Volunteers - Childrens Ministry Online

Adventures in Student Ministry: Part 2

So I’m continuing this series about my Student Ministry journey this last year. Before you make any judgements or get upset, you can read my disclaimer here. I’m just a Kidmin guy who is leading an entire NextGen ministry and making observations.

Yesterday I wrote how I believe that if more Student Pastors led like Children’s Pastors, they’d be more successful. They’d be able to grow their ministries larger as they’ll be leading more effectively through a team of both staff and volunteers leaders as opposed to just one or a handful of people doing all the heavy lifting. Again, I’m not meaning to stereotype and please don’t think I’m painting broad strokes. I do know many Student Pastors how are very successful leaders. However, many of those same Student Pastors hace assured me that the stereotype is true.

I’m not sure if this is a trend or not, but I do know of a handful of large churches (more than 5000) who searched for a Student Pastor and gave up or put the search on hold because they were discouraged that the leader they were looking for didn’t exist.

Adventures in Student Ministry: Part 1

Leadership, Volunteers | 0

Yesterday I posted about my journey of hiring a student pastor. I’ll say right now that I’m incredibly grateful to have someone coming in to take the reigns. I’m not sure I was built for Student Ministry. Ha! It’s a different animal all together for sure. However, I did want to write a little about what I experienced this last year. Children’s Ministry and Student Ministry seem to be worlds apart most of the time and I think it’s incredibly important that they become a little more in sync. So I hope to write about some of the things I’ve learned for everyone’s benefit.

Disclaimer: I’m sure that this post and some of the following posts will frustrate or make some people angry. If that is you, I think you’re reading into my posts. Understand the context please, I do love student ministry. However, my viewpoint is going to be fresh eyes from an outside perspective looking in. Also, please don’t think that I believe that we have everything together in kidmin, because that’s not the case either. Also, I understand that there are stereotypes and I’m certainly not making sweeping judgements about the entire industry. So, if you’ve got a bone to pick with me about anything I write, send me a message through my contact form and I promise, I’ll make it right. 🙂

Well, only about 2 months into my role in leading the student ministry here at Gateway, I learned that Student Ministry is far more like Kidmin than I thought. Sure, there are significant differences in the way that ministry is carried out in the lives of teenagers, but at the core of the ministry, the structure and strategy, the two can be nearly identical. However, I think that this is where things fall apart.

Digital signatures for volunteer documents

Volunteers | 4

I have questions that have both a technological and legal aspects. More and more our ministries are moving toward a digital medium. One of the biggest holdups for many volunteer processes is “paperwork.” It’s frustrating as we have conversations with people, meet them in person and then say, oh, fill out these pages and then we’ll get the ball rolling. Some of us have taken additional steps in putting all of these forms online, but it still usually requires someone to download the form, print and sign it. Once this is finished, those volunteers either mail it in, hand deliver it or scan/fax/email back to us. For living in the 21st century, this seems like a bunch of steps from digital to analog and back to digital again. I’m wondering though if we can keep the process purely digital. Here are my thoughts followed by questions.

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Volunteers | 0

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Leadership, Volunteers | 0

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Volunteers | 0

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Ideas, Leadership, Volunteers | 1

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Leadership, Volunteers | 0

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Leadership, Volunteers | 1

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