This picture was from a youth ministry where we had a Friday Night connect time called: Chill Time

One of the things that I have come to realize is that of getting your youth ministry students to connect with you as their leader. This is important so that when you move them towards being active with some type of event or activity that you would like for them to do – they are more likely to do it and respond to you.

So how do we get them to connect with us?

I watched a video about marketing recently and in this video the guy speaking talked about how great companies always had a face to connect people with. When you think of Apple you thought of Steve Jobs, Facebook – Mark Zuckerberg, Christianity – Jesus. This was a pretty extensive study and we are wired to follow and connect with people so that is why Facebook and Twitter are so popular because people are interested in people and not organizations.

I have heard many times, and admittedly myself, that people like Jesus but not the church. Jesus knew that he had to invest and picked his disciples to “follow” him. And in the same way we need to connect with students to help them follow us so that we can speak truth into their lives.

It all comes down to this: Spend Time With Them

Duh right? But seriously, how much real time are you “spending with them” outside of the up in front of them thing? Create times of recreation where students can see you in action. Where they can see you laugh and run and play and allow them to peer into your life. A lot of youth ministry leaders get a lot of crap for having “fun” events and actvities for students, but its because they don’t understand that you need to connect with them and get them to a place where they want to follow you.

The best time to do this is right at the beginning of your ministry job but can be built upon if you have been there awhile already. We get too wrapped up in administrative stuff that others could be doing for us  and we need to hand that stuff off as much as possible.

So much of being effective comes down to relationship. When I feel like I have failed it was due to lack of relationships with people. So get active and create times of relationship building. Build bridges don’t destroy them. Explain this part of your philosophy of youth ministry to your leadership so that they get it.

What kinds of connection activities are working for you?

About Steve Blanchard

I love God, Family, Youth Ministry, Blogging, Internet Marketing Check out more about me at: Google+

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