As part of a recent holiday, I was staying with an amazing couple called George and Vivian. George happens to be CEO of a large company in Australia… and also happens to have a passion for God and the church. One evening we got talking about church – usual stuff; how could it work even more as God intended it to? Why are we often disappointed with the church and how we would do it differently given half the chance. As we spoke George came up with a profound statement:

‘The church isn’t short of people knowing what the problems are – we’ve only got to look in most churches on a Sunday to see what they are. The church isn’t short of ideas on how to solve these problems – you youth ministers have ideas coming out of your ears. What the church is short of are people who can bring about the change needed to even begin to look at these ideas’.

Which made me think. I’ve been involved in or around youth ministry for nearly 20 years. In that time I have shouted loudly about the church needing to ‘be relevant’, I’ve berated churches and PCC’s about how they need to change or die. I’ve joked about how we largely don’t want to change – ‘how many bishops does it take to change a light bulb? Change?’ But I have never in that time considered strategically how we can bring about effective change for the sake of the Kingdom of God. At the end of the holiday George recommended three books for me to read – one of them totally captivated me (this might have had something to do with the way it was written as a kid’s story, about penguins and I read it in less than hour) and has fundamentally changed the way I look at… change. It’s called ‘Our Iceberg is Melting’ by John Kotter.

The story begins with a young penguin looking out to sea and suddenly realising the iceberg they all live on is melting, they have to move icebergs or die. The hard thing is that he is the only one who can see this happening – are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin. The penguins (ok, the author) look at the change process in this way.

Listen. This is a hard first step; I have yet to meet a youth minister who could not talk for England. It is an easy thing to point out (the need to listen more) but a harder thing to achieve with any sort of lasting effect. First off we need to listen to God and secondly we need to listen to the community we are seeking to serve. I really do no think it was an accident that Jesus spent the first 30 years of his life doing no ministry. He just grew up, was an adolescent, learnt a trade, and just was. Even when he did start his ministry (Mark 1 v 9, at his Baptism) he instantly took off into the desert for 40 days retreat before really getting down to it. I think back to when I first graduated and served as a full time youth minister – and I cringe. I was so opinionated and so quick to give my opinion. If only I could have listened more.

Create a Sense of Urgency. Church can sometimes be a place of complacency and safety, and people do need rest and a safe place to be. However, sadly the vast majority of churches have allowed this to become crippling and can even cultivate an unrealistic view of what is actually going on outside the building. This is even more true in the area of youth ministry. Look at Jesus’ first words in his ministry. ‘The time has come’ he said, ‘repent and believe the good news’. (Mark 1 v 15). Let us wake up and smell the coffee – if you have any young people in your church you are in the minority, you are in a privileged position – so what are you going to do? Reduce complacency and increase urgency.

Pull together a team. Once issues have been highlighted the next biggest pitfall opens up for us to fall in. That of the ‘one person does it all’ scenario. Over the last few years of ministry I have acquired a myriad of different skills, some useless (fire breathing) others more so (first aid, pa setting up, guitar playing and mini bus driving.) Most of these skills I have acquired have been because no one else could do it, so I stepped in and tried to do it myself. One important word is required - team. You cannot and should not do it all yourself – it leads to burn out. So, after creating a sense of urgency – build a team with different skills, different outlooks and different ways of working. Without that diversity, we are selling the young people short and pretending to be more than we can be. It is easy to do a lone-gun approach to ministry, in the short term it feels good, every one looks to you and thinks you are brilliant – leading worship on guitar, preaching, doing massive assemblies. Mid-term you will burn out, or you’re nearest and dearest will forget who you are – the sad thing is I don’t think you would notice it.

Decide what to do. This again seems like an obvious thing to say but I am staggered as to how many youth ministries go from year to year with little or no idea as to where they are going or what they are trying to achieve. What will your youth ministry look like in one, two or three years? Will it be bigger? Smaller? Meeting more or less often? Why? At what point will you need more team? People need to know what and why they are volunteering to and for. Again look at Jesus’ ministry; the whole of Matthew 5 outlines what his ministry is going to be about; Luke 4 vs16-30 lays it out pure and simple; ‘release of captives, recovery of the sight to the blind, let the oppressed go free’ This is what he came to do. Clarify, on paper, how the future will be different from the past and how you are all, together, going to make the future a reality.

