Pay attention to the interactions you have with other youth workers, and I bet each conversation ends with someone promising to keep in touch or be more intentional about working together. In fact, it seems rare not to find a youth worker who doesn’t believe collaboration is the best way to practice ministry. Most youth workers tell me they’re team players and believe in community. That’s great. This intuitive instinct to work together is confirmed by many organizational experts who suggest that having the ability to collaborate is a necessary leadership quality.1 Still, these youth workers often admit they’re doing ministry in isolation and lament feeling very alone.
Another way to think about the phenomenon youth workers experience may be to frame it this way: When one believes (theoretically or philosophically) in the concept of collaboration, this is called espoused theory. The way leaders actually collaborate (their actions and choices) is called theory in practice.2 I’m sure you see the problem: Experts say we should collaborate; youth workers believe the experts are right; but in real-life ministry, few collaborate. Youth workers’ espoused theory doesn’t match their theory in practice, and it seems they’re feeling the loss.
So what’s happening? Where’s the breakdown? We know pragmatically that working with others is a good idea. We know theologically that the church is a body and community that seeks to embody the very essence of Jesus on earth, living into His prayer that we be one as He and the Father are one. Still, I’ve encountered a high percentage of youth workers who don’t know their senior pastors, have a hard time working with other staff volunteers, and barely know their youth worker neighbors in town.
There has to be a way to bring youth workers’ espoused theory and theory in practice closer together. There has to a way to bring youth workers closer to each other. It seems the problem may not be knowledge or desire but a willingness to step into collaborative space, which is personally risky. Collaboration calls for something more than joining a group. It starts with letting people into our lives who may challenge, shape and change the way we think about our theologies, our identities and our ministries. The way of collaboration flows from the inside out.
Collaborate to Expand Your (Peripheral) Vision
There are needs for visions and mission statements. Too often, however, I hear of leaders who have gone to the mountaintop (or coffee shop), emerging with a new vision for ministry. Though inspirational, the vision is limited because it lacks another element of vision—peripheral vision. I use peripheral vision to describe the ability a leader has to look not only ahead but also to look systemically. Youth workers charged with serving a particular demographic tend to have vision that shrinks into tunnel vision. Tunnel vision makes leaders inflexible, one-dimensional and unable to see bigger, more complex views. It produces ministry schedules that don’t take into account church, family and school schedules. It hyper-focuses on one type of adolescent, one type of sin, one type of solution and/or one aspect of theology. It typically blinds the leader from seeing a majority of adolescents who have different lives, different questions, different needs, and different hopes.
Broadening your peripheral vision requires seeking insights and help from others. It practices collaboration that listens, asks for feedback, and is open diverse opinions. To broaden your peripheral vision, take these steps toward collaboration:
• Have volunteers in your ministry track your use of illustrations. Ask them to give you feedback about the types of illustrations you overuse and/or never use. Be willing to adjust.
• Consult with parents before you host a parent meeting or send a parent letter/email. Ask them if the tone, content, length, etc. is helpful to them. Be responsive.
• Plan your ministry schedule with other ministry leaders at your church. Watch for dates that conflict (e.g. a crucial Sunday morning service and your retreat) or opportunities to work together (a month of focus on a shared priority). Be proactive.
Collaborate to Share Your Teenagers
I believe love often motivates youth workers to treat their youth group kids as their own, and there’s something remarkable about that. However, there’s also something about it that just isn’t true. While youth workers play crucial roles in adolescents’ lives, they are not the parents, grandparents, siblings, teachers, friends or coaches—we share our young people with other adults. Each of us represents one relationship of many; unless we realize this, we will treat them, relate to them, program for them in myopic ways that only takes into account our plans, schedules and goals for them.
Taking steps toward collaboration in youth ministry means taking steps toward other adults in our adolescents’ lives. It means recognizing the future of a young person does not solely rise or fall on you or your ministry, but plays an important role in the constellation of support that is needed for their social capital.3 Sharing your teenagers requires collaboration that requires the following:
• Ask yourself: Am I setting up my adolescents’ parents to have good conversations about the topic we’ve addressed in our programming tonight?
• As yourself: How can I honor the middle and/or high school teachers in our community who invest in our students? Do I know their names?
• Ask yourself: Have I positioned my youth ministry programming against other student opportunities (e.g., sports, band, drama)? Might there a better approach than forcing students to choose?
• Ask yourself: What adult relationships in our community do I have or need to ensure that together we are supporting young people in our community? Who do I need to reach out to first?
