The start of the school year is an interesting time of year for your youth ministry as you will see new members join and some leave. Yes some will leave no matter what you do, but let’s try a few ideas out to keep your retention up!
Keeping Your Youth Ministry Running!
One of the major “drop off” points in a student’s time in Youth Ministry is early in the school year. There are many reasons for this. It’s a time in life were everyone is going through major changes, and the priorities of your student’s change fairly easily. If a student is part of your youth ministry all year , GREAT SUCCESS! But as you know, some of the student’s will stop attending or find less and less time for your youth ministry.
There will be times when no matter what you do, that student will lose interest in your youth group and move on to other things. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to keep as many student’s in your ministry as possible! Let’s break down a few ideas on how to keep your student’s with your youth ministry all the way through senior year of high school.
Be Known in the Community where your Youth Ministry is located.
So you meet with your youth group once a week, which is great. Maybe every other month you and your youth group have an outreach program, fantastic!
But don’t miss out where you can be seen and become part of the community.
- Go to local events, fairs.
- Go to sporting events where your student’s are participating.
- Be seen by your student’s and members of your youth ministry.
Another way to stay in touch with all of your student’s is something that a lot of youth group leaders pass over…
Connect with your student’s parents.
Having a small chat while your student’s are being picked up from a youth event is great, but make an effort to really connect!
- Get the e-mail addresses/ mailing addresses and send out a simple weekly Youth Ministry Update
- Get the Phone numbers of every parent and give them a ring every month to see if they have any ideas for the youth ministry or if they would like to help out with an outreach program.
Constantly invite people into the youth group.
- Invite your students to bring friends to any youth group get together or event.
- The more people that are in your youth group, the better chance people will make lasting relationships with the more people and every youth group meeting will seem just like a time with their best friends.
