the only adult at our weekly outreach gathering. I kept all of the kids safe. I knew all of their names. What’s the big deal, right??

I will be leading a backpacking trip this summer. I’ll be spending a week hiking on the Appalachian Trail with high school students from all over the state of Florida. This will be my 10th summer leading this same trip. The Appalachian Trail restricts the size of groups that hike the trail. In some sections you can only hike with 10 hikers or less. Along our section we hike with a maximum of 12. This limits the physical impact and the noise on the trail itself. We generally take 2-3 adults on our hike with 8-9 youth. This seems like a heavy ratio but there are good reasons. As you walk along the trail the group gets pretty spread out. Fast hikers, or mountain goats, take the lead while the slower hikers plod along as best they can. Experienced hikers move more quickly than the newbies. We want our adults to be scattered throughout the group so that we’re adequately taking care of each participant.

Our youth ministries can be pretty similar. It’s not enough to just provide supervision for the youth. 1-2 adults can keep all of the youth in one room and keep them safe. But, we’ll need more adults if we want to really build disciples. We need adults to be scattered throughout the ministry to minister to the leaders and the stragglers. The leaders need to be supported and continually inspired. They need support if and when they fail as leaders. The stragglers need to be lovingly encouraged to grab their packs and get walking. They need a gentle guide when they lose hope or lose sight of the trail.

It takes many adults to really know the youth themselves. If we hope to inspire and encourage our youth we’ll need to recruit some extra adults for this journey. At Youth Ministry Architects we have come to the conclusion through our research that it takes 1 adult volunteer for every 5 active youth. 15 youth per week = 3 adult volunteers. (Notice that we don’t include paid staff in the number.)

The youth leader that I mentioned above is no longer at her church. Now, I wonder what happened with those youth. The best thing we can do for our churches is to multiply ourselves. If we leave, the trained adults that we have been working with can continue to provide quality care for the youth that we’ve left behind.

 
David Sippel is a senior consultant for Youth Ministry Architects.

Dave began working in youth ministry in 1994. From 2001 to 2011 he served as a youth director at three of the largest United Methodist churches in the Florida Conference. Since 2008 he has consulted with churches from 18 states and 6 denominations.  Dave is a regular speaker for camps, retreats, and youth ministry training events. Dave also serves as a coach for the Youth Ministry Institute. He is a dedicated volunteer with his local church youth ministry. Dave is a graduate of Asbury College. He lives in  Lakeland, FL with his wife, Teresa, and their two sons; Grant and Cade.

David Sippel
Senior Consultant and Director of Connections
YOUTH MINISTRY ARCHITECTS
CHILDREN’S MINISTRY ARCHITECTS
Building Sustainable Youth Ministries….One Church at a Time
Voice/Fax (877) 462-5718
Direct: (863)510-9341
dave.sippel@ymarchitects.com
http://ymarchitects.com
Twitter: @ymarchitects