5 Common struggles In youth ministry

(and how to overcome them)

Brad M. Griffin Image Brad M. Griffin | May 9, 2016

Photo by Joebelle

We’ve all been there.

Ministry gets discouraging. We feel stuck. We’re not sure we have been doing the right things or investing our time in the right places. We would love to see more change, but we’re just not sure how to make it happen.

I remember one season when I thought our small group approach had grown stale. So I tried four different small group models in one year. Four! Leaders and students got so fatigued by the constant change that by the time I introduced the next plan, it was mostly met with blank stares. Defeated, I ducked my head and fell back into a rut that I knew wasn’t the best way to accomplish our goals. I couldn’t see a better way forward.

We’ve heard similar stories from leaders who wonder about implementing Sticky Faith in their contexts. They quickly nod their heads when we share what Sticky Faith is all about, or they tell us about their excitement after reading a Sticky Faith resource. But then they’re stuck figuring out what to do next. Or discouraged because they tried something and it failed.

Have you ever found yourself making one of the following statements?
I want to equip young people with lifelong faith, but I have no idea where to start.

In my first youth ministry job, I inherited a model high on fun and emotion but low on depth and long-term transformation. I had ideas about how our ministry could look different and what students could look like as thriving young adults. I just didn’t know how to get from where we were to where I hoped we could be.

My church is too small—or too big—to build an effective youth ministry.

Those of us with only a handful of students showing up in our ministry are worried that our efforts will have little impact, especially when families see “regular” attendance as “once every three weeks.” On the flip side, those of us overwhelmed with a crowd of kids every Wednesday night can hardly keep things under control. Deeper discipleship seems daunting in both scenarios, as does fostering “real” community.

I don’t think we have buy-in from parents on changing our youth ministry.

If we’ve heard this once, we’ve heard it ten thousand times. Leaders worry that parents are either too disengaged, too distracted to give enough energy to support a change, or so committed to youth-ministry-as-usual that they will shut down attempts at change out of fear. Sometimes these worries about parents are well-founded; other times leaders simply haven’t worked to cultivate enough trust among parents to secure their partnership in bringing about change.

I don’t think we have buy-in from our senior pastor to try new things.

Man, have I blown it on this one! Once I actually went directly around my pastor’s “no” to do what I thought was the best idea for our ministry. It didn’t go so well for me. More often, we hear from leaders who have pleasant, but distant, relationships with their senior pastors. They struggle to get enough attention to move ideas forward that require the whole church to respond or change.

Yeah, we tried implementing change. But it never really got off the ground.

Our big launch flopped. Our four-week series fizzled. How many times have you caught yourself saying some version of, “We tried that, but…”? I actually caught myself saying this last week about my own youth ministry! Sometimes we’re not very persistent. Other times we invest so much with such futile results that we give up. Change is hard, slow, and not for the faint of heart.

If you can relate to any (or all!) of these scenarios, we’ve got your back. In fact, we developed a resource just for you because leaders like you asked for it and we decided we couldn’t NOT do this to help.

In response, our team built a toolbox of resources called the Sticky Faith Launch Kit that not only addresses all of the scenarios above, but also drips with bonus products that are almost embarrassing to list because of how much we’re giving away along with the book:

  • Over 20 videos to use with your team or your whole church
  • Six months of volunteer training sessions to help deeply root the vision and practically apply the philosophy
  • Over six months of scripted email templates to use with parents to make your work easy and make you sound awesome
  • Seminar outlines and media to make you look awesome in front of parents and your entire church
And that’s only half of it.

The real heart of this resource is a step-by-step guide for forming a launch team and leveraging that team to effect deep culture change in your congregation. This is not a quick-fix resource. It’s a proven process for shifting your ministry and your own leadership toward more effectiveness.

We call the Launch Kit “Your next 180 days toward Sticky Faith” because it is truly a journey. We have spent the past handful of years walking with churches like yours through implementation issues related to team dynamics, leadership culture, organizational changes, and church structures. Taking the best of what we’ve learned from other leaders, we packaged it in one of the most practical resources FYI has ever developed. Plus a lot of our own heart, sweat, and tears. We published it ourselves, at a financial risk, without a cent of author royalties, because we believed in it that much.

Step one is to make sure you don’t start this journey alone. Get a team around you of people who care about young people. Then let us be part of your extended team. There’s no need to remain discouraged or stuck. Here’s help.

Order the Launch Kit today

Brad M. Griffin Image
Brad M. Griffin

Brad M. Griffin is the Senior Director of Content & Research for the Fuller Youth Institute, where he develops research-based resources for youth ministry leaders & families. A speaker, writer, and volunteer pastor, Brad is the coauthor of over fifteen books, including Faith Beyond Youth Group, 3 Big Questions That Change Every Teenager & 3 Big Questions That Shape Your Future, Growing Young, and Sticky Faith. Brad and his wife, Missy, live in Southern California and share life with their three teenage and young adult kids.


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