Strategy #1 : Start

A while ago, I said I was going to think about strategy but then I never did anything about it. Can anyone spell “avoidance”?

So what is strategy?

Dictionary.com defines strategy as “a plan, method, or series of maneuvers or stratagems for obtaining a specific goal or result”. (Okay, this is definition 4 on the list, but the one that seems to make most sense in this situation)

I once heard a great youth worker describe his job as one brick atop another to build a wall of faith in the lives of the young people he ministers to over the weeks, months and years. I love the idea that every time I hold a children's or youth activity, I’m building on what has gone before. Each club, group and service can have a long term impact because a new truth is being taught and laid in its place when we meet.

But strategy is not the individual week by week stuff. It’s the blueprint. Knowing from the first interaction with a child or young person where you want to take them, and then building towards that on every interaction. 

I'm tempted to be lazy and leave it to chance, assuming that because I’m teaching Gospel truths from the Bible, that I’m doing my job. But if I fail to give the framework for understanding these truths, instead choosing to scattershot them however valid and true they may be,  then I’m setting these young people up for lives of knowing segments of truth without the big picture.

Strategy is how to get there, and it intimidates me, because I have no idea where to start. 

But that’s an excuse. True, I don’t know where to start, but that’s probably because I’m not asking God for help, or willing to really wrestle with these big questions because the easy thing is to keep running week by week: show up, play some games, read the Bible and send them home with a catchy song or a memory verse that will last till bedtime in their heads. But if we want lives changed, life long followers realigned to the truth of the Gospel, then we need to know where we’re heading and be willing to put in the slog to help these young people put the pieces together.

--

“I had a tendency to get so focused on what was in front of me that I didn’t see two things:

- Where it is ultimately supposed to lead

- How everything should be connected

I’d simply work on one project until I was finished with it, then I’d look around for what was next...At some point, you get disillusioned and burned out. 

How does all this fit together for you and your ministry context?”

Reggie Joiner, Think Orange