From Good to Great Youth Ministry Part 5

In this 7 part series we are breaking down Jim Collins’ book Good to Great and how it can apply to Youth Ministry. Jim Collins wrote this book by compiling a team of researchers to examine many different companies. Over the span of months and years the researchers compiled data that put some companies in a “good” category and some companies in a “great”. After comparing the “good” with the “great” the team came up with several factors of what makes a great company great.

Summary:
In the 5th part of this 7 part series we come to a factor of “great” companies that some might find obvious…or maybe you don’t but what Jim Collins and his team found is that the “great” companies had a culture of discipline. This discipline allowed the company not only to grow but to be strong over the years. With a culture of discipline the “great” companies were able to maintain Level 5 leadership, the right people on the bus, confront brutal facts and focus on their vision.
Basically the “great” companies did five things:
1. Created a structure or framework that allowed it’s company to have freedom and responsibility.
2. They got the right people “on the bus” who would go above and beyond to fulfill their responsibilities.
3. They recognized that discipline does not equal dictatorship from their leaders.
4. Stayed loyal to the “Hedgehog Concept”, and stayed focused on how all three areas, What they are most passionate about, what they are the best at and the common denominator…see Part 4 for more info).
5. In addition they added a “Stop Doing List” which would put a hold on any systems, structures or programs that were preventing them from matching their vision.

How This Translates:
If you have read the previous 4 parts of this blog series you can figure out pretty much what entails a culture of discipline. The one concept that I saw as very eye opening was making a “Stop Doing” list. So many times I find myself making a “to do” list and so all my work begins to pile up and next thing you know I’m feeling burnt out. This can also be a difficult thing for us in the ministry world, because many of us feel as if we need to please people.

One example of something we stopped doing at our church was small groups on Sunday. We separated our small groups from our crowd program because we were doing too much in too little of a time and we had ministers who were great small group leaders, but not so great crowd leaders and some great crowd leaders who were not so great small group leaders.
Small groups are now midweek and has ministers who are dedicated to making that an irresistible environment. And we have ministers dedicated to our Sunday crowd program and making that an irresistible environment. By doing this we have been able to open our programs to more students, and we have the right ministers in the right places. I’m not recommending that this is the solution for your youth ministry. But the reason we stopped having small groups on Sunday nights was because it wasn’t consistent with our “Hedgehog Concept”.
A little heads up, a “stop doing” list isn’t license for you to stop doing something you may not like, it’s a list for you to write down the things that preventy your ministry from staying consistent to your vision, growth and success.