First impressions are always incredibly awkward.  I remember my first ever time at a youth group where I was a brand new Regional Director (Intern with specific school responsibilities) we were leaving on a retreat and I had to drive my own car because I had to leave a bit early.  There were about 60 of us in the parking lot and the youth pastor told everyone to get in the cars.  Well no one came to my car so I immediately felt a bit of a rejection. The first impression I was portraying to the students clearly wasn’t that of being approachable.  On the same hand my first impression of the “Leadership Students” of this particular youth ministry was that they were not very friendly to outsiders or new people, which was not a good trait to have in you leadership team. 

Over the last 15 years I’ve both been a young youth minister and worked with a ton of them.  When I was young I had some parts of this first impression thing down pretty well.  I was committed to always being on time (10 minutes early) to our all-church staff meetings and also made sure that I was a bit more dressed up on that day.   I spent time thinking about how I was being perceived as the Youth Minister and tried to distance myself from the typical stereotypes.  But,  there were things that I didn’t do very well.  I didn’t answer e-mails well (especially if someone was mad at me).  I didn’t answer my phone enough or return calls on time.  I didn’t always walk over to a new person in a room and make them feel welcome. 

But, there is another side to first impressions. Every week we would have new students at our ministry and they would always be coming up with first impressions of what the program and the people were like.  This is the area that I think many of us are particularly weak in.  We don’t think through enough how people will perceive the ministry and us. This is especially true if you have an established ministry and a group of kids who you are close to who are always around you at an event.   I was reminded of this recently as a mom told me about three different conversations she’d had with other mom’s about how their kids didn’t feel welcomed to the youth group.   I realized that their first impression of the ministry was not a very good one.  They perceived us (and me as the leader) as not being very friendly and welcoming to them.

So think about it.  How do you come across to students, parents, staff and church members.

Part 1: New Series: How to do this Youth Ministry Thing in a Healthy Way

Part 2: First Day on the Job

Part 3: Relational Equity

Part 4: Boundaries, you will learn them easy or hard.

I wish that working in the church was always healthy.  Unfortunately, all of us bring some sort of baggage into our work and the nature of our jobs is we spend most of our day interacting with people just like us.  Boundaries are important as we try to curb out “people pleasing” tendencies. 

In your first few days, weeks and months on the job you will invariable be asked to do many things that may or may not be in your job description.  At those moments you will need to do some negotiating with yourself to see how much those requests fit within the overall mission of the church staff and specifically if they require your expertise.

Here’s a brief example:  I have a commercial bus license.  My church in Los Angeles had a full-size school bus, 3 shuttle busses and a few vans.  There was a time period at my church where we had all these vehicles but there was only a few of us who were licensed to drive them.  I got asked to drive them quite often.  More often than not I would say no because I was new in my job, struggling to keep my marriage healthy, taking seminary classes and generally just feeling tired all the time.  Quite often I felt guilty about saying no but I knew that I would become the “official” church driver if I wasn’t careful.

Here’s an example of how I did it wrong: At my last church we often didn’t have anyone to lead worship in our youth department.  So I stepped in and filled that role while also doing a large percentage of the teaching as well.  At this church we had Weekend youth services on Saturday nights and two Sunday morning services.  This meant that on a typical weekend I led worship and taught 3 times each.  Fortunately I recruited some worship leaders after a while but it was a hard year.  What that lead to at my current church is that it was two years of being on youth staff before I lead worship for the first time because I was so burned out from the past experience.

The best way I know to help you work on your boundaries is to encourage you to set up a list of priorities, goals and benchmarks.  You need to know what you are doing, where you are going and how you are going to get there.  Don’t be the youth pastor who shows up in the office each day wondering what it is you are supposed to do.  You need to set a plan, pick a path and get moving on it.

Now I will say that there are times when you need to say yes to people.  I recognize that there are no hard rules when it comes to the church and to people’s lives.  You need to know that there will be times when you are asked to do something outside your job description or even outside your expertise that you need to say “yes” to.  My recommendation is to pray and ask God for wisdom and direction.  You want to be a servant leader who meets needs when they arise.  But, you can do this in a healthy way or not.

Part 1: New Series: How to do this Youth Ministry Thing in a Healthy Way
Part 2: First Day on the Job

Part 3: Relational Equity

So you are brand new at a church. Just started in the last few days and wondering how to go about getting anything done.  The best advice I can give you is to encourage you to begin building equity in relationships.  Here's the best way to explain this concept.  Youth Ministers are notorious for having strange needs and last minute requests.  Imagine if you have a last minute $500.00 check request for 800 cans of shaving cream and you need to get your finance person to sign off on it.  Do you want to be the youth workers who has no relationship with that person and find yourself trying to explain what it's all about and why it's a valid request or do you want to have a solid connection with that person where you have open communication and a good working relationship?

