Top Ten Tips for Youth Leaders

Tip 5: Ask, “what’s the point?”

Everything we ever do is motivated by a reason – some of these things are conscious, although many are unconscious.

For example, I have just visited the little boy’s room. This is because I thought to myself, “goodness, my peanut sized bladder feels very full from over-indulgence in coffee; I had better empty it for the fifteenth time today.”
This was a conscious decision.

However, last night I stupidly placed my hand on an oven ring. Instead of consciously thinking, “hey, I’d better remove my hand from this cooker as it appears that smoke is rising from my fingers”, I quickly whipped them away & placed them under a cold tap. An unconscious decision.

Both processes are important.

However, as a church we often forget, ignore or have been trained not to practice the former – conscious thinking. We run around at 400mph, trying to get everything done (“the way it’s always been done”) & rarely sit back long enough to ask, “Why am I doing this? Why is this organisation run this way? What is the point of this meeting? Why I am meeting with this person?”

My advice today is simple, verging on the patronising. Take some scheduled thinking time. Be intentional. Ask what is the reason behind your ministry? Why am I having this meeting? What is the purpose of our organisation? Why do we do what we do, in this way?

But don’t assess whether it’s meeting that purpose just yet, that’s coming up later!!!