Tuning Up the Orchestra

By Patti Gibbons on October 10 2009

Just before we prayed at the conclusion of our counselors meeting, Michael glowed as he traced the recent progress with his girlfriend. David’s law firm was managing a difficult transition. Diane began to cry as she explained how hard and expensive it was being a single parent of two teenagers. And Jean got a new job—something Steve’s dad needed desperately.A year ago this group of volunteer youth workers wouldn’t have dared share themselves so candidly. What had happened? How did this crowd of gifted and independent individuals turn into a team that worked with and for each other in ministry to kids? We’ve discovered through lots of trials and many errors that a team isn’t developed overnight. It takes determination, patience, and a heavy dose of grace.

How do you go about your recruiting in the first place? It pays in the long run to evaluate our recruiting style before we cave in to the pressure to get warm bodies running a program. If you enlist adult help only to tackle a few tasks you don’t have time to do, team building may seem like a low priority. But if you want to connect committed volunteers with students for the sake of spiritual growth, the strength of a team is indispensable. Although task-oriented ministries can survive without team relationships, people-oriented ministries will die apart from a team.Gophers or Ministers?

Raw volunteer recruits often assume their role includes only driving cars for scavenger hunts, preparing refreshments for the Valentine’s party, and opening their homes for overnighters. Sure, they’ll undoubtedly do these types of jobs—but if we want them on a team, if we want to influence kids, we should make this clear from the beginning. So ask yourself, "Am I recruiting to accomplish a task, or am I inviting a person to join a community of ministers?"The unhurried, personal, one-on-one approach has worked best for me when I recruit for relationships rather than for tasks. Usually neither pulpit pleas nor bulletin announcements are effective—few parishioners notice the request, and the occasional one who answers our call only occasionally fits the team. Then we’re faced with the uncomfortable job of telling a willing individual we don’t need him.

On the other hand, current counselors are my best recruiters. A current staff possesses a unique credibility when describing the ministry to a potential volunteer. "We need another young, married couple who love high schoolers," Melinda commented to me, "so Dave and I have already talked to Stu and Barb." After a follow-up phone call, Stu and Barb visited our group and a counselor meeting with the possibility of joining the team. Dave and Melinda had two motivations for recruiting a new couple—they knew our small groups needed more leaders, and they recognized a need for balance on the team.Balance is seasoning to a group. We laugh at the diversity God has brought together on our team: professionals and students; married, single, and divorced; under 20 and over 60; extroverts and introverts; some athletic, some musical, some both, some neither. We look for people who balance our team as much as we look for availability.

More Than Chauffeurs

You can recruit volunteers successfully but not keep them, however, unless you give them real, authentic responsibility. Cupcake baking and chauffeuring won’t keep workers around for long. Neither will you stick with youth ministry over the long haul unless you recognize your limitations and share the load.

I could tell Jean was questioning her ability as a volunteer youth worker. "Maybe I should drop out," she wondered after a few months on the team. "I’m not really doing anything worthwhile." The rest of us didn’t agree. We knew she had what it took to be effective with kids. "I love to talk with Jean," a high schooler had told me. "She says things that make sense to me, and she’s the only one who listens to my babbling."When I was tipped off by a parent that one of our new teenage girls was being crushed by a dangerous weight of depression after a move into our community, I passed the call on to Jean and asked her to meet with the girl. Not only has Jean established a redeeming relationship with this gal, but she’s been ignited for real ministry. I think Jean will be around for a while, doing what she’s good at.

To help volunteers discover what they’re good at and then helping them practice it should be a big part of a youth pastor’s job. Too frequently adults respond to their pastor’s plea for help only to loiter along the sidelines, watching the paid professionals do all the work. They wonder what to do and struggle with feelings of ineffectiveness and boredom. Most usually wander away confused and dropout. "A sign of the last days," mumbles the overworked pastor. "No commitment."My own group’s students are divided into what we call Life Groups. Each counselor is given responsibility for ministry to four to seven students. These specific kids are their primary concern. It doesn’t take long for one of our counselors to get caught up in the adventure of leading a student to spiritual growth. I get excited when a counselor reports, "I called all my kids this week, and listen to what’s happening with the…"

When they feel pastoral responsibility for their kids, motivation is no problem. Leaders know they’re on the growing edge of their group of students. "I talk with Chris a couple times a week," Bruce piped in during a counselors meeting about one kid who hadn’t been around in a while," and he’s having a tough time with his dad. We need to pray for him." I now find out about most of our kids from their counselors. Parents and students often think of the counselor first when they need help or advice. An atmosphere like this makes team building an exciting affair.Discovering their own niche in the group is what cements a volunteer to the team. What do they do best? What do they most enjoy? What motivates them to serve? Accustomed to making quick decisions in his business, one counselor was thrilled—and effective—when he directed our Canoe Blast, a major event. David enjoyed his role so much, I joked, "You should have continued your pursuit of the ministry in college."

"No way," he retorted. "Here I get to do what I really like, and I can leave all the other garbage to you pastors.""Ha, ha," I said.

Room To FailSince your volunteers will inevitably forget a crucial necessity in an activity, plan a flop, or otherwise blow it while they’re finding their niche or even operating in their specialty. Give them freedom to fail. "I could never live up to the pastor’s expectations," lamented one ex-volunteer who wasn’t given this freedom. "I finally just gave up."