When I was a young youth pastor I found out pretty quickly that there were three people who worked at the church that I needed to have a good relationship with.  These were: My Executive Pastor who was typically the person who people went to when they didn't like the answer I was giving them, the head of Facilities who was the guy who dealt with all our strange requests and messes and the Chief Finance Officer who dealt with our bizarre check requests. 

On top of these people at the church I learned that I needed to build solid relationships with a number of key parents who would be supporters of the program and understood the vision of what I was trying to do.  This was a huge blessing when something would go wrong (which it invariably did) because parents were the best line of defense for me especially as they talked to other parents about what had happened. 

Other key relationships you'll want to work on are those with volunteers who have been there longer than you.  Chances are they have a lot invested in the ministry and they may not have been in on your hiring process.  You don't work for them but you do need to make sure to take their investment into consideration as you make choices and decisions.   You will also need relationships with other youth workers in the city so that you can have a support base of people trying to do the same thing as you.  Lastly don't forget the importance of building relationships with the students you are working with.

This equity concept is so important because it is the key to longevity.  Without building a solid foundation of support and relationships things will be so much harder to accomplish.  It's much better to have the support of people when things go wrong but also to have others with you to celebrate when things go right.

I wish someone had told me about this when I was young but I also wish people would keep reminding me about this as I'm no longer young.  Sometimes I got/get so caught up with what I'm doing that I forgot/forget to take into consideration other people.

Part 1: New Series: How to do this Youth Ministry Thing in a Healthy Way
Part 2: First Day on the Job

Ok so there's a lot of things you could do your first day on the job in a youth ministry context.  Depending on when you start your first day may be a camp, retreat, missions trip, event or something else.  I'm going to write this blog as tips for your first day assuming that day is happening at the church in your office space.

Several years ago my first day on the job at Bel Air Presbyterian Church involved me opening up the door to an incredibly messy and slightly disgusting office space.  I remember walking into my office and seeing two desks and a bunch of camp looking stuff laying in piles.  I sat in my chair, leaned back and then started to rummage through the desk.  The first thing I found when I opened middle drawer was a half eaten bowl of cereal still with milk in it and a spoon. (no I didn't eat it)  After a few minutes in my office basking in the excitement of having a great full-time youth ministry job I decided to go on a walk around the church.

My recommendations for the first day on the job is to spend a lot of time connecting with people and do everything you can to remember some of the names you are meeting.  Remember that you are stepping into a new system and you probably don't know how things work there very effectively.  Ask a lot of questions.  Get out to lunch with some people.  Sit down and ask straightforward questions about landmines you want to avoid, people who you need to be aware of, systems that might be different from anything you've ever been around before.

The first day will go a long ways to establishing in peoples minds who you are.  It's like having a first impression with a whole bunch of people all at the same time.  I typically try to get someone to break the ice for me and walk me around and introduce me to people.  You might be the type to be able to go around and do that on your own but having someone with you can give you some info about them that would be helpful to know.

The next thing I do on the first day in a job is to just try to start getting the lay of the youth ministry and what are things that you need to be aware of.  Let's just hope you have an administrative assistant or even better other youth ministry staff.  Meet with them and find out what is going on that day, week, month.  Start figuring out the "rhythm" of the structures currently in place.

Two more things are super important that first day. After getting a good dose of the place you will be working and some of the people you will be working with I recommend finding a place to pray.  It's easy to get overwhelmed on the first day in a job.  Remember that you will only be a great leader if you are following what Jesus wants you to do.  I pray for discernment, for courage, for understanding, patience and for ears to hear everything being said. 

Lastly remember that in your first day on the job all that wasn't talked about during the interview process will probably be made known to you.  Chances are good that most of the staff you are spending time with today weren't a part of the interview process.  They probably have a ton of things to say about the church and the youth ministry and most likely will tell you all about a bunch of stuff that you didn't think you needed to know about.  I recommend listening to everything they say but filtering it through the lens of what the search committee told you.  It might be that the search committee recognizes that there are a lot of things that need changed in the ministry and you were brought in to change them.  The people in the office you talk to may or may not be aware of those conversations or expectations.

Have fun on the first day.  It will only go uphill or downhill from there. 

I'm thinking about continuing my talk about what it takes to do youth ministry.  Recently I finished up a series about how to find a job and negotiate with a church.  As a follow up to that post I'm going to start writing a series of what to do when you get a job.  I've worked in 4 different churches over the years and I think I've learned a thing or two about what to do when you get on the job the first day, week, month, year.

Here's a short story.  My first ever "real" youth ministry job that I went through a long hiring process was an interesting start.  The interview process was a bit weird.  I first interviewed with a search committee and had a few interviews and did not hear back from them for about a month.  Finally they called me and told me that they had a new "elder" and were starting over the interviews.  I happened to know the executive pastor from that church and called him and said I thought I was done because it was taking too long.  Fortunately he called me right back and drove out that afternoon to spend some time with me and encouraged me to continue in their process. 

Less than 6 months later I had the job and had just received a letter from the previous youth directors lawyer about a letter I'd sent to parents.

Wanna know More…..Read tomorrow.