One of the bigger challenges of leading a smaller youth ministry is the significance of my attendance. The first time I was absent from our youth service I asked my senior pastor to speak:
•Six kids showed up
•The adult leaders couldn’t setup the sound system
•One of our student leaders went to the hospital
•Our service started 30-minutes late.
This upcoming summer I will be not be available for four of Central Student Ministries’ CSM FRIDAY NIGHTS (our weekly meeting). For two weeks I’ll gone for two weeks on a mission’s trip and will be taking another two weeks in recovery (vacation). So I face the dilemma that most youth pastors of smaller youth ministries face: what do I do?
The problems we smaller-youth-pastors face when we miss our youth service:
•We don’t have the luxury of another student pastor on staff who can fill-in naturally for the night.
•We know how to delegate, but there’s a lot of hands-on stuff that we still need to do.
•We are afraid of lawsuits because it will all go down the week we were gone.
So here are some options to take when the youth pastor be missing the youth service:
- Push the Birds Out of the Nest. I know they’re not ready for it, but tell your core students that they’ll be running the entire night. It may be a God-opportunity. It may be a disaster. But the bar is very, very low. Just don’t forget to have an adult around with a fire extinguisher.
- Have a Fun Night. Break out the Rock Band, basketball, and junk food so the kids can hang out and enjoy each other. It’s easy on your leaders with high-success rates. But it’s even more imperative that you don’t forget to have an adult around with a fire extinguisher.
- Cancel the Service. Ideal? Of course not. But if you seriously don’t think your students, student leaders, and adult leaders are ready to fly– take the hit. Canceling is better than a service-turned-bad with damage that can be done to your students, your facilities, and ultimately your judgment as a leader.
Great stuff -pushing birds out of the nest has worked a treat for us when I have been away from our youth. I be they will have a great boost in confidence and rave about how the nights went!
It’s so true! They’ll rise up to the challenge– but it doesn’t cure the anxiety of “what if”… lol