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Building A NextGen Ministry Without A Budget
• One of the first things in building your youth ministry is to realize the importance of the resources around you.
• Your most valuable asset is your TEAM (Together Everyone Achieves Miracles)
• You must exercise power with people and not power over people.
• Your real estate is your teenagers, they are your greatest investment but also your greatest resource.
• There is never a shortage of resources as long as you have a TEAM and inspired students.
• You must inspire your TEAM and your students to own the youth ministry, they must buy in to the mission and the vision to impact this generation
• Involvement equals commitment.
• When your TEAM and your students feel involved or are a part of the whole, it will attract resources.
• It's ok to be relevant or attempt to be hot, cool etc. but JESUS must be at the center of it all.
• Relevance without Jesus will equal carnality and failure, carnality will discredit the messengers which unfortunately with young people then discredits the message.
• JESUS CHRIST- The word Christ means the anointed one and His anointing, it is the anointing on your youth ministry that will attract resources.
• The anointing is attractive and is like a magnet and will draw students and families to your youth ministry and ultimately your church.
• More students, more parents, more resources.
• The first place to begin building is assessing the graces around you, in other words the people, your TEAM and even those in the congregation.
• ITS NOT ABOUT THE MONEY! It's about favor and the resources in people. Favor is worth more than money.
EVERYONE HAS A GRACE THAT CAN POTENTIALLY BRING RESOURCES:Romans 12
So we, numerous as we are, are one body in Christ (the Messiah) and individually we are parts one of another [mutually dependent on one another]. (Romans 12:5 AMP)
• We are ONE in the anointing
• We are a part of one another
• We must learn to be mutually dependent on one another
• We must see the resource in one another to build a youth ministry without a budget
Having gifts (faculties, talents, qualities) that differ according to the grace given us, let us use them: [He whose gift is] prophecy, [let him prophesy] according to the proportion of his faith; (Romans 12:6 AMP)
• Each person has a grace gift, each gift is different, each gift is a resource based on your needs.
• We must allow people to operate in their grace gift in order to produce maximum impact in our youth ministries.
[He whose gift is] practical service, let him give himself to serving; he who teaches, to his teaching; (Romans 12:7 AMP)
He who exhorts (encourages), to his exhortation; he who contributes, let him do it in simplicity and liberality; he who gives aid and superintends, with zeal and singleness of mind; he who does acts of mercy, with genuine cheerfulness and joyful eagerness. (Romans 12:8 AMP)
[Let your] love be sincere (a real thing); hate what is evil [loathe all ungodliness, turn in horror from wickedness], but hold fast to that which is good. (Romans 12:9 AMP)
Love one another with brotherly affection [as members of one family], giving precedence and showing honor to one another. (Romans 12:10 AMP)
• Love must be the dominate
• Teamwork is key to attracting resources and maximizing resources
• Respecting each other's grace gift, operating as ONE!
Never lag in zeal and in earnest endeavor; be aglow and burning with the Spirit, serving the Lord. (Romans 12:11 AMP)
• Passion for Gods mission, the mission is JESUS!
• Passion for this generation will attract resources
• Passion infused into your TEAM and students will attract young people
• As leaders your passion must be contagious!
• Once passion is ignited and you've assessed your TEAM, CREATIVITY IS THE FORCE FOR HIGH IMPACT YOUTH MINISTRY.
Creativity is the Key to Reaching This Generation
• God has given you the gift of imagination and the ability to create.
• Creativity causes a ministry to flourish and thrive.
• Creativity brings innovation.
• Innovation means finding creative ways to capture the attention of young people and creative ways to minister to their needs.
• Creativity is the key to reaching young people, yet many people won’t tap into it.
• People reason that creative ideas are too expensive or too radical.
• “We’ve never tried that before.”
• “This is the way we’ve always done it.”
• Others simply believe there’s no time to be creative.
• The world is very creative at reaching the hearts of young people.
• MTV, BET and many other media outlets spend millions of dollars a year researching what young people like and want to come up with creative ways to capture their attention.
• The media is capturing young people’s attention through creativity, but they are also capturing their hearts.
• Everyone doesn’t get saved at church on a Sunday morning.
• If we constantly use the same approach and offer the same incentives, we risk being put to the side for something the world has to offer that’s more exciting, energizing, or fun.
• Start developing the creativity of your youth ministry by having creative meetings with your leaders.
• This is a time to brainstorm and get the input of your team.
• Establish a time to have creative meetings with your students. They have a lot of ideas and they know how to reach their peers.
• Empower people to get into their passion.
Ten Hindrances to Creativity
1. Being average
o You can’t be normal. You can’t be average. The world is not average when they go after the hearts of young people. You have to tap into your God- given creative ability.
2. Owning the spirit of fear
o Fear is the opposite of faith. Fear will paralyze you; it will freeze your creativity. You can’t be afraid to do the impossible.
o Fear is Satan’s form of faith.
o Fear will cause you to fail.
3. Not Dreaming BIG
o Dreaming is free, it does not cost anything. Dreaming is seeing things through the eyes of faith.
4. Negative Relationships
o Maintain an environment that encourages dreaming and thinking about young people.
o Remove people who have negative attitudes
5. Failure to Plan
o Things just don’t happen. They must be planned. You must brainstorm and inspire innovation and creativity.
