Bridges Evaluating Youth Ministry

The Importance of Evaluation

It’s a Comamnd

Psalm 4:4 NIV84

4 In your anger do not sin; when you are on your beds, search your hearts and be silent. Selah

Lam 4:

Lamentations 3:40 NLT

40 Instead, let us test and examine our ways. Let us turn back to the Lord.

1 Corinthians 11:28 NLT

28 That is why you should examine yourself before eating the bread and drinking the cup.

1 CO

2 Corinthians 13:5 NLT

5 Examine yourselves to see if your faith is genuine. Test yourselves. Surely you know that Jesus Christ is among you; if not, you have failed the test of genuine faith.

2 CO

We can’t separate our hearts from our ministry so we need to evaluate our ministry along with our hearts.

A big part of evaluation will be the HS illuminating where we need to be moving. However there needs to also be some structure to evaluating your ministry.

Four Evaluation Questions

1. Have we identified the primary Biblical purpose for this program?

All ministry must flow out of a biblical foundation. It not, stop.

Matthew 22:37–39 NLT

37 Jesus replied, “ ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’

Matthew 28:19–20 NLT

19 Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. 20 Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

Matthew

The Five purposes of the church should drive all of our activities n ministry.

Five Biblical purposes for the Church come out of these. These are the purposes for any ministry.

Biblical Command Familiar Term Definition

Love the Lord Worship Celebrating God’s presence in our lives

Love your neighbor Ministry meeting needs through serving

go and make disciples Evangelism sharing the Gospel with lost people

Baptizing them Fellowship Christians connecting through relationships

Teaching them to Obey Discipleship teaching Christians How to live for the Lord

Everything you do for students should fall into one of these categories.

2. Are we reaching our target audience with this program?

After determining that your program has a biblical basis, decide whether you’re targeting the right group with this program.

Think about your personal life.

Neighbor, boss, casual friend, best friend, restaurant server, stranger, co-worker who isn’t a Christian, a telemarketer, and your spiritual mentor. You would not show the stranger your pics of your children. You would not be surprised that your best friend went into the kitchen and grabbed something out of the Fridge.

Imagine that you are going to share the Gospel with each of these. You would do it differently with each group. with your Best Friend, you would really need to live forgiveness before you talk about it. With the non-Christian co-worker, you would use non church and simple language to share.

It’s the same in your youth ministry. No one thing reaches everyone. That’s why Maximum Impact seeks to reach people who are different. That’s why you need a team… you can’t possibly reach them all.

Here are some possible targets:

Non-Christians, Christians, Non-churched, Churched, Christian Leaders, Forced to attend, Attends for social interactions, Confesses Jesus, Student Leader, Community, Crowd, Congregation, Committed - Core

“When you aim for a specific target, you can deemphasize other targets during that one specific program. If your Sunday school program targets committed Christian students, you understand when non-Christians attend and don’t comprehend everything. students, you understand when non-Christians attend Likewise, if your Sunday school targets non-Christians, you’ll understand when committed Christians don't feel challenged”

“Spiritual growth, without exception, involves some level of frustration. When a program targets a specific spiritual commitment, those less spiritually mature are critical and say,“We don’t need that.”The significantly more mature are frustrated and say, “Why aren’t we going deeper?” Comments won’t sting when you have taken time to specify the target for your programs. You can respond to criticism with confidence, rather than defensiveness”

When you learn how to target groups, you will be much happier

Excerpt From: Doug Fields. “Your First Two Years in Youth Ministry.” Apple Books. https://books.apple.com/us/book/your-first-two-years-in-youth-ministry/id398992695

Excerpt From: Doug Fields. “Your First Two Years in Youth Ministry.” Apple Books. https://books.apple.com/us/book/your-first-two-years-in-youth-ministry/id398992695

3. Have we met our specific intended outcomes for this program?

What are your intended results?

Small groups? fellowship, discipleship? If one of your students brings a non-Christian friend to a small group that is made of up of Christian kids, he may not feel comfortable… kid might say something to you and you can point him to your “seeker friendly service.”

Evangelism program - salvations (hands raised or making disciples) or teens trained to go out and share

4. Are your leaders fulfilling their responsibilities for this program?

You have to give them meaningful things to do.

Chaperones don’t last - shepherds do...

Leaders should embody the following roles:

Lover of God -

Pastor/Shepherd -

Leader - Maintain focus on intended outcomes… living life t

Leader -

Servant -

Communicator

Are they making the meetings and planning their ministries? Staying in touch with students?

Four Steps to Answer Your Evaluation Questions

1. Discern the Real -

Strive for objectivity

Observe without responsibility

Talk to Others

Write Down Your Conclusions

Review with a Trusted Source

“Strive for objectivity. It may be difficult to be objective depending on how much blood, sweat, and tears you’ve invested into a particular program. We often see only what we want to see.

Observe without responsibility. If you play a major role in the program (say, teaching the lesson), then find someone else to take over your responsibilities for a week or two so you attend to observe. Other responsibilities can hinder objectivity.

▪ Observe without responsibility. If you play a major role in the program (say, teaching the lesson), then find someone else to take over your responsibilities for a week or two so you attend to observe. Other responsibilities can hinder objectivity.

it’s difficult to stand back and only observe. Don’t be fooled into thinking,“ you can teach during this program and evaluate everything else.” It doesn’t work. When you teach, you are busy reading your audience, thinking about your message, wondering who the student is that’s flirting and so forth. Your best evaluations happen when you show up with no responsibilities.

