Bringing Change Without Getting Burned!

Recently I received a phone call from a young, straight-out-of-college, newly married youth pastor. His words told a story I’ve heard many times before. “I didn’t realize how tough youth ministry was! I love teaching students and I love to invest in their lives, but all this planning and dealing with parents is difficult. I keep getting burned.”

As I sat and listened to him, it became apparent what his key issues were. In his first 6 months of ministry, he had tried to change many key components of the ministry without good planning, preparation, or participation from parents, students, and leaders.

Whether we're relatively new or greatly experienced in ministry, it’s easy to get burned when we miss key steps of bringing about change in significant areas of our ministry. Change does vary from church to church, but people will often struggle when we don't prepare them properly for programmatic or philosophical changes in our ministries. The painful outcome is that we lose trust and ultimately get burned. Here are 6 steps I follow when bring change to my ministry:

1) Pray: Obvious, but not always practiced. If you've been in the trenches for a while, it’s easy to rely on what worked in the past instead of taking the time to pray about a new context. Nehemiah gives us a great picture of someone who diligently prayed before enacting a plan for change.
2) Build Trust: Plain and simple, if we haven't taken time to allow people to get to know us, it’s unlikely they will receive change well. In my current church I made a commitment to hold off making any significant changes for the first year. This created a great deal of trust as I listened to people and cared well for them. The investment is paying of in some great ways now…
3) Paint a Picture: While building trust, make sure we cast vision for where the youth ministry is heading and why. By doing this, over time, people will begin to see through a new lens. It might be that they start suggesting the changes you long for.
4) Survey: Whether it’s through a free Web site survey or handing out paper copies, I've found surveys to be extremely valuable. It gives people a voice and includes them in a process. Even if I do not go with their idea, they still feel they were part of the process and were heard. Most of all, we must be open to hearing themes from the people we are serving and we need to understand how they see the ministry.
5) Present the Possibility: As best we can, try to present the idea of change ahead of time. I do this through one-on-one conversations in my messages and through a monthly parent newsletter. This at least plants a seed and prepares people for the next step.
6) Present the Plan: Parents, leaders, and students, will be more likely to follow a change when there is a good plan tied to it. We cannot short-change this step. Poor communication of plans can be perceived as the “wrong idea”.

It might seem like a lot of work (and steps) to take when bringing about significant changes, however the result of not doing so can be very painful… for everyone.