Every youth pastor knows the importance of relationships.

You won’t see a young person’s life radically changed just by listening to the best sermons. For every solid teen in a youth group, somehow, somewhere, there are committed believers pouring their guts out for that student. For the solid teens that come from Christian homes, that’s often the parents.

But what about the families that aren’t led by parents that love the Lord and disciple their kids?

I believe that family is one of the biggest “gaps” that we as youth ministers are called to fill. God created the family structure so that parents can pass their faith to the next generation. In light of so many families that aren’t doing this, or who aren’t even believers, He has allowed youth leaders to fill that gap by ministering to students.

Problems come when we try to replace the “gap” of strong relationships with programs. Students do not need programs. Students need you.

A fascinating study (abstract here, bottom of page) of youth pastors in the mid west discovered an interesting pattern. These youth pastors firmly believed in the importance of personal relationships with students, and they also stated that the format of their youth meetings basically weren’t working.

Yet they still spent 80% of their time preparing for those “so-so” meetings, all the while wishing they had more time for relationships.

My question to you is this: Is there something you are doing in ministry, or in your life, that you aren’t getting the results you aimed for? How much time does that take each week? Can that time be better spent on other activities, such as building relationships, that you know have a better chance of growing fruit?

Programs are not inherently bad–in fact, they’re necessary! So please consider these questions prayerfully as they may not be for all of you, but I do believe this is one thing some of us need to hear.

My prayer is that the Lord would use these ideas to drive us to prayer and help us work more diligently and effectively for Him.

Nathaniel Dame is a youth ministry coach and youth culture expert. His passion is to equip youth pastors to be the leaders that God has called them to be and to have a deep, lasting impact on their students. He is the founder of Called to Youth Ministry and blogs regularly at Effective Youth Ministry.

This post is part three of the four-part series, “How to respond to the crisis.”