Welcome to part 3 of a special 5 part podcast series. Zac and Chad will walk you through the five stages of youth ministry growth in what we are terming the Youth Ministry Roadmap. You will learn where your ministry is currently, and how to get to where you want to go.

If you haven't read and listened to part 1 then go here first. But also make sure and check out part 2 here.

Develop

The shift from the Build phase to the Develop phase is primarily about mindset. In fact, it is upon you as the leader of your ministry to make the shift. This is usually the hardest gap for youth ministry leaders to make the jump. We love the new and the next, we don't always love the grind of making good things into great things.

Why?

Because we are talking about small percentage improvement. Everyone loves turning Ds into Bs but the hard struggle work of turning Bs into As is often the extra work and tedium that doesn't show results quickly. However, if the ultimate measure of success is longevity, then it is vital that the structures and processes we create our sturdy enough to survive.

The Develop mindset is primarily about goal-vetting, goal-setting, and goal-getting. When you Build you have a task list to get done. When you Develop you are strategically attacking your goal list. A developing mindset is the move from trying to get it all done and a shift towards focusing on getting the most important things done in season.

The good news is that the frantic of feelings and frenetic energy of the Build phase are replaced with a more intentional and strategic evaluation of ministry efforts and processes. It should be a relief and a welcome calm.

The week-to-week life of ministry is should be mostly accounted for, because of what you established in your Build phase. So now you are freed up just enough to start developing and refining the key processes of your ministry.

In the Develop phase of the roadmap, you will begin to see the work of ministry not in the week to week but rather in the top-down vision of key processes that the week to week utilizes to accomplish the larger goals.

Sample Areas of Development

Volunteers- Recruitment, Training, Assimilation, Assignment
Student Leadership- Structure and Selection
Programs- What we do weekly is now done better. Adding layers of fun, engagement, etc.
Parents- Connecting, ministering, and structuring a parent ministry strategy beyond just communicating information

Phase Question: How can I refine this process to help my ministry thrive?

More than the survival of the Build phase we are now concerned with our ministry thriving!

Example- Volunteer leadership. In the Build phase, you are just praying that each week you will have enough and that between a background check and a coffee conversation with you that they might do a good job. (Also that maybe, please maybe, that they read the email you sent or the studied the curriculum you bought for them.)

But in the Develop phase of your ministry, you are thinking about the ways in which you recruit new leaders into specific roles and then the ways in which you will train leaders into leading well in your ministry. It is more robust, there are documents, there is a strategy, there is a refined plan