The Night Nobody Showed Up

A month ago I was the only person at youth group.  As far as youth pastor’s go, that ranks pretty high on the list of things we hope never happen to us. I’ve been at this for almost 8 years, and like any youth pastor I’ve had my share of events where the turnout is not what I expected. A handful of kids when you ordered pizza for 40… that kind of thing. But up until that day I had never had a complete no-show.

If you had asked me the day before how I’d respond to an empty room I probably would have picked from one of 3 responses.

1. Make Excuses - ”I’m sure there was just more family conflicts and school projects than usual.”

2. Get Mad - ”Don’t they know how hard I work to be here for them!?”

3. Have a Pity Party – “I must not be any good as a youth pastor! Maybe I’ll just quit. Not like it would matter.”

But my response that night wasn’t any of these. I wasn’t angry, I didn’t blame it on something else, and I didn’t feel sorry for myself. I simply had a realization, “We are not creating can’t-miss experiences.”

Can’t-miss experiences are the lifeblood of any healthy youth ministry. Creating an environment that is fertile for life change is what most ministry is all about. When life change is happening, it’s exciting, and brings people back to experience more. Why do you think Jesus had so many people following him all the time?

Can’t-miss experiences doesn’t mean one specific thing. Just as there is no one model for all youth ministries to follow, there isn’t only one kind of can’t-miss experience. But there are some things that most of these experiences will have in common.

Can’t-Miss Experiences Are Unique to Your Group

If the student could have the same experience somewhere else, let them have it somewhere else. Don’t compete with the alternative, be the alternative. Instead of catching a movie, find a service project. Instead of playing Guitar Hero, have a massive food/water/pool-noodle/etc. fight. Instead of  going to the amusement park, go to the wilderness somwehere. It’s not that those things are bad to do (I’m all for going where students are), but if the majority of youth group activities are things they could do without the youth group, that might just be what they start doing.

Can’t-Miss Experiences Require Preparation

The meeting that I was all alone at, it has had the same formula for 3 years, and has been very dependent on student engagement. It is phenomenally important that students are given venues to share their thoughts, but I had stopped providing adequate prompts for those thoughts. It had become, “So, what should we talk about tonight?” This could easily be solved by bringing in guests with expertise in a topic, or taking the group to museums or performances, or anywhere that might stimulate conversation.

It takes a lot of energy to prep an evening, and when you see diminishing returns on that effort it can be discouraging. But by failing to adequately prepare for the evening we fail to create opportunities for God to show up, and…

Can’t-Miss Experiences Always Include God

You know what you never want to miss? God showing up. It’s amazing.
It doesn’t take very long working in ministry to realize that God has a tendency to create awesome where there was not awesome before. Random youth group nights where the conversation goes uber-deep, service projects that click with students more than expected, Bible passages that completely change the perspective of a teen. Looking at Jesus’ ministry, it was a big ol’ chain of God showing up where he wasn’t expected.

This doesn’t mean you have the thump Bibles each and every time. It simply means that everything you do points to God. With our leaders, we’ve started to call this compassing… like a compass always points North, our interactions with students should always point to God (I know, original, right?) This helps us from straying too far from our core values and why we exist as a youth ministry. Every night of youth group, every interaction with a teen, every lesson we teach and program we pursue should fit into one of the areas of focus we have as a ministry. There are many “good things” we could do that aren’t “our things” and would ultimately take energy away from where it is needed. This helps us stick to the particular focus we feel God has called us to go after.

In hindsight, the night nobody showed up was probably a great boost to our program. We have a healthy and robust youth ministry, and it would be very easy to coast through the next 10 years without much effort and still have plenty of great stories to share when people ask us how ministry is going. But a really healthy ministry is one that is constantly evolving and realizing that what was a can’t-miss experience may not be one anymore.

So how about you, what makes up a can’t-miss experience in your ministry?