Veteran Moves to Plan a Great YM Year

Summer is here! And summer is a great time to plan for your following youth ministry year. Here are some practical ways to plan for a great year: 

1. Plan your following youth calendar (Sept-June) in the summer.

*WHY? Because you have the strategic time to do so. 

2. Program each month.

*make sure you sync your YM calendar with local events (national, local, grad events, church) so that you’re not competing with other events, programs, or church. Believe me, I have seen this happen lol…

3. Build your events with an event template.

*try not to do more than one night/week for youth events. Students are busy enough with sports, extra cirricular events, and family activities. It’s important to be sensitive to families. You’ll win some killer points when you are sensitive to families.

Feel free to give me a shout if you are interested in YM event templates.

4. Plan to build leaders for your events. 

Build teams! Get people involved. Give ministry away.

*Practically speaking, I found the BEST time to train leaders were BEFORE Sunday services. Why? Because people actually showed up, it helped those people get involved in Sundays, and it was intentional to build relationship with everyone BEYOND youth ministry.

5. Pray! 

Yes, pray. You’ll be amazed what He will show you.  

*Planning without prayer leads to nothing important anyways.  

6.  Build disciples.

This seems pretty simple. Right? But, in reality, it is HARD to build disciples. PLEASE, make sure your youth programming doesn’t become a social club or a religious safe house. Build a program that allows students to hear from God, respond to HIS voice, opportunities to walk out faith in every day life, and challenge them. Recognize the difference.

*use a discipleship assessment strategy. Connect here for more details.  

7. Have fun!  

Fun connects. Fun build memories. Fun is a “full life” in Christ. Enjoy the journey! 

Plan well this summer.

Cheers. 

*Veteran YP moves.