Linked Post: 3 Easy Ways Your Youth Ministry Can Have A Greater Impact

Ben Read is one of the co-founders of YouthMin.org and a full time youth pastor in MA. 

This is a short but solid post that looks at three things you can do to have a greater impact in your students' lives.

Below is a portion of Ben's post with a link to the original article below. Click on the link to head over to YouthMin.org and read the rest of the article.

Whether you saw 5000 teens attend your student ministry last year, or you barely averaged 5 (including yourself, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,) every Youth Pastor in any context wants to grow the impact their ministry has, hopefully because of one reason: to see Jesus change students lives. I’m preparing a few training items for our team, and wanted to share a few things we really want to focus on this coming semester that are super basic and fundamental, but can lead to an exponential growth in your ministries influence, and thereby impact, if carried out.

There are hundreds of things you can plan and do to make a difference in a teens life, but whether you’re a Small Group Leader, Youth Pastor, or even just a church member with a heart for this generation and no affiliation with the Youth Ministry, these three things will help lead to life change.

Value Conversations with Teens

There was one week sometime last year where a student was trying to tell me about something going on his life at church on Sunday morning, and we were clearly having a conversation when another adult walked up and just started talking to me. Unfortunately, it was one of those people that you can’t just ignore, you have to turn your attention to, and I responded to them and carried on with the conversation they intended to have. The problem is that the student walked away feeling like I didn’t care about what he had to say, which was only magnified when similar situations happened that night and wednesday night at Youth Group.

I’ve tried to be extremely intentional since then to do everything within my power to make sure that both students and adults understand that the conversations I have with teens are just as valuable to me as conversations with adults. This may mean coming off rude to an adult asking them to hang on or find me later, but thats ok if it means students know I value them.

CLICK HERE to head over to Ben's site and read the rest of the article.