Talk to others. Get feedback from others regarding particular elements in your program. You don’t need to walk these people through four evaluation questions. Simply ask a few directed questions: “As a leader of this program, what do you feel your responsibility is?” or “What do you think about the music on Wednesday nights?” Seek feedback from a variety of participants[…]”

▪ Talk to others. Get feedback from others regarding particular elements in your program. You don’t need to walk these people through four evaluation questions. Simply ask a few directed questions: “As a leader of this program, what do you feel your responsibility is?” or “What do you think about the music on Wednesday nights?” Seek feedback from a variety of participants[…]”

“Write down your conclusions. You won’t remember who said what. If you’re young, you may think memory is an age thing, but what you may not realize is…well…uh…it’s on the tip of my tongue…never mind. Write it down.

Review with a trusted source. Wisdom is found in the counsel of others. Find a safe individual who will listen to your findings” and give honest feedback.

▪ Review with a trusted source. Wisdom is found in the counsel of others. Find a safe individual who will listen to your findings”

2. Define the Ideal

Once you determine what you have, look at what it ought to be… what you want it to be. Dream.

Excerpt From: Doug Fields. “Your First Two Years in Youth Ministry.” Apple Books. https://books.apple.com/us/book/your-first-two-years-in-youth-ministry/id398992695

The four questions will look like this

What should the primary Biblical purpose be?

Who should I target with this program?

What exactly should be happening?

What should my leaders do at this program?

Be in prayer

Seek the Lord and ask him to reveal you the truth. Prayer should be part of every step.

Learn from others

“One of the most important characteristics of healthy leadership is learning. If you hope to guide your ministry toward change, expose yourself to the ideas, creativity, and wisdom of others. Being an isolated visionary is overrated. Vision often comes as a result of shared thoughts”

3. Determine the growth areas.

Excerpt From: Doug Fields. “Your First Two Years in Youth Ministry.” Apple Books. https://books.apple.com/us/book/your-first-two-years-in-youth-ministry/id398992695

Compare the 2 pictures - the real and the ideal. Look at the differences and determine what it will take to get to where you want to be.

4. Make Adjustments

Make the necessary changes to reach your ideal. Begin with the most important and most likely to be accomplished actions.

If it’s not broke, don’t fix it.

Some will say, if it’s not broke… don’t fix it. The first few days on the Titanic were great… the latter part of the cruise needed help.

Always be willing to make necessary changes before you have to. Everything eventually changes.

Maybe it’s broke, and we just don’t know it yet

CS Lewis - Security is mortals greatest enemy.

We often are lured from evaluation by some common myths.

Myth 1 - God’s Blessing means God’s sanction

If the ministry is growing in numbers, God is blessing it. Not true. Just because something is growing doesn’t mean God is blessing it. Youth ministry fruit good or bad doesn’t show up for a while.

You will most likely struggle in your ministry because it’s God’s will. God’s blessing has more to about his abounding grace than wether we have chosen the right or wrong programs or directions.

Myth 2 - We’ve been doing this for a while and we pretty know what we are doing

Remember the Titanic.

We always can improve what we do and how we do it.

Always ask, What if?

Myth 3 - The experts know best.

“But remember, just because a method has been published in a youth ministry book somewhere doesn't mean it's the best one; it just means it's the best one known to that author. The experts are only experts because they've made almost every mistake at least once!”

Myth 4 - But it works...

Excerpt From: Doug Fields. “Your First Two Years in Youth Ministry.” Apple Books. https://books.apple.com/us/book/your-first-two-years-in-youth-ministry/id398992695

Excerpt From: Doug Fields. “Your First Two Years in Youth Ministry.” Apple Books. https://books.apple.com/us/book/your-first-two-years-in-youth-ministry/id398992695

“Just because a programming idea “works”—whether it’s a coffee house or small group program or innovative media or unique evangelistic approach—doesn’t alone make it valid.”

Camp illustration … crying to thank you lord

Excerpt From: Doug Fields. “Your First Two Years in Youth Ministry.” Apple Books. https://books.apple.com/us/book/your-first-two-years-in-youth-ministry/id398992695

Always be willing to look inside your ministry and see what needs to change. Don’t operate until you evaluate.

Keep the Big Picture in mind

“As you determine specific areas that require change, don’t lose focus of other areas of your ministry. Youth ministry is the sum of many elements. Don’t allow one program to consume all of your time and energy”

Excerpt From: Doug Fields. “Your First Two Years in Youth Ministry.” Apple Books. https://books.apple.com/us/book/your-first-two-years-in-youth-ministry/id398992695

Master the Good Enough Principle

“If you put too much time into a project, you may end up with a creation far above what you need. Not everything needs to be perfect.”

Evaluation should be ongoing, especially for the major areas in your ministry.

When and What to Evaluate

Excerpt From: Doug Fields. “Your First Two Years in Youth Ministry.” Apple Books. https://books.apple.com/us/book/your-first-two-years-in-youth-ministry/id398992695

Evaluate these weekly:

Your Spiritual Health

How you spend your time.

Evaluate Personal relationships in the ministry monthly

Evaluate your leadership Care Structure Quarterly

Personal relationships in the ministry.

It’s important to take care of your leaders.

Debrief Special Events

Evaluate Primary programs in the youth ministry

don’t let more than 3 months go by without evaluating these.

Yearly evaluate:

Programs

leadership Effectiveness

Spiritual Health of all students

Training materials, job descriptions, etc