Tag: volunteers

Building a Fan Base for Your Student Ministry

I learned early on in my student ministry career how important it is to have a strong fan base.  And, I’m not talking about students.  I can’t overstate how valuable it is to have zealous adult fans—particularly adults who have influence within your church.  When you do something dumb like leave a kid at winter retreat (in my defense he was extraordinarily short) or when it comes time to convince your senior pastor that you need a ginormous new student building, having a group of fans who will go to bat for you is a huge advantage.  So, how do you build a strong fan base?  Here are a few ideas.

 

A Trustworthy Brand Creates Fans

We love brands because in a fast moving and ever changing culture, good brands consistently deliver trustworthy products.  Once we decide which brands represent who we are, most of us stay incredibly committed for life.  This is because we can trust Apple or Starbucks or Nike to consistently deliver products and experiences that wow us.

In our student ministry we attempt to capitalize on the reality of our consumer driven culture by building a trustworthy brand.  The biggest part of this is delivering consistently great experiences.  We want our students to know that they will experience hilarious videos, high quality worship music, an engaging teaching and small groups led by adults who care about them and are interested in their lives.  By design, we don’t attempt to do much more than this.  By keeping our structure simple and delivering a high quality “product” week after week we build trust in our brand and by extension a stronger fan base

 

Happy Volunteers Become Zealous Fans

I am convinced that the smartest thing you can do as a student ministry leader is invest in volunteers more than students.  If your volunteers are well trained, well cared for and serving in ways that are meaningful and life giving, they will become huge fans.  I’m talking about the kind of fans that will storm the field after a win and throw obnoxiously gross stuff at the ref when he blows a call.  If you think about it, you want both celebratory passion and angsty (just invented that word) passion on your side.

If your volunteers love serving in your ministry, not only will they amplify your ministry’s effectiveness but when they move on to other volunteering opportunities, or parenthood or whatever, they will continue as lifelong fans of your ministry.  Translation: That 22 year old volunteer will becomes a 35 year old board member who shows up for the budget meeting with your ministry’s logo painted on his bare chest, carrying a placard reading, “Mo Money! for [insert your ministry’s name].”  And isn’t that the kind of passionate fans we want in our corner?

 

Happy Parents Become Zealous Fans

Unfortunately, we as student pastors have a reputation for being screw offs.  What I mean is that we are more likely to get a chuckle and a roll of the eyes than a nod of respect.  This isn’t really a good thing when it comes to building a fan base.

Parents can be powerful allies and fearsome enemies.  I don’t have to explain this because you already know.  Here’s the thing, when you understand what parents want and play to their desires, 90% of parents will become zealous fans.  Don’t worry about the 10%, they are crazy.

Anyway, what is it that parents want?  Trustworthiness.  They want pastors, small group leaders, and an overall ministry structure that they can trust.  What builds trust?  Consistency—Consistent communication, a consistent schedule, consistent behavior from small group leaders, consistent responses to questions and concerns , consistent, consistent, consistent.  Parenting a teenager is a big ol’ bucket o’ chaos.  When we offer an oasis of consistency and trustworthiness, parents are very likely to jump on the student ministry bandwagon and when parents are happy they become zealous fans.

I know there is much more to be said about building a student ministry fan base, but this is a bit of what I’ve learned.  I’d love to hear a few of your ideas.

 

College Transition: 4+Life

A few nights ago was the season finale of our senior cell family.  In our ministry structure, cell families are regional collections of 6 small groups.  One of the things we do to help our students with college transition is cluster all of our senior small groups into their own cell family.  We meet together every other week and talk about transitioning into adulthood.  Last night was the last cell family of the year.   It’s tradition for us to give our small group leaders the floor on the last night and let them share their final words of advice to our graduating seniors.  They all shared from the platform of years invested in their small group so their words carried some weight for all and immense weight for a few.

One of our leaders said something that I will remember for the rest of my life—something that reminds me that connecting small groups of students with a caring adult is probably the most important thing we do.  This particular leader said, “Whatever happens from here on out, whatever mistakes you make, we want you to know that we are here for you for the rest of your lives.”  The beautiful thing is that I know from watching her lead her small group that she meant every word of that statement and I know the same is true for the other leaders sitting around that circle.

Ever since I heard Kara Powell explain the core concepts of Sticky Faith in a breakout session at the Simply Youth Ministry Conference, I have made the “4+1” concept a key component of our volunteer recruiting and training.  We’ve asked for a four year commitment for as long as I can remember but we began visioning volunteers to continue mentoring their students during their first year of college.  I believe that this concept has made a significant impact in the lives of our graduates.

Here’s the clincher:  if you recruit the right people and vision them the right way, not only will they give you 4+1, they will give you 4+life.   I understand that not every leader has this kind of capacity and not every small group relationally cements together in this way but even if only half of them do—think of the incredible lifelong impact our student ministries could have.  This is why I believe that nothing we do is more important that leveraging inter-generational mentoring relationships.  Life-changing student ministry isn’t complicated.  Find adults who love Jesus and are willing to love a handful of students, equip and vision the heck out of them and unleash them to be the pastors in your ministry.  4+life.