6 Important Steps To Build A Strong Youth Ministry Team

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As someone who works with your church’s youth, you have been trusted to guide the next generation during one of the most important times of their lives. This can feel like a tough torch to carry, but thankfully you don’t have to navigate this path alone. Here are six steps that will help you build a strong youth ministry team of people to help you grow and support your youth ministry!

Why You Need A Youth Ministry Team

When you surround yourself with the right people, not only do you make your job easier, but you significantly improve your group’s experience. Having more adult leaders will allow you to share the burden of planning, provide another source for ideas, and even just give you an extra set of hands to take care of things that pop up. But most importantly, introducing your group to other adult leaders will provide them with more caring adults they can feel safe going to. 

The Characteristics Of A Strong Leadership Team

Not every volunteer will be a good candidate to join your team. When looking for the right people, consider if that person would be a good role model for your young people. Of course, they should be familiar with scripture and be able to express their faith, but that knowledge is rendered useless if their life does not reflect Christian values.

The most important thing is that your volunteers share the same goal as you: to invest in, support, and build up the young people in your group as they navigate their spiritual growth. There is no single correct answer for how big your team should be, but generally, I would recommend aiming for a minimum ratio of 1 adult for every 5 – 6 youth. If you aren’t sure how to identify your first candidate, let’s look at six steps to help you build your team.

6 Steps To Build A Strong Youth Ministry Team

1. Look for at least one leader of each gender.

I have noticed a pattern in my youth group… the girls relate to my wife better than they do to me. Don’t get me wrong, we have a great relationship as well, but she speaks their language. The kinds of things the girls struggle with are the same things that my wife struggled with when she was their age. She also likes the same movies and TV shows, and she enjoys the same activities as they do. At the same time, I feel like the boys in my group relate to me better in the same way. They like my wife, but again, they just like different things. 

I bring this up because the very first step to building a strong leadership team is having leaders your youth can relate to. Other factors can go into this, but ensuring that you have at least one male leader and one female leader will get you 90% of the way there. In addition, having both male and female leaders will help to fulfill safe sanctuary guidelines that churches follow.

Not only does my wife fulfill this role, but we also get the added benefit of being able to show our young people what a strong and healthy relationship looks like, which is something that is unfortunately all too rare in many of their lives. However, if you are looking for a different place to find some help, there is a stellar option that you have access to…

2. Get your youth’s parents involved.

The beautiful part of youth ministry is that both you and the parents of your youth want to encourage their children to have a strong faith life. In my experience, parents consistently want to find ways to invest in student ministry, they just don’t know where to start. One of the easiest ways you can get parents involved is by having them take care of snacks. Besides the fact that everyone enjoys an event even more when there is free food, outsourcing food preparation to parents provides a very natural way for them to be included in your time together. 

I would say the next level of commitment from providing food is acting as a driver or a chaperone. If you ever go off-campus for an event (consider taking your group to play disc golf!), you need to make sure you have enough space in your vehicles to get everyone there. And while most cars tend to fit four people, nobody likes getting crammed in the back seat! So being able to take an additional vehicle can save the day. 

Finally, perhaps the best way for a parent to get involved is to simply sit in on your time together. This may seem daunting to some parents, but you can assure them their point of view on the discussions you have is invaluable. Your youth will get to see their leader isn’t just making stuff up as they go! Having an adult present can also help to prevent those moments where you ask a question to the group and no one answers.

Sometimes parents have expressed they want to give their child a space away from them, which is valid, but there is also value in allowing your child to see you in a new environment. Of course, every relationship is different, just like every group is different. Let their involvement develop naturally, but don’t be afraid to use some of the most valuable resources that you have at your disposal.

3. Make it easy for people to volunteer.

These days, everyone’s schedules are packed full of events and appointments. Potentially the most challenging roadblock you will face in recruiting more people to join your team comes from their fear of overcommitting themselves. Thankfully, there are some steps you can take to ease their mind and make it easier for them to get involved

For one, I think it’s important to let parents and other interested adults know that they can choose the level of involvement they are comfortable with. If they just want to pop in for some meetings and not say much, that’s alright. What you’ll realize is that once your volunteers are around, they will naturally become more and more interconnected with the members of your church youth group. What started as an adult just providing transportation can quickly turn into them serving as a role model for your young people.

Another helpful tip is to remind them, that if your church has it in the budget, any of the costs incurred will be reimbursed by the church. I always want to make sure volunteers don’t feel burdened by spending money on our group, but more often than not my volunteers have chosen not to be reimbursed as a means of supporting the group. As we have already discussed, the members of your congregation want to invest in the youth program, and that is exactly why the next tip is so important.

4. Get your youth in front of the church.

It can be tempting to think of your youth program as a separate entity from the rest of your church, but that’s not the case. The young people of your congregation aren’t just the future of your church, they are the present as well. The largest obstacle to overcome is that your adults and your youth don’t naturally get to spend much face time together outside of church services. Because of this, they often don’t really know much about each other, which is why you should make an effort to close that gap.

The specific steps you take will vary depending on what kinds of activities your church already does, but a relatively simple option is working with your pastor to organize a youth-led service. The pastor still presides, but your youth can serve as the lectors, the acolytes, the communion assistants, the greeters, or even offer the sermon. What is important is giving your congregation the chance to see the hearts of your group and their personal commitment to their faith lives.

