What Are the True Essentials in Your Youth Ministry?

Here’s a challenging thought:

If you were to start taking away elements of your youth ministry, what would you actually need to do be able to still do ministry?

Now, before you answer, I’m not talking about some theoretical youth group. I’m talking about YOUR youth ministry.

If you looked at your actual youth ministry and began to pare things away, what are those elements that you would simply not be able to live without? It’s an interesting way to think about the HOW of the ministry we do.

If suddenly you lost your technology, could your youth ministry as its currently constructed still be effective? Or would losing technology strike such a blow to how you operate that you’d lose the ability to function?

What about your building? How critical is the space you currently meet in to your ministry’s effectiveness?

What about the Bible? If God’s Word was suddenly unavailable to you, would your students notice?

Think about losing your adult volunteers. Could you still do ministry if you didn’t have them to help out?

What about you? If you were to simply disappear, would your ministry survive your absence?

How you answer this question, “What are the essential elements of my youth ministry” is super important. Some things should be essential, for instance, if your students wouldn’t notice if the Bible up and disappeared from your ministry, you’ve got some work to do. However, some of us have built our ministries around things that aren’t necessarily bad or wrong, but maybe shouldn’t be as essential as they are (ex: technology, production, building, and so on). Asking your team to engage in an exercise where you consider which elements are essential and which aren’t is a great way to check the health of our ministry paradigm.

What about you? What can you live without? And what is absolutely essential? And what do each of those answers tell you about the health of your ministry?