A version of this article first appeared in the November 2002 issue of Youthwork magazine
How do we gauge the effectiveness of youth ministry? What can we truly class as successful or unsuccessful anyway? DAVE WRIGHT unpacks some tough questions.
Are any of these statements familiar to you?
'Our 14-18's group is really struggling and I haven't any idea what to do'
'I wonder sometimes if I am really making a difference.'
'Everything seemed to be going so well, and then they asked me to step down'
'The programme is going so well, yet I just sense somehow that we are missing the mark'
These statements are all really raising one question. What is the measure of success? I can't help but think that this is one of the toughest questions in the arena of youth work.
Over the years I have worked with volunteer leaders in the church who, because of their careers had different ways of measuring success. Is it about goals reached? Number converted? Objectives achieved? Or the number of kids who remain with the group? Over time I have worked with a variety of people with different perspectives. Some were regimented goal seekers wanting measurable targets set for all aspects of our work. Others were project managers complete with notepads waiting for action points to work on. Still others were highly relational people who really only cared about young people rather than details. Most of the youth workers I have met over 15 years are more people-oriented than task-oriented. Many struggle to find measures of success and some even give up on youth work for lack of apparent results.
The greater dilemma
Many people writing about youth work are eager to define success for us. They often do not know our situations, personalities, resources, etc but are working from a model of ministry and the experience of what has worked for them. We quickly adopt or reject their definitions without really considering how or when we are going to measure success in our own situations. The even greater dilemma is how we will be measured by others.
Hopefully you have figured out that whoever provides your stipend or supervises your work is already deciding if you are a success or not. Danny Brierley (in Youthwork Feb 2001) says 'Church leaders sometimes work to a different agenda to youth workers. For them, success might be equated with increased attendance by young people in Sunday services. That the youth ministry has little contact with 'unchurched' young people might appear of secondary importance.' If your supervisor or board does not use the same measures as you do, there may be a real difference in perceptions as to how things are progressing.
Steve Bullock, Diocesan Youth Officer in Gloucester says 'The immediate issue here is how an employed worker can demonstrate to his employer/those financing them, that they are successful. We look in terms of milestones.' What are those milestones? Can we find them in scripture? What happens when we determine our measures for success? Perhaps the first thing we need to do is gather the leadership teams that we work with and decide what success will look like. This should be grounded in scripture and based on our aims. We can then discuss this with whomever supervises our work. Once we come to agreement on the measures of success in our context, we can get on with the work in a far more productive manner.
Measuring success from scripture
A look at the Bible could produce a long list of measures that we want to strive for. However, many of them would perhaps fall into the following categories.
- Numbers are counted!
Before you throw down this article in disgust, look at Mark 6:30-34. The size of the crowd was considered significant enough that the gospel writers made note of the numbers that came to hear Jesus teach. The quantity of followers is but one aspect of the numbers measurement. In Acts 2 we read of the quantity of people who were coming to faith. This numerical emphasis suggests that it is normal, healthy, and even to God's glory that we make note of the numbers of youth involved in our work. While numbers in themselves are not the sole measure of success, they are a great indicator of the health of our ministries. For some, mere attendance is what is counted, while others count decisions. Either way, there is a clear Biblical precedent. Any honest youth worker will admit that when young people don't show up, it leads us to question what we are doing. Perhaps the best use of numbers as a means of measuring success is to keep records which show growth or decline. A healthy ministry is a growing ministry if we take the great commission seriously.
- Lost sheep matter! (Matthew 18:12-14)
If 99 sheep remaining in the pen is not satisfactory to Jesus, what does that suggest about the way we handle those who walk away from our youth ministries? It is too easy for us to say that whoever shows up is who God intended to come that night. Many youth workers simply respond to a drop out by saying 'shame about that' and some are rightly compelled to pray for those lost. Actually though, we need to make note of those who don't come and seek to bring them back into the fold.
Some years ago I was challenged by a fellow youth worker to start keeping track of who was coming to our groups and do something about those who stopped coming. In his massive group, they used a computer database to track the attendance based on discreetly taking note of who comes each week. When someone did not show up, they assigned a leader to make contact. Being less computer literate, and having a much smaller group, I began to quietly take attendance at meetings. When youth missed two consecutive meetings, I sent them a note to let them know we were thinking of them and to encourage them to return. Our attendance stabilised because young people knew that their presence mattered! Church growth experts refer to the subject of retaining membership as 'closing the back door'. Too often our ministries are wide open at the back end for anyone to leave without notice. If we care enough to reach out to young people, we ought to care enough to want them back regularly.
- Lives are changed!
If we consider Jesus' encounter with the woman at the well, or the teachings of Paul in Philippians 3:10 -16 and Colossians 1:28 then we must conclude that an important measure of success is that of lives changed. One of the things that makes Christian youth work different from its secular counterpart is that we are seeking to build the kingdom and make disciples. This is a very difficult area to measure because it does not show up on paper. When we see lives changed, we ought to rejoice and to share that with others.
