Are you intentionally meeting one-on-one with youth in your programs? Sometimes we worry about individual conversations that feel awkward or forced. Most youth will not ask you to meet individually, even if they desperately desire someone to talk to or are wrestling with questions about faith. Please don’t put the burden on them to reach out to you because they probably won’t.
Public place = safe space. As youth ministers, we need to cover our backs and be completely above reproach in our actions. However, this is no reason not to have one-on-one conversations with students. Choose a public space like a coffee shop. If still meeting virtually, record the zoom call. If you are meeting in the church offices, make sure someone else nearby can see you during the conversation.
Young women benefit from male mentors, and young men benefit from female mentors. That being said, if you don’t feel comfortable meeting with opposite-gender members of your youth ministry, consider bringing another adult leader along. A two-on-one meeting can build a relationship between the leader and the student that can blossom into a wonderful mentoring opportunity. Many adult leaders have trouble connecting to the youth. Adults may not want to play games and make small talk; they want to listen and offer the deep wisdom they have developed. If those deep conversations aren’t happening somewhere, both the youth and the adult leaders are missing out on the fullness of ministry.
One strategy that works wonders for increasing one-on-ones in a ministry setting is offering them “prizes” for games or raffles. If you begin programs with a game, offer the winner a free coffee shop visit instead of a candy bar. Then, you and the winner go-to coffee and BAM one-on-one. It’s that easy. Go further and offer the prize of dinner at a budget restaurant for two people. The winning youth gets to choose a friend (and it may not be a friend in the program) to bring to dinner. Bringing a friend can make students feel more comfortable and fill in any conversation lags. Post a picture on your ministry Facebook or Instagram!
At the bare minimum, you should meet twice a year with every student on your leadership team. If these students are leaders in your church, they need to be supported and mentored. It would be odd for an employee not to meet one-on-one with their boss a few times a year, and that is a relationship of production, not formation. Being a ministry leader should be formative for students, and one-on-one meetings make time to invest in that formation.
Once you make opportunities to meet one-on-one, do not waste them. A ministry leader once told me three things you should talk about during any one-on-one: friends, family, and faith. It may seem odd to jump into questions about a student’s family or prayer life. Don’t worry about it. They know you are the youth minister; they expect you to go deep. Asking shows you care and are willing to listen.
Brooke is a cradle Catholic who has done everything in Youth Ministry – summer camps, high school campus ministry, parish ministry, youth conferences, etc. Currently, she lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and works at a Classical Catholic school teaching second and third grade. She loves her job because she gets to go to Mass every day and teach about Medieval Saints. You can find her at https://brookeannbuth.wixsite.com/writer.
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