Let’s be honest. Ministry can be overwhelming – especially if you are ministering to children or teens and their families. It’s hard to get everything done each day that needs to be done. You may have never stopped long enough to think about the quality and effectiveness of your ministry.
The effectiveness of your ministry matters. It really matters to many kids and teens. Many don’t have anyone at home teaching them everything God wants them to know and understand before they become adults. They don’t have Christian adults willing to spend the time to give them guided practice and feedback on being the Christians God wants them to be. They are depending on your ministry to provide them with a strong spiritual foundation and to help them reach their godly potential.
Whether or not the expectations or the needs are fair, is a question for another post. Today I want to encourage you to become passionate about being as impactful as possible on the people to whom you minister. To be incredibly intentional about every choice you make in your ministry – whether it is your personal ministry as a volunteer or as a leader of a larger ministry.
Unfortunately, most ministries are average at best. It’s not that we aim for being only average. It’s actually a scientific type of issue. According to Joshua Foer in Moonwalking With Einstein, when people begin learning or doing something new, they are very focused. They make mistakes and then work to correct those mistakes. This focus causes them to learn, grow and improve.
At some point though, whether it’s playing the piano or ministering to young people, we reach a certain level of comfort with what we have learned. We stop paying attention. We go on autopilot. We go through the motions, but we aren’t analyzing what we are doing, attempting to learn and try new things, asking for feedback and working intentionally to improve.
We plateau. And we stay at that plateau for the rest of our lives unless we change something. That’s why many of us are only average piano players or drivers or cooks. We stopped being intentional and we plateaued. We won’t become an expert – we won’t have the best possible ministry until we become intentional again.
If you’ve plateaued, it’s time to be intentional about your ministry again. Analyze it. We have several free tools to help. Read one of our new e-books with best practices. Learn or try something new in your ministry. Ask for feedback. Focus on the weak spots and find ways to strengthen them. Move your ministry past the plateau to maximum effectiveness. It will take work, but the young people to whom you minister will benefit from the better than average ministry you provide.