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Are You Asking the Right Questions?

We were standing atop homemade scaffolding pieced together with old boards and a few nails. Our objective was simple: Reroof a cabin at our denominational camp as part of a mission trip. I was so proud of our students. Those who’d never held a hammer were working alongside students who were adept at roofing—and all were working hard.

Imagine six sweaty, dirty, slightly grumpy students standing on the rickety scaffolding attempting the first layer of the roof—the ever-popular, always awkward roofing paper! The students were managing a huge roll of it, too. As they struggled with the first layer, one student lost her balance. Seeing her dilemma, everyone moved to the center of the scaffolding to help. Then—in the middle of that poorly built scaffolding—my worst fears materialized.

It collapsed.

Those six hard-working, neophyte roofers fell seven feet and landed in a pile. These six kids—whose lives I was responsible for—lay there squirming, crying, and wounded.

It took the rest of the day to pick up the pieces. Trips to the hospital. Buckets of tears. Apologetic phone calls to parents.

Rebuilding the scaffolding was easy; healing the bumps and bruises wasn’t.

My ministry career has been peppered with blunders just like my roofing experience. I’ve got a briefcase full of events gone bad. Bible studies turned sour and games that went wrong.

We’ve all been there: Whatever we’ve planned doesn’t work. Whatever program we worked so hard to prepare for and pull off flops. Things we trusted never should have been trusted. Using termite-devoured wood. Too few nails. Never stopping to evaluate what we’re doing—or even why we’re doing it. We get sloppy. We fail.

I’m so tired of being sloppy. Maybe you’re like me. Fed up with standing on something that doesn’t work—scared to take another step on the ancient youth ministry scaffolding for fear that it’ll collapse.

That’s why I’ve recently taken to evaluating what I do with my students. I’ve begun to ask myself new, very pointed questions about the youth ministry God’s placed before me.

I’m learning that I have to ask these questions to know if I’m even close to being an effective youth worker.

1. Am I programming or incubating?
Not too long ago I was eating lunch with my senior pastor. I found myself confessing my inadequacies. I apologetically explained why we weren’t doing the latest, hottest stuff. I continually asked forgiveness for these things that my head said the youth group should be doing—but that my heart wouldn’t let me do.

I remember his words distinctly. "You know Tim, it’s okay to not have any programs and just care for the kids that we’ve got. Sometimes incubating our kids is better than inviting new ones."

Those words ran into me like a Harley at 100 miles an hour. He wiped away my apologies and freed me to love the students God had already brought my way.

My pastor’s words weren’t anything new. But his words rocked my ministry world because they were spoken personally. They were spoken to me.

What if we spent more time with the kids we have instead of pouring our already weary bodies into trying new programs to reach just one more?

Consider the benefits of stopping our professional, adult-led outreaches and instead investing time incubating students in leadership areas—then allowing incubated students to reach their friends? What might happen? Failure? Maybe. People questioning our motives? Surely. But also more prayer for these students as opposed to the pizza outreach bonanza. More effort into changing lives personally rather than affecting a few impersonally. More investing, less spending.

So with my eye on incubating students, I’m asking these questions:

• Who am I incubating for ministry?
• How many students are in our "ministry incubators"?
• What ministries need to end in order to make room for incubation?

2. Am I managing or encouraging?
I’ve learned that I don’t need to be the leader of the youth ministry. I don’t even need to be present for some events. Actually my absence might just be what the ministry needs now and then!

Business Week magazine noted in its recent "21 Ideas for the Twenty-First Century" article that major corporations are moving away from strong-handed leaders to those who lead teams of people. These new leaders focus on equipping teams rather than doing all the work. And they’re moving toward leaderless hives of people working together.

This team-based ministry is a new thing for me. These days I’m asking myself about the health of my ministry team and the health of the youth ministry itself. Because once you create a healthy team that students come to see and depend on, the health of both are interrelated: You can’t have a healthy youth ministry without a healthy team—and vice versa.

So I’m asking myself these questions:

• How can I get everyone in my church involved in making the youth ministry happen?
• How can I become an "invisible member" of the youth ministry team?
• How can I encourage other team members?

3. Am I too focused on the size of the youth group?
I was the youth pastor in a very wealthy church with a large Sunday morning attendance (1,000 bodies present). Through a series of well-timed events, our youth ministry outreaches grew to 400 students.

When I left that church, I sought another large church. But that apparently wasn’t what God had in mind. He called me to a small church.

How small?

Six kids.

A half-dozen kids in a 40-member church.

It took some time for me to get over the ego problems that came with moving from a large church to a small church. I was still buying the lie that bigger is better. I even spent the first year at my new church a little sulky—wishing that we’d just grow.

But ask me where I’m happiest, and that’s easy to answer. Don’t get me wrong—I loved a large youth ministry. The money was great. The affirmation was incredible. But I really love our small youth group. I can touch the lives of six kids every week—something never possible in my previous administration-riddled position.

These days I marvel at how God works in our small group. I’ve got time to listen—really listen—to my students and their struggles. I’ve got time to care for them personally rather than visit them and put a check next to their name. I’ve got time.

So I’m asking myself these questions:

• How can I make our students comfortable with our small youth ministry?
• How can I involve myself in the lives of my students?
• Who isn’t being personally contacted on a weekly basis?

