The Bible NETWork ~ Impacting the World for Christ one post at a time!

My husband and I co-pastor a small church in Knoxville, TN, which is mostly older people and on the verge of dying if we can't reach out. We're basically starting from scratch with only a couple of workers.

We need youth workers and volunteers to help us reach out to the MANY kids in our neighborhood, but as is too often the case, we're struggling to find people who want to help build a small church... they prefer to join a bigger church with programs and excitement in place. Can't say as I blame them at times... ;o)

At any rate - after prayer, which we're doing and beliving in! - any ideas on how to find workers and how to share our vision with them? We're open to most any suggestion.

Dee,
Here are just a few thoughts from someone who has/is working with a small church:
1. Trim down any programs providing duplicate purposes. As DeVry points out in his book Family-Based Youth Ministry, many churches begin with one program and continue adding on more without ever trimming off any of the old ones. Trimming down doesn't mean these programs won't ever come back to life again, but it does mean being realistic with the number of volunteers we have and using them wisely so that they don't burn out.
2. Start small. Two years ago we had three regular attenders and three youth leaders. We met once a year. God has grown us to perhaps 10 every-week attenders along with a number of come-and-goers now and we're up to four regular leaders with several other occasional helpers. We now meet four times regularly and usually hold three special events each month. But we had to start small and grow.
3. Be persistent. There were many times over the past two years when it would have been easy to give up. We reached out to kids and they came for a while and then just disappeared. You can feel used and worn out. Stay in there for the long haul.
4. Give Doug Field's Purpose Driven Youth Ministry a try. Its a pretty good book with good ideas and at the least will inspire your heart, at least it did mine.
May God lead and direct you.
Respectfully,
David.

Thanks, David! Those are some good ideas... It's hard to know where to begin with only two kids, but we're praying and trusting the Lord to open doors for us. After all, it's HIS work. Thanks, again, for your input.

You could consider packing up and moving to our church, LOL. We have a recovery ministry that meets on Wednesday nights and an opportunity to serve in the "childcare" ministry came up. We have two preteen boys and an infant son so we figured we were a good fit. We could all go as a family, jump in and get our feet wet in serving. We did not realize we were stepping off into the deep end on the first night. We got a 3 minute training session and found ourselves in a room about 20 by 20 feet with about a dozen kids. 6 of these children were junior high and high school boys, several were elementary aged boys and girls, we had a couple of toddlers and of course an infant. Two hours and we were pulling our hair out.

Our church has a Children's ministry that seems fairly well staffed on Sunday mornings but they are actually meeting in the church on this night for their meeting with the pastor(s). I am really concerned about the older kids in particular...they are not having a good experience at all. I feel like I could engage the kids but there are too many in different age categories. I am going to talk to the "recovery pastor". He seems to be overseeing Wednesday nights. In the meantime we will be praying that God will send out more workers into the fields. The harvest is ready. Some of these kids are obviously in need of recovery themselves...we have to get this together.

I like what David had to say a lot. Might I just add consistency to the list. Kids need to know that you are going to be there for the long haul. They want to know that you are going to be invested in their life through college, marriage, kids of their own, the death of their parents, etc. They want to know that they are getting a real relationship with you not just a project or program based ministry. At some point when you develop leaders then you can hand off these kids to others who will have the same mentality. I have found that all people, whether youth or adult, want to know people who are willing to spend their lives knowing each other, building a culture of stability. I think that is what is so precious about Jesus, he builds a sense of unity, loyalty, and permanency in our lives. He will not leave us and commits himself too us for the long haul.

In trimming down programs for your church,
may I suggest Simple Church by Thom Rainer
and Eric Geiger.
This book has helped me to think in terms
of being focused in ministry as a whole.

As a point of encouragement I was recently
told by some Jr. High students that they loved
the ministry we had at our small church because
it was personal and not like the youth groups
of large churches.

Ministry is about relationships, no matter if it
is children, teens or adults. People are drawn to
a church home where they can connect with a
person who points them to Jesus.

_________________
Eric O.
Sr. High / College Pastor