Longevity in YM (Part 2)...

As previously stated, here is the conclusion of the list I began last week.

7. Serve Outside the Youth Ministry
You get paid to do this, so do something else that’s not youth related. If you want to last you also need to be serving. Be a volunteer in the nursery, play on a worship team, set up chairs or run sound. Just don’t call it “work”.

8. Have An Outlet
If you don’t’ have some sort of outlet outside the ministry, it will eat you alive. It doesn’t matter if it’s youth or seniors, you can’t focus on it all the time. Play soccer or golf or any other sport, build a car, take up crochet. You need to do something outside of the church if you want to last. Oh, and talking to students online doesn’t count!

9. Be Willing to Make Some Sacrifices
If you aren’t flexible to some degree, you’ll have trouble lasting. This doesn’t mean you don’t have boundaries, because you, your family and your students need those. But it does mean that you will have to attend the occasional school play on a night off. It does mean that you may have to say sacrifice a great concert at the church to be with your family. It does mean your weekly schedule will never look the same the next week. To last, you will have to make some sacrifices.

10. Communicate
Learn to communicate, communicate and then communicate some more. And then when you tell everyone what’s going on, tell them two more times. If you want to last you need to learn how to tell people what is going on. And you need to be aware that most people don’t read the bulletin, check emails, visit the website or listen to their voice mail, so you may need to be creative.

11. Learn To Say “No”
If you can’t say “no”, you will be eaten alive by anything and everything that moves within the walls of your church. You may have to say “no” to some good stuff too. It may be saying “no” to a certain speaker that wants to talk to the youth because the topic won’t fit or the speaker won’t fit. It may mean saying “no” to a student’s phone call so you can spend time with your family. If you want to last you need to learn how to say “no”. And you’ll need to learn how to say it with conviction!