4. Am I talking the faith or living the faith?
Students are tired of being told what to believe. They want the tools to learn, and they want the venues to try out what they believe. They’ve long been affected by our well-planned ministry talks. They make life-changing decisions based on our events. But have you (like I) been disappointed that those decisions don’t stick? Do Bible studies only work for the first 30 minutes after the study ends?

I’m sick of events and Bible studies that don’t work. If they don’t change the lives of the kids in our groups, they’re no good.

So what does work?

Infectious living. Okay...I know it’s nothing new. It’s as old as the hills. But it works. Put simply: If we live for Jesus, our kids will too. But at the same time, I don’t want them hung up on my particular expression of faith in Christ. So I’m also trying to help my students learn how to talk about what they believe without telling them what I believe.

I want them discussing their faith—not relying on my spoon-fed spiritual buffet. I want to push my students into areas where they don’t have all the answers. To struggle with really tough questions and not settle for puny, Christianese answers to everything.

I want them to discover truth—but in a safe environment.

So—hoping that my students will dialogue about their faith and see how I’m trying to live my life for Jesus—I’m asking these questions:

• How can I encourage a healthy dialogue about Christ?
• How am I living out my faith in front of my students?

5. Am I speeding up or slowing down?
I admit it—slowing down is almost impossible for me. I’m driven. I love to create and think. I’m afraid of down time. In fact, I took my laptop on my recent vacation just a few days ago. I checked my phone messages every day. I’m sick!

Sure, technology is part of the problem. We can leave the office and never really leave it. We can be there virtually. Digital everything makes it possible for us to connect with ease. Need to check in? E-mail from your laptop. Call from your cell phone. Check your pager. Flip on your palm pilot and read your messages.

Youth ministry, too, is full of wonderful-looking drugs to help us live faster. Caffeine—do you joke about "needing" it? Days off—have you said "no" to attacks on your personal time lately? These drugs blind us to the effects of blurring life and ministry while drawing us deeper into endless work.

But we know the truth is that we really won’t be successful until we learn to maintain a hefty barrier between ministry life and personal life.

Practicing a slower life is essential, and the need to practice it doesn’t fade with our inabilities to do so! It becomes all the more necessary. I’m questioning this in my life. I’m asking daily how I can slow down and get more unconnected.

So I’m asking myself these questions:

• How can I slow my life down?
• What areas in my life do I need to "disconnect" in order to live healthier?

6. Am I playing with toys or worshiping God?
When you’re a father, sometimes your kids teach you the wildest things. My oldest daughter taught me about worship the other day.

She attends a small Christian school. Recently one of the younger children asked (out of the blue) to lead the class in a song. The teacher said it was okay, and the song was sung. Then another student asked to lead a song; the teacher again said yes. A third student then asked to a lead a song.

Before you knew it, this unstructured, squirrely kindergarten class (with its unskilled song leading) became a place where worship erupted. They stood without prompting. Eyes were closed. Hands were raised. Those little ones were, in the teacher’s words, "really praising God."

Then I think about the state of some youth worship out there. These days much of it seems to be, "Hey, look! I’m all about projectors! I love technology! And I really enjoy praising to the latest, greatest worship song!"

I long for my students to enjoy God’s presence the same way my daughter did that day in class—but sometimes I wonder if all the technology we’re using is actually hindering our students from recognizing God’s presence. Do we really need all of these tools? Really? Do we need Powerpoint, projectors, jumbo screens, and professional worship bands?

So—hoping to help my students learn what it means to be in God’s presence rather than in the presence of my really cool toys—I’m asking myself these questions:

• How am I encouraging personal celebration in my students?
• Where does our worship focus their attention?

7. Am I devoted to my church or to Jesus?
It’s so easy to care about my status at the church: Who likes me? Am I pleasing those in the denomination? You know the drill. What’s more, I’ve tied those cares to my self-esteem—I’ve made them my personal-worth indicators. Does everyone in the church like me? They do? Great! Then I must be worth something. Am I in with the denominational execs? I am? Wonderful! Then I must be a good youth pastor.

But we’re called to regard Jesus first. Seeking him should motivate us beyond caring what the church thinks of us.

Here’s a dangerous thought: You can’t have a fantastic relationship with the church and have a healthy relationship with Jesus. The two are diametrically opposed.

When I read Jesus’ words in the New Testament, I read the words of someone who’s calling youth pastors away from the established church and toward a reckless dependency on him. And that reckless dependency spills upon the ministry to which he’s called me. It infects the students who show up. It infects the adults who work alongside us.

So I’m asking myself these questions about my relationship with Jesus and the church:

• How healthy and vibrant is my relationship with Jesus?
• Is my relationship with Jesus stronger than my relationship with my church?
• If my relationship with Jesus isn’t strong right now, what must I do to restore it?

Constantly asking why we’re doing what we’re doing isn’t easy, but it’s the best thing I’ve done for my ministry life in a long, long time. May God bless you as you leave the safe path and step upon the exciting-but-creaky scaffolding of self-evaluation. I’ll see you there!

Tim Baker has authored or contributed to more than 100 youth ministry books and magazines. His books include Teachings of Jesus (Gospel Light) and Creative Bible Lessons in Psalms (Youth Specialties/Zondervan). He's an 11-year youth ministry vet and is the student ministries pastor at Hope Fellowship in Longview, Texas.