Christmas Ministry Dreams: How to make them come true
With Christmas approaching I’m sure many of us are asking the question, “What do you want for Christmas?”…for me I want to wake up on Christmas day,...
What To Do Before You Get Caught In The Chaos
Christopher Wesley
Dec 15, 2010
Not sure what your church does for Christmas but for us it gets a little busy. We usually drop what we normally do to prepare for our Christmas Eve Services (2 of them) at the Maryland State Fair Grounds. We expect over 5000 people so we need to make sure things are in order. But, before I let go of all youth ministry there are a few things I want to look at and plan so when January 3rd hits (1st day back after the break) I’m hitting the ground running. Too many times we get caught in the chaos, before the chaos even begins…we need to have a plan to get out of it. This is what I got:
- Feeding Leaders, while I’m taking some of my leaders to the SYMC in Chicago, I’m planning a day of reflection and learning in February as well as late Spring. If you can’t bring people to a conference you got to bring the conference to them. There are copies of Catalyst, PDYM and Right Now Conferences that you can order to give them a little of that conference experience. Just show them a message or two and then create some follow up small group or table discussions and activities.
- Evaluations, I’m going to sit down with our new ministers…maybe have coffee and talk to them about how the year is going. It’s going to be an informal conversation on what they think of the job that leadership is doing. It’s not your typical evaluation, I’m not going to evaluate them, I want them to evaluate us. This will help us because it’ll give us a fresh perspective on what we are doing right, and where we need to improve ourselves.
- Recruiting Plans, It’s midyear and while we haven’t lost any leaders we definitely need new ones. We don’t want to lose any year end because they feel worn down. I’m currently working with our Adult Small Group Pastor to get some ideas of recruiting leaders from the adult small groups. I’m looking at specific roles, to attract specialist to the program (i.e. tech team). It’s all about growing our ministers as our students grow in number.
It’s easy to feel like you have to drop what you are doing for the craziness of Christmas and the rest of the Holiday season, but don’t. Just plan a few action plans so that when the dust settles you know exactly where to go.
So what do you need to do to make sure you are ready for the New Year? Please comment.