Youth Ministry – Rebuilding After COVID, Part 3

By Shane Thacker August 31, 2021

If you’ve taken Part 1 & Part 2 to heart, you’re deeply loving the Lord and His Church. Remember: You can’t lead those you don’t love.

What’s next? You’ve looked outward so far (to the Lord and to the church), now it’s time to look inward. 

Who are you? A simple question, but really… who are YOU? What are the skills that you bring into the church? Can you get a clear picture of the good and the bad? 

For me, I’m very structured, and I love to preach. I love Mondays (I can hardly sleep Sunday nights because I’m excited to go to work. Weird, I know!). One thing I struggled with was volunteer recruitment. Over the course of 3½ years, guess how many I recruited? ZERO. Volunteers were either already in place or recruited by other volunteers. One day I asked a friend of mine, “Why can’t I recruit anybody?” He said with a smile, “Well, you’re good at setting up programs and being consistent, you’re good at training newcomers and making it easy for volunteers to come in and serve. I really prayed about it, and I do believe that it must be your face!”

Thanks, Sean. What a pal! As funny as that was (well… at my expense), it’s important to remember that there’s things God has gifted you with, but also things God has NOT gifted you with. After realizing recruitment was not a gift of mine, I learned to find someone that is gifted at recruitment. I have a lady in my church that is extremely gifted with it. We could both ask 10 people to volunteer, I’d get 10 “no” answers, and she could get 10 “yes” answers from the same 10 people.

Now let’s turn to you! To get a clear picture of who you are, follow these steps:

1. Meet with the “Paul” in your life

Hopefully you have that wise leader in your life that we talked about from Part 1, go ahead and meet up with them. Come to the meeting with the right heart and be prepared for loving criticism. Ask them: “Who do you say I am?” If they know you really well, they’re going to share with you the skills they see in you, as well as the things you are not skilled at. 

2. Follow the “Power” formula

Pain + Passion + Perception = Power

If you can follow this formula, it’ll change how you view your role in the church:

Pain: God’s heart breaks for the brokenness of this world, and He made us in His image. Out of all the brokenness, what breaks your heart the most? Whatever that is, that’s your pain. 

Passion: From your meeting with the wise leader, I’m sure you will have some takeaways about what your greatest passions are. It may be using a certain gift God has given you. That’s your passion.

Perception: Take a step back and look at the ‘big picture’, a drones-eye view, of how your pain and your passion intersect. For me, my greatest pain is the youth that are in broken and lost situations. I have a passion for preaching and being organizational. How does all that intersect? For me, I develop content that leads people to Jesus. That’s my “Power”. What’s your “Power”? When you can answer this definitively, you’ll find a major shift in how you view your role in the church

Next blog: Assess the Church.