Communicate. Again we often pay lip service to communication, we see people who are on board and those who aren’t – and those that aren’t are the enemy – and they tend to be the elders or the PCC. If you are good at communicating complicated biblical truths to children or young people – use these same skills in communicating to PCC’s and the like. In the story there is a penguin called NoNo. This penguin was a key person to learn to understand and more importantly learn how to deal with effectively. I won’t spoil the story for you but once they had understood why he was called NoNo it was a lot easier to deal with him, it is when we try and deal with NoNo’s without first understanding them we run aground. So it is with people in our ministries – seek to understand their concerns, but do not be side tracked by their agenda’s, and deal with them accordingly. The key to communication is getting to the point where everyone knows what the vision is – even if they disagree with it, they know it inside out. This involves constant reminders, updates, and stories on how we are achieving the big vision. Ask people to pray about the vision and the ministry.

Empower others to act. We are really scared of empowerment in churches. Two things lie behind this fear; One, we do not want to fail; to truly empower someone runs the risk of that someone failing at what they try to do. Jesus understood this when he sent out the disciples. In Luke 10 we read about Jesus sending out the seventy. At no point does Jesus tell them what to do when people responded to their message and actions. But he did tell them what to do when they had their message and actions rejected, he prepared them for failing – ‘OK guys you are going to fail, this is what you do when it happens’. Secondly, we like holding onto and retaining the power. Whatever church we work for or serve, paid or unpaid, whatever the theology of priesthood or leadership, we have in us an inbuilt temptation to revel in the adulation and successes that leadership brings. I know a vicar whose personal aim is ‘to encourage and allow others to be the best they can be’. It says a lot that he himself doesn’t feature in that statement. The empowerment of the disciples in the first century church and throughout the last 2000 years is a fundamental, but sadly lacking bit of our gospel message. Some of the best youth ministries I’ve seen in the last ten years have been run by people who truly empower their leaders and young people and ultimately run the risk of failure through that empowerment.

Produce short term wins. It is a little known fact that the majority of youth ministry is done by volunteers. This being the case we need them to feel a) valued b) like they are achieving something. Just saying ‘you are doing fine’ and ‘Your reward will be in heaven’ will not cut it anymore. Teams only work coherently if there are clear visual achievements so when you have a team on board and fired up, and a supportive church and leadership, you need to quickly show that you are achieving something, however small. Talk about it; tell people about it and most of all celebrate this success with your team.

Keep going. In the last seven years I’ve been working with hundreds of different churches with volunteers and full timers. I can guarantee the churches that have the best youth ministries are ones where the youth minister has been around for a long time. This is true for volunteers and full-timers, the longer people serve the better the ministry. Stick at it, do not let up – keep communicating, releasing and empowering for the kingdom of God. Last year I found out that the man who ran the Sunday School that I was in, in the 70’s (and he seemed old then) still serves as a children’s leader in his church, two hips and many years later – long may his tribe continue!

Create a changing culture. It does seem ironic that by writing this article, I need to ‘challenge’ people to be aware and ‘create a changing culture’. The thing is that change and culture doesn’t stop; it is a moving liquid entity in and of itself. We can never arrive at a point where change is no longer needed. There is no magic potion or programme that will instantly give us a growing youth ministry where we will have unlimited resources and no more worries. Once we have achieved some short, mid and long-term goals there will be more on the horizon to look at and challenge us – this is an exciting but considered a tiring prospect by some.   

We can be fearful of change and circle the wagons in our ministries and churches, protecting our young people from the big bad world outside. Or we could stand on the outside throwing rocks and accusing the church of irrelevance, but really offering nothing as an alternative. Or we could embrace change as a God given gift and learn from the penguins – or Jesus.

Tim Sudworth is the Diocesan Youth Officer of Guildford and co-author of ‘Mission Shaped Youth’.