When we make a change in our ministry, we recognize the that it will affect our students and leaders. But the truth is, the affects go much further than we realize. If we can start to recognize that and be sensitive to it, I believe we’ll be better leaders and colleagues to those we are in ministry with.
For instance, if you change the time of your weekly meeting, it’s obviously going to effect students, leaders and parents. But who else will be affected? I have always communicated scheduling information to the church leadership, students, youth leaders and parents. But one night we had a youth event that was rescheduled at the last minute. While I was setting up and waiting for the students to get there, the sweet family who takes care of the church showed up to do the weekly cleaning. They had checked the church calendar for the week and saw that the building was not in use that night so they planned on doing all the cleaning then. I inconvenienced them by not realizing my actions were going to affect anyone outside our ministry.
We are sometimes short sighted about the affects within our ministry as well. If someone joins the team who is enthusiastic, energetic and a magnet for students, it’s great! But how does it affect the other leaders? The ones who have been pouring their lives into the students for a long period of time. Most likely they can see the value of this new leader – but they may need to be reminded that they are still a vital part of the ministry. I’ve learned (the hard way) that anticipating the affect of these sorts of changes and being proactive about it is much easier than trying to deal with it later.
We need to see the big picture when making changes. We need to recognize that there IS a ripple effect and the better we are at communicating upcoming changes before they take place, the more we can avoid the unintentional inconvenience and disrespect that sometimes come as a result of our actions.
[Photo by: Hiddenpower]
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Sara Eden Williams is the Director of Youth and Children’s Ministry at the First United Methodist Church of Williamson in Williamson, NY.
Blog: http://saredn.wordpress.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/saraeden
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It's amazing to me sometimes how communication can save the day. Or lack of communication can not save it, as the case may be.
We have in our new facility a room known as the MPR (multi-purpose room) that is shared in any given week by children, youth, and contemporary ministries. We've pretty well learned to dance around each other; we each set up the room for ourselves and in some cases make adjustments to the room for the group following us. This past weekend I encountered/created a perfect storm of miscues surrounding my ministry affecting other uses of our space.
At the end of Wed. night youth programs, I usually clear the stage and the floor for children's ministry Sunday morning. This week I left it all, knowing that I had an all-day worship rehearsal on Saturday. I made a couple of tweaks to the room to ready it for the rehearsal and left it: guitars, mics, monitors, and cables everywhere. What I didn't know (because I didn't look at the calendar) was that there was a community event in the room on Friday, a spelling bee. The organizers of that event were forced to clear the stage into my office across the hall. As the owner of much of the equipment that was moved, this was a terrifying discover on Saturday.
As a delightful twis in the mayhem, I arrived Saturday morning to find the hallway to the MPR blockaded with ficus trees and orange cones. Down the glimmering corridor our building services manager was applying stripper to be followed by wax. It was 9:30AM. "Steve, when will I be able to get in this hallway?" "3PM. Why?" Ugh. There was a back way into the MPR, but all of my gear was now safely stowed in my office across an untouchable floor. With all of the music for our worship team. Sweet.
It was a solid lesson in communication; information about the community event and the building maintenance was available to me, I just failed to go after it. We focus a lot on communicating to others. It's just as important to receive what others are communicating to us.