Get Past Your Professional Blind Spots

Courtesy of emilio labrador/Creative Commons License

Ministry is a big job, and it’s built upon a pile of diverse and crazy tasks that require a dozen different skill sets. None of us are born with a full compliment of each of the dozen different gifts that a youth minister utilizes every single week. That’s okay, but what’s not okay is ignoring your blind spots. There’s a lesson there that each of us should remember from driver’s ed.

“I’m just not good at that…”

I tried that excuse on my sixth grade basketball coach to explain why I kept missing left-handed layups. It wasn’t a valid excuse for me then, and it’s not a valid excuse for any of us now. Whether its administrative tasks, public speaking, or volunteer recruitment; if you are bad at a required part of your job, you need to make it a point to improve.

The most common blind spots that I see in youth ministers aren’t terribly surprising, and they’re the kinds of things that new youth workers don’t realize are a part of the job until they’ve been into the office a month.

• MONEY MANAGEMENT – Find a mentor from a large not-for-profit in your area; something like the YMCA. The professionals have the training, experience, and wisdom that you need to become a budget guru in no time.

• ADMINISTRATIVE STUFF – If you’re lucky enough to have an administrative staff, offer to buy a lunch or a coffee. Yes, you could learn from another youth minister, but your admins are the real pros. Figure out how they get things done, then do it that way.

• PUBLIC SPEAKING – If it makes you uncomfortable to record and watch your own messages, then that’s exactly the reason you should do it. Presenting well is the fastest way to gain buy-in and to represent your ministry well.

For all of us, it’s tempting and easy to spend all of our time and energy doing the things we like and the things that we think we’re really good at. But if you’re totally ignoring your blind spots, then a nasty crash is probably in your future. You don’t want that to happen, and I don’t want that to happen either.

What are your ministry blind spots, and more importantly, what are you doing about it?

My friend and peer in the trenches, Aaron Helman (@Aaronhelman) is on a mission to help end the epidemic of youth worker burnout. He writes practical and insightful posts on Smarter Youth Ministry aimed to help youth workers with their biggest frustrations. He is also the youth minister at Firehouse Youth Ministries in South Bend, Indiana.

Interested in writing on Marathon Youth Ministry? Check out what it takes here.