It has been cool to watch next gen leaders step up over the last couple of weeks. So many of our youth pastors have been called on to help get their churches online. Suddenly the awe that was felt towards your tech savvy has gone so far beyond your ability to fix the internet by rebooting the office router. Now many next gen leaders are seen as full blown media producers and social media influencers. And we should celebrate that. Like seriously take a bow, without the work of many of you, the chances are your church might not have gotten online for weeks.
But now that we are online how do you find balance?
Between Sunday production…between youth… between your personal life… between rest?
1. Don’t Lose Your Kids
A great danger exists for our focus to move away from one very important thing at the cost of another equally important one. The concern that I have is that our priority could shift away from next gen ministry so far that we don’t give it our best, that either we push it aside, or we don’t have margin to give it the attention it deserves. As cool as it is that you get to produce media and have a larger role on Sunday, it cannot come at cost of your youth ministry. Youth have found community online for years via video games, social media, etc. If you neglect them in this time they likely will not come back. In the same way, if you neglect your leaders/volunteers, they also likely will not be engaged anymore when it comes time to return to in person youth ministry. It is not enough to say “okay leaders, I am busy so you just do a Zoom meeting when you can for your small group” or being content that a few kids are connecting over a Netflix watch party. The panic of the shutdown is over and it is time to be a pastor, to lead your team, to pastor your kids. If you lose your kids in this time because you lost focus of your ministry, that is failure not just for your youth ministry but your whole church.
2. Make Heroes
The challenge is that this new normal has relied on you to make stuff happen, maybe nobody else can do what you do at the moment, maybe you are stuck between a rock and a hard place when looking at priorities? This is where delegation and teaching is important as well as clear communication. If you are the only one in the church who can do something and you are not actively training a volunteer to eventually replace you, that is leadership failure. It may not happen overnight and it might be hard but you need to find somebody who you can teach and can help to bare the load of the production of Sunday morning. You are not the hero in this situation, you need to create heroes around you.
3. Find Margin
One more concern I see is burnout. Generally, when my generation of millennials talk about burnout I laugh, I often think it’s a word boomers used to teach us to not make the same mistakes they did in margin management, but in some ways I believe it scared us into becoming a little bit lazy as a generation. I have rarely been concerned about true burnout in my generation.
Until now…
Seriously, there is a lot of work going around, and to manage production, on camera and behind the camera, plus next gen ministry, plus a family, plus trying to find sleep. We need to make sure we are taking a day off. This has been a struggle for me in the chaos of Covid-19 but stress and lack of sleep can lead to many other health issues and certainly won’t help you lead well. Make sure you take a day to rest each week. Take short breaks every day. By no means am I saying stop, we run full speed ahead at our challenges and never stop. But even the most incredible athlete on earth takes a day off every week to rest. You need to as well.
4. Honest and timely feedback
It will be important to have a honest conversation with your lead pastor. You need to let him or her know how you are feeling, what is getting done and what isn’t. Nobody is going to blame you for needing to take a day off, but clear communication is the key. A huge element in leading well from a secondary position is having timely and honest feedback with your lead. Make sure that in the rush of the current chaos that you don’t run totally parallel form your leadership.
Our next gen leaders are doing so well. I am proud to be the Next Gen Coach for our district and to get the privilege of being a part of the amazing work God is doing our Alberta and The Northwest Territories. If you are a next gen leader and need resources or advice or just need to chat. please email me at jeff@abnwt.com and I would love to set up a coaching call.
Jeff Kiers serves as the Next Gen Coach for the District Resource Centre. Jeff is passionate about finding creative ways to communicate the gospel to traditionally unchurched demographics.