6. A Lack of Faith
o No faith = no power
o Without faith it’s impossible to please God. You must have faith in God to
direct you steps as you carry out your plans.
7. The Spirit of Pride
o Pride is a poisonous and destructive spirit and it will kill your team and its creativity.
o Pride sets you up for failure.
8. Not Being A Team Player
o Not being a team player causes challenges with the team. It also can open the door for division.
o Division will destroy creativity; a house divided cannot stand.
9. The Wrong Atmosphere or Place
o You must dream in creative environments like museums, restaurants with abstract objects or parks.
10. Being Stuck In The Past
The past will poison the present and keep you stuck in old un affective ways that will prevent you from tapping into the here and now. Times and ways are constantly evolving.
Why Plan?
There are several compelling reasons why you should spend time planning.
1. God is a planner.
2. You will never do something really B.I.G. without a plan.
3. Plans turn your dreams into reality.
4. They make your dreams seem possible and believable.
5. Planning is the work of a leader – it is how your life becomes productive.
6. As you plan, you will learn principles.
Habakkuk 2:2 (AMP)
2And the Lord answered me and said, Write the vision and engrave it so plainly upon tablets that everyone who passes may [be able to] read [it easily and quickly] as he hastens by.
Planning Step 1: Creating a Mission Statement
• Begin by creating a mission statement. This statement will clarify and bring focus to the real aim of your endeavor.
• As the youth specialist, you should be driving this decision. Do not ask your department what they would want the direction to be. Instead, maintain control and establish yourself as a leader. Set your mission statement, and then announce it to your department.
• The mission statement should come from and be in line with the vision of the pastor.
• Many leaders are always busy as a result of doing things that have nothing to do with their purpose and mission statement. Therefore, once you have yours set; use them as a map and guideline for success. Anything that does not fit into your statement should not be priority. Allow your statement to truly define who you and your department really are.
• How will you use your mission statement?
• Take all your passions and dreams for reaching young people and cram them
into one or two sentences.
Planning Step 2: Characteristics of Your Youth Ministry
• Next, describe the characteristics you want your ministry to possess. o What will define the personality of your department?
• You may choose to have characteristics that challenge you personally or represent an area in which you want to develop more.
• To do this, think about how you would describe a student’s personality or attributes and then translate that into a group mentality.
• These characteristics determine how the department will act and what kind of personality it will have.
• It is important to understand that these values must be communicated through all that you do. They are more than just a list of standards to be memorized; they are an internalized code of action.
Examples of Characteristics:
• Faith - We receive direction, provision and motivation directly from God and His Word to take the Gospel to the world.
• Integrity - We are who we say we are, and we always do the right thing, regardless of expediency.
• Relationships - We have servant’s attitudes and we go to heroic lengths to meet the needs of others.
• Vision - We dare to dream as B.I.G. as God dreams and believe that, with God on our side, we can achieve the impossible.
• Excellence - We demand of ourselves uncompromising quality and strive to be people who exude excellence in everything we do.
Planning Step 3: Developing Your B.I.G. Goals
• If Jesus Christ came back in the flesh to be your department’s lead, what would it look like by the end of the year?
• Begin dreaming. Think WAY outside the box!
• Think about attendance, leadership, team, outreach, the growth of your
department, etc.
Planning Step 4: Figuring Out What It Will Take
• Write down everything you will need to accomplish your B.I.G. goals (people, resources, facilities, etc.)
• You may use this list to begin praying the necessities that will make your department an even greater success!
• This is your target for prayer!
Planning Step 5: Barriers
• When you think about your B.I.G. Goals, what factors scream, “NO”?
• These factors may be your pastor, parents, money, ideas, etc.
• List what would hold you back from accomplishing your B.I.G. Goals.
• Now take one of these barriers at a time with your department and begin to
brain storm about ways to get through these seemingly impossible barriers.
• This is how you get break-through ideas!
• Again, this is your target for prayer!
PRACTICAL CREATIVE IDEAS FOR INCREASE:
1. Turn your youth ministry into a brand by branding the logo and creating a clothing line with it.
2. Set up a weekly cafe with all of the goodies for students to buy in it
3. Take talented kids with musical gifts, create a mini music album and sell to the congregation
4. Take talented kids, let them write and produce a dramatic production and sell tickets to the event
5. Have a $5 dollar party. DJ, Music, Dancing
6. Have a prom, charge a fee for entry and sell food
7. Partner with organizations that have money to invest
8. Partner with companies and have them sponsor back to school events etc
9. Have a quarterly generation giving Sunday in your congregation where people bring an extra seed to invest in the ministry
10. Inspire your team and they will give from their personal resources
11. Create an after school program, charge a weekly fee, this brings in good money
12. Have a talent inspired summer camp where teens pay a weekly fee to learn an area of passion (drama, music, lighting, production, creative writing etc.) have volunteer teachers
13. At the end of talent summer camp host a showcase where people have to buy a ticket to attend
14. Sale ice cream in the summer, hot drinks and oatmeal in the winter to congregation to support the ministry.
15. Charge a monthly dues for a specific group participation ( monthly mentor ship group fees)