Happy Fourth of July! In honor of national pyromania and festivities*, I bring you another installment of Three Thoughts from a Rookie Youth Pastor.
- Communication is key. When it comes to working with a team of adult volunteers, I’m finding out that more communicate is usually better. I first thought that I didn’t want to overwhelm my adult volunteers with details of all the different things that were going on, until I found out that they felt out of the loop. So we put together a schedule of events, and I brought them into the planning process. Surprise, they like that! Communication helps manage expectations, build trust, and foster ownership over the ministry.
- Consistency is key. This is one truth that I feel I’ve learned from my failure to abide by it. When it comes to program plans, communication, even running events, the more consistent you can be, the better everyone tends to feel.
- Encouragement is key. While this is definitely true when it comes to working with students, my main focus here is with the adult volunteers. Encouragement is a key component to keeping everyone all excited about the ministry; it also helps to prevent team members from feeling defeated when things go wrong. Consistent encouragement is like the oil in an engine. It keeps everything running smoothly.
Enjoy your Fourth of July celebrations and set off some fireworks for me.
(*) This post does not actually directly relate in any way to the public celebration of independence. It’s really a coincidence that this post is going up on July 4th. Hooray?