One great way to build new connections between the youth and adults of your church is by completing an activity we call the Faith Snapshot. The full description can be found here, but the main idea is that you take an individual photo of each young person in your group at a location where they feel “at home.” This might be someone wearing their sports uniform, or reading lines from an upcoming play they are in, or cooking food for their friends.

Next, get a large print of that picture so it can be displayed in your church. Then, have each person write a short two or three paragraph response describing why they chose to be photographed the way they did. Have them respond to a provided question or faith statement, chosen by you, sharing why they believe their faith is important to them. Your congregation will get to learn the names and faces of your group, and they will also get to better know each of them and understand what is important to them.

Getting your group in front of the church could potentially help you find additional volunteers, but more importantly, it helps you build a cohesive community that wants to invest in each other and grow closer together. This could also be an activity that you delegate to one or more of your own youth to help you with, which brings us to the next step…

5. Give your youth leadership opportunities.

Sometimes to find leaders for your group, you need to look no further than the people right in front of you. Your members, especially those in high school, have the potential to serve as some of the best leaders your group will ever have. While it’s true that relying on your youth to help lead takes some of the pressure off of you, the real benefit is the investment you are making in them.

This opportunity could be something as simple as letting them lead a game. They could make sure you have all of the required materials, explain the rules, even facilitate the actual gameplay. Youth, if they are trained and prepared in advance, can also make great small-group discussion leaders which can help them find their voice and grow. Perhaps a leadership opportunity takes the form of your youth helping you plan your next meeting. You can give them a “glimpse behind the curtain” of what goes into teaching a lesson, and oftentimes the best way to learn is through teaching someone else.

When you reach out to someone and say “I want your help leading this meeting,” it shows that person you trust them and instills confidence within them. It also lets them know that you see their potential and that you value their input. There are few ways to build someone up more than that.

6. Utilize resources that already exist.

So much of building a healthy youth ministry team, and honestly your ministry as a whole, will come down to trial and error. Every group is different, and it’s important to curate your curriculum to speak directly to your group. However, that doesn’t mean that you need to write every aspect of your meetings from scratch. I have come up with plenty of games myself that are really fun, but some of the best games that I have played I found online.

When you dip into the plethora of knowledge that is on the internet, you will find ideas that you would have never thought of, or at the very least, would have taken you a lot more time to generate yourself. When you utilize the resources that exist online, you are effectively adding some of the best youth ministry workers in the world to your team. However, you must choose wisely and don’t forget to adapt it to better match your group.

When I started as a youth leader, I found that even though those resources are out there, they are unfortunately few and far between. Almost all of the activities that dominate your search results are the same few games your youth have already played a million times, or even worse, aren’t fun. As someone who was in a youth group for years, and has led youth groups from two to fifty people, I’ve amassed some hard-won wisdom and experience.

In addition, since I also have experience with video editing and running a business, I realized I was perfectly positioned to be someone who could offer those resources to people, and that’s why I started my own company called ActuallyFun. Our mission is to help equip youth workers with what they need to run a Christ-centered ministry that builds strong and healthy relationships, uses active learning, and is also very fun.

Focusing On Experience-Based Learning

If you’re looking for high-quality games that are unique and easy to lead, we have a page on our website with dozens of them absolutely for free. Better yet, our Game Index organizes those games by criteria such as the age of the group you’re working with, how many people you expect to participate, the materials you’ll need, and more.

Games may seem like just a silly way to pass the time, but we believe they are a crucial part of developing relationships. Games allow people to build bridges with each other by building new memories and allow people to let their guard down. The key is picking the right games. With our Game Index, you can find the perfect game for your group.

If you really want to take your group to the next level, your curriculum should be based on experience-based learning. When you use a game to help teach a lesson, not only is it easier to convince people to attend, but your message will always be remembered. Coming up with fun games is hard enough, so finding ones that tie into a lesson can take a lot of time if you do it on your own. That’s why we created a service called ActuallyFun PRO.

As a Pro member, you will receive two of our game-driven lessons every month, as well as additional digital programming content that is ready to be incorporated into your ministry. Additionally, we’ve developed stand-alone resources like The Comfy Chair, a deck of 300 questions built to strengthen relationships whether you’ve known each other for ten minutes or ten years. Or Worth a Thousand Words, a game where you use pictures to express yourself and answer meaningful questions, and so much more. Bring ActuallyFun onto your youth ministry team and start building relationships that will last a lifetime!

Continuing To Reflect Him

Working with youth is a tough but incredibly important job. Thankfully, if you follow these steps to find some stellar team members, you can make your experience significantly easier while enhancing your group dynamic along the way. You might never know the effect one of your meetings could have on the people in your group, but if you follow these six steps, you can be assured that your impact will be powerful. Continue to be a reflection of God, and He will put you exactly where you need to be to fulfill His plan!

I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you.

Psalm 32:6

Read More:

5 Impactful Youth Group Activities To Get Your Kids Engaged 

Youth Prayer: Praying For Youth And Teaching Its Importance 

Build Relationships Within Your Youth Group – Small Church Ministry