How often do the leaders of your church or organisation hear stories of life change from your young people? Sometimes when we are not hearing about it, we need to ask the right questions in order to gain the information. When a parent comes to me and says 'since that time away my son is a different person now and we love the change', I know that we have seen success. Of course the credit goes to God, but we know that we are making a difference.
John Hawksworth, a youth pastor in Leeds, adds that 'If young people are choosing 'godly' relationships and seek to live according to God's word, being empowered to live out, serve, and think through the faith for themselves then this is arguably a measure of success.' We can measure life change by allowing our young people to share the changes taking place in their lives. Giving them a safe place to talk about this enables people to hear what God is doing. We need to then create ways for those stories to be heard by others who support or supervise our work.
- Others are impacted!
If we take seriously the great commission, then we will be sending out young missionaries to schools, neighbourhoods, and the workplace. Matthew 9:36-38 suggests that we ought to be sending out workers. Some of these will be serving people in practical ways (Matthew 25:35-36). Others will go on to lead and teach the things that you have taught them (2 Timothy 2:2).
Chris Slater, a youth minister in Knutsford, Cheshire says 'when we see young people leave our work, head into uni and stand, take up leadership roles and develop their own ministry, then, in line with the parable of the soils, there has been success as they produce a harvest.' A church down the road from Chris in Hartford (Cheshire) has had a good number of students doing a Gap year in some form of mission work. The church can not help being enthused about the youth work when they are praying for and financially supporting several students each year who are serving in places all over the globe.
Another measure seen in that church is unchurched young people coming to the group and coming to faith. This has been taking place directly as a result of the group members inviting friends rather than the youth worker bringing in new people. This type of success is obviously more visible and we do well to draw attention to it. Chris Slater also believes that 'success can be measured by how effectively you've built a team, equipped them, and released them into ministry of their own.' This is yet another way that lives can be impacted through a youth worker.
Often we don't fully see the success of our work until years later! It can come to us in cards and letters expressing appreciation and revealing the life change that took place during their youth. Last year I had a conversation with a few former members of a youth group I had previously led. We talked about people who had been involved in our youth group who are now in full time ministry. Several are youth workers and others are pastors, student workers, and missionaries. It was a stunning revelation to learn of the way God had blessed the efforts of our work. Healthy ministry has a way of perpetuating itself. When God works in people's lives, it gives us the encouragement to carry on. When lives are changed, those affected often go and serve others in similar ways.
False and real measures
If we are honest, there are several false measures that we naturally gravitate toward without giving it much thought. One is comparison. If we simply look at what others are doing and measure by comparison, we will lose. We can always find people that appear to be more successful than us! When a church sees tremendous growth in the size of their youth work people will define it as success and in many ways it is. But it may also be attributable to the church or local population growing rapidly. Some churches are located in declining or ageing communities and to expect rapid youth ministry growth would be ridiculous. As youth workers, it is so easy (and tempting) to get caught up in comparison games. Will we be successful only if we create something new and innovative? Will we need to become well known in the field and enjoy a measure of fame? Must we have the largest or most imaginative youth work in our region?
A second false measure is trends. If we read the pages of this magazine and others we could easily (and falsely) make decisions about our success. Are we are running cell groups? Starting youth congregations? Creating alternative worship services? What is trendy today may not last. The youth worker who bases his or her success on following the trends will always be adding new dimensions to their ministry without accomplishing the aims originally set forth. In many ways the trendy measure is a slight twist to the comparison game and ought not be played.
Progress and faithfulness
We ought to measure success on Progress. While clearly scripture gives us some indications of what may be Biblical means of measuring success, the bottom line is a question of whether or not we've moved forward. Are we seeing growth or decline? Are lives being changed? Are we reaching our goals? Are those goals realistic and challenging? Are we making a difference in the world around us? Ministry comes in seasons. Sometimes we face rapid progress and other times things slow down. It is in the slow times that we are able to regroup and evaluate which means those times are needed and are not to be dreaded.
Chris Slater articulates: 'At the end of the day we need to constantly be appraising our strategies and effectiveness. When push comes to shove, success is up to Him who is able to do immeasurably more!'
Which leads me to one other thought on how we measure success. It seems to me that equally with progress, success is measured by faithfulness. Some would argue that we are not called to be successful but to be faithful. Perhaps the reality is that faithfulness is success. God has given us a task in Christian youth work and if we persevere in that task, then we surely will be judged as good and faithful servants.
Finally, how do we communicate our success? In my first position as a youth worker, I really struggled to communicate to others the success we were seeing (though at first I did not notice any). Perhaps it was my attempt at humility, but I refused to broadcast to people the significant things that were going on. Ten months into the position, I faced a meeting with the senior pastor in which I was about to be sacked. After dodging that close call, I learned the importance of communicating the indicators of success that we were seeing. While the church leadership there would have been most satisfied with large number reports, I preferred to give them stories of life change. I remained nearly ten years there! We must communicate not only the numbers we are seeing, but also the stories of lives changed. We need to measure progress and report it regularly. As the work develops, those around us will see the impact of our ministries. If our measures are in line with those who supervise us, we should see a long life of ministry in that place.