Wrapping up his lesson on materialism and wanting to drive home his final point, Steve mixed up his words and told the kids in a grand conclusion, "The one thing I want you to remember more than anything else is this—put your material possessions before your relationship with God." Not only did he fail to realize his error, but he repeated it a couple times for emphasis. He died of embarrassment, of course, after the meeting when kids jokingly questioned him about his heresy and he finally caught on. Yet Steve rebounded and has become an excellent communicator—in spite of our ribbing.Don’t press for perfection, learn to laugh off their mistakes with them, and lead them in using their failures to evaluate themselves.

Guaranteed Success

If we need to let them fail, we also need to guarantee them regular success. The volunteer who continues to flounder, even with a lot of grace, won’t want to attempt another contribution. From the start we must provide every opportunity for our counselors to chalk up victories on their way toward confidence as team members. Although Steve had no experience as a public speaker before he joined our volunteer staff, after a year of speaking successes he developed the savvy of a seasoned pro.

Giving volunteers room to both fail and succeed carries several implications for youth pastors. First, we should try to custom-fit job descriptions to the peculiar gifts and needs of each team member. Such flexibility allows a diversity of styles that’s needed if each counselor is to work at their optimum. Next, we must be constant in offering timely, honest affirmation and evaluation for each worker. Everyone struggles with feelings of insecurity, so everyone needs a regular dose of encouragement. Finally, guaranteeing success for our teams means giving them what they need to be successful. Our job is to get appropriate materials and resources into their hands, and then help them get better at using them.One cautionary word—it’s risky giving away real responsibility, for a volunteer may do a better job than we do. They’ll probably do it differently. They’ll get more credit and recognition than we will. Our boards may wonder what they pay us for. But a well-trained, satisfied, productive staff that get along with each other will eventually though inevitably produce a healthy bunch of ministering kids who like each other and their world.

"Thanks for Letting Me Know"
A parent once parodied the prophet, "The people perish for lack of communication." Which is exactly the liability when we give away real responsibility and set our counselors loose with their own ministry. There’s even more urgent need for two-way feedback between ministry and parents, youth pastor and counselors, the church-at-large and our growing program. When I switched meeting times once too often without telling her, one of my valued counselors gave me that look and let me have what I deserved: "You know, there’s nothing more frustrating than assuming the responsibilities of leadership and then being sabotaged by not knowing what’s going on."

So we hold regular counselor meetings and provide plenty of time just to talk and find out what’s going on. Team members each get a notebook that includes all names, phone numbers, our philosophy of ministry, their job description, and a detailed schedule of events, meetings, and programs. If most of the direct work with kids is their responsibility, ours is to manage the communication process—initiate conversation, send correspondence, and keep short accounts with those involved in the ministry.

Don’t forget communicating with the general congregation. Build up the volunteer staff in their eyes. Brag on them some. Anyone who’s worked with teenagers knows there are few immediate returns for the investment, so we need to be aggressive in making our counselor teams heroes in our churches. Publicly recognize them with an appreciation dinner, a worker-dedication service, a staff portrait, an interview with one of them in a newsletter, a boost from the pastor in a sermon, or a counselor-kidnap by the students. Somehow, and frequently, recognize the valuable ministry provided by them.

Public recognition is not the only way to boost team morale. Your own private appreciation must continually flow. An abundant stream of thank-you notes and phone calls ought to follow the efforts of our people. "The last conversation I had with the youth pastor was when he recruited me," recalled one ex-Sunday school teacher. "I quit after one year. He never asked how it was going, never said thank you, and never asked why I quit." Delegation without communication leads to termination.

Shifting From Kids to Adults
What does team building do to youth pastor’s schedules? It demands a thorough reorganization of their time and attention. It means reshuffling the time spend with kids and the time spend with staff. So because building a staff into a team requires a substantial investment of time, it isn’t likely that this shift will come easily at first. Face it—probably the biggest reason you got involved in youth ministry was because you loved being and influencing kids. So you probably won’t step down from your current level of direct contact with them without some disquieting feelings. The sooner we recognize there’s a limit to how many kids we can influence by ourselves, however, the sooner we’ll start a team and thereby multiply our efforts. More time with our adult leaders and less time with kids is the cost of nurturing a strong team.

Once I took my own advice too well. Recognizing that it was wise to give myself fully to the adult leadership team, and focusing on equipping and encouraging them to do their ministry, I began pulling back more and more from direct involvement with students. Negative vibes from the kids soon surfaced, for they felt estranged from me—and, ironically, I felt ineffective with my adult volunteers. I was mistaken to think I could stay in touch with the heartbeat of my ministry—the kids themselves—without rubbing shoulders with them in everyday situations. No longer do I delegate away completely my front-line involvement with teenagers. By being with kids, we not only model what we want our staff to do, but we also keep in touch with what our team is experiencing and struggling with. Never ask your team to do what you aren’t willing to do—at least once in a while.

Without some deliberate fun, however, a team’s just not a team. Team building requires us to spend time together away from the kids. So every year we plan a retreat just for counselor fun, relaxation, and a mild planning session. This year we stayed at a counselor’s cabin on the lake, waterskied until we dropped, stayed up late playing games, and congratulated ourselves for being the best volunteer staff alive.
It’s a good sign to us that the kids are always jealous when we retreat to these hideaways. They’re learning, too, what being on a team can mean to a person. 

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