The Untapped Afternoon

It’s easy to look at your ministry and see “lids.” Budgets, minimal resources, limited space, less and less man-power, ever-growing scope of responsibilities, crunched time, and even creative block all seem to be limiting factors that stifle the ministry we lead. We can slip into believing that our ministry is maxed out, restricted by caps we can’t control. Some of these limits are real, and we should lead wisely with what we have been called to steward with a grateful heart. What is also real, though, is the fact that we are serving a God who is limitless and can use what appears mundane and small to change the life of a student. There is a real possibility that our ministries are still leaving a lot of opportunities on the table. What if there was a real, meaningful impact that God is waiting for you to tap into?

Many formative years of my childhood were spent in Augusta, Maine. Toward the end of every winter, I would notice metal buckets hanging from shiny metal tubes on the trees as I would ride the bus home from school. I learned that my neighbors were tapping the Maple Trees to make syrup. They would hammer a metal spike into a tree, and sap would pour into the bucket, and they would process that sap into delicious syrup.

Are there “trees” in my ministry that I am leaving untapped? Is God waiting for me to drive a spike into an opportunity so he can draw more students to His name? I don’t want to leave any tree in the forest of my ministry untapped! Over the years, I have begun to ask three questions that God has used to establish some of the most fruitful elements of our ministry:

1. Where are the pockets of time in the week that are outside of the typical windows of ministry that remain unengaged?
2. Who are the students that our typical ministry calendar doesn’t resonate with?
3. Who are the key volunteers that God has raised up to sustain a new arm of our ministry?

POCKETS OF TIME 

You are probably great at managing time and scheduling out your week, and it probably revolves around your weekly student worship services and your less frequent seasonal events. And probably at first glance, you might laugh off any thought of “untapped time” but If you were to take a second, longer look at your week with fresh eyes, is there a 90 minute to 2 hour time period where there is a lull in the team’s or your schedule that intersects with a time that students are typically available?

• Maybe it is an after-school time slot where your meetings wrap up, and students could come straight from school before they go home.
• An early morning meet-up after your workout and before students start their day.
• A mid-morning time when you are usually doing work that requires less focused attention. Students (who are somehow not required to go to their school campus every day) could come and do their schoolwork alongside you.
• A lunchtime hangout during summer break at a schedule of locations
• A “late night” time every week that doesn’t start until 8:00 PM, that engages upperclassmen in a more interesting way

It’s not about squeezing more into your schedule; it’s about finding a time that you just didn’t realize wasn’t fully tapped into yet. If you want more syrup, it isn’t about trying to relocate a mature tree to your yard; it’s about making sure all the trees that are there are producing fruit to their full potential. There is a possibility that this does not exist in your week, but you recognize that this is something you need to prioritize, and so you begin making incremental adjustments, just like if you wanted to yield more sap, you would plant more trees, and it would take time for them to become ready to tap.

GAPS IN ENGAGEMENT

Even the most dynamic ministries have groups of students that are not as engaged as other groups of students. Many student ministries attract athletes by creating a highly competitive environment, leaving out students who are less interested in smashing their friends’ heads with a dodgeball. Some student ministries engage students who are far from God by keeping lessons simple and not offensive, but leave students who are ready to take their faith deeper wanting more. Other student ministries are built around a few “tent-pole” events each year where the large, energetic group is all together at one time, leaving the students who can’t make it to one of these events out of the loop, and making it difficult for the students that just want to laugh and talk with their student pastor on a consistent basis. Is your student ministry killing it with the athletes? Is your ministry almost completely made up of homeschooled students? Are all of your students middle schoolers? What if we resisted the temptation to say “That’s just how our ministry is” and dug a little deeper and said, “We need to find a way to engage this group of students who are not relating enough to what we are doing?”

UN-ACTIVATED VOLUNTEERS

One of the most evident examples of God’s provision has always been how He raises up Godly men and women who have strengths in areas where I am weak and have background and experience in areas that I lack specific ability to relate to a student. Sometimes the tree that has been left untapped is right in front of you every Wednesday and Sunday, and it is that one key volunteer who faithfully serves but also has availability during the week, a burdened heart for a specific group of kids, and a special skill that makes them perfect for the next foothold of your ministry. That leader is waiting for you to say, “I have an idea about how we can reach more of the students I know you are passionate about, and I’d like to talk to you about reaching out to these students.”

WHAT IT HAS LOOKED LIKE IN OUR CONTEXT

Geography, resources, space, and personnel all will impact how this will look in different churches. As I have asked these questions through various seasons we have experimented, adjusted, pivoted, and seen the Lord fill our buckets with fruit we were leaving on the table in some cases for years! These are a few examples of what it has looked like to find the “untapped afternoon” in my youth ministry:

• Open Gym. Every Monday 3:30-5:30 PM (Cafe, board games, 4 square, basketball, homework area, etc.)
• Afterschool Bible Study Every Wednesday from 3:30-4:30 PM every other month
• Specialty Workshops - Tuesday Evenings (6:30-8:00 PM) Pottery Workshops, Guitar or Piano Workshops, Songwriting Workshops, etc.
• Homeschool Hub - 9:30-11:30 AM. 3 Tuesdays a semester, having a “chapel” type service and game time for homeschooled middle school and high school students
• High School Only Pick Up Basketball - Mondays 7:30-until
• Late Night Study Hall during exams - Where we keep the student center open and stocked with coffee and snacks until 1:00 AM

When you see that student bring all of their artist friends to the pottery workshop or that senior in high school show up to pick up basketball with five other students who have never been to your church before, you realize the limits you thought were holding you back have actually pushed you to innovate. It’s an encouragement from the Lord that He is limitless and He is waiting for us to realize the full potential of the ministry He is allowing us to lead. Look for the untapped afternoon in your week and watch your student ministry become less one-dimensional and grow into an even more effective weapon for the gospel!

Share your thoughts with others in our YM360 community:

1. Where in your week do you see an untapped pocket of time that is a “lull” for you and is available for students?
2. What is a group of students you recognize your ministry could engage more with?

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