Collaborate to Discover New Territory
As I have pursued collaboration in my own ministry context, what has driven me may be best articulated in Paul’s prayer for the Ephesian church: a very diverse group of Jesus followers living in a diverse context, trying to figure out what it means to be a faith community. Paul prayed:
“And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God” (Eph. 3:14-19).
Paul established that people are rooted in God’s love. God’s love is assumed to be present and the starting point of faith where God’s love is generous, available and grounding. Further, Paul said that God’s love is bigger than we ever could imagine and calls the community to get its collective imagination around it by grasping for it together.
This idea of grasping is interesting. It means to understand, realize, see or experience something that we have not understood before. It means each person in the community needs to step into new territory. There is no majority wins, no home-field advantage, no convincing others to see it my way. There are only faithful steps toward new territory for everyone. Each person must let go of the familiar to imagine something better—together. This is the new imaginative territory through collaboration about which Paul is talking.
If collaboration is everyone together grasping, imagining, stepping into new territory, then this requires fresh approaches to the ways youth workers hold their roles within their ministries, the ways youth workers develop their ministry activities, and the ways they invest their resources. Discovering new territory together also means leaving familiar territory behind. Collaboration can help get you there, but you need to be willing to:
Address the Silos of the Heart: Youth workers no longer can blame segmented or siloed structures for the distance they feel from the rest of the church. The siloing of youth ministry is more than a structural problem; it is a heart problem. There is no doubt that focusing on your own program, budget and young people is easier; but this creates isolation that is not merely unfortunate, but damaging. Youth workers who cannot see their actions having systemic implications with others outside their scope of ministry fail to understand the integrated nature of ministry, relationships and community. Collaboration needs for a bigger, systemic, connected view and may need us first to address the silos of the heart. Get out of your office, walk across the hall. It’s your move.
Reject Efficiency as Formational: Youth workers often feel internal (and sometimes, external) pressure to help/heal/save teenagers. Certainly there is urgency to support our students in the crucial times of their lives, but youth workers are missing the point if they reject collaboration in order to get more done faster. Formation needs an emphasis on process, not just end results. Prioritizing a collaborative process can create a formational culture rather than a string of one-time events. I recently spoke at a winter retreat cohosted by five churches. What made the winter retreat amazing was that the youth pastors, all from the same area, met regularly to build their relationships, struggled to envision how a winter camp looked (navigating different racial, denominational and socio-economic backgrounds), and pulled off the event. It was a retreat years in the making. Formationally, they grew something more than a winter retreat. Their students discovered something more, as well. One student, who used to bully another student at school but attended a separate church, ended up at the same retreat with the other student. The two became friends and found reconciliation. There is no quick solution for redemptive stories, and there’s nothing efficient about it; but this captures the good news we long for in all our communities.
End Competition: I don’t have to remind you that youth workers can be competitive. We withhold our best ideas and isolate our best selves. Deep down, I think we want to connect; and given the opportunity, we are willing to bring our best ideas for the sake of young people. Winning isn’t being better than someone else; it’s being better for a whole generation. At Mars Hill Bible Church, we realized we had something to share and something to learn, so we developed The Collaborative, a youth worker training event that is now in its sixth year.4 While The Collaborative serves as a capstone for Mars Hill’s volunteer training arc by hosting an expert on our topic of focus, we have invited regional youth ministry leaders, professors, college majors and volunteers to join the conversation. The goal of The Collaborative is for every person to leave with one idea, one next step, and one conversation partner. It’s about bringing great ideas together and taking them further for the sake of every young person.5
Risk the Familiar for the Unknown: My sense is that youth workers lean on their reputations for being creative, but are not exercising their creative mojo. They are stuck being reactive, predictable and formulaic on increasingly limited budgets. I’d like to call youth workers back to what likely got them into ministry: the willingness to try something new, innovative and professionally risky. You don’t have to risk alone, however. What if youth workers collaborated on ideas, shared resources and complemented each other’s strengths? What if we created resources and resourced creativity together?
At the Fuller Youth Institute, we are cultivating spaces for innovation, collaboration and experimentation so we can make room for collaborative risk-taking in youth ministry again. We believe, through our research and interaction with youth workers, that they have big dreams and creative ideas that are worth trying, developing and sharing. Some of the most transformative ideas have emerged through youth workers who have invested in our Sticky Faith Cohorts. Their input is informing our resource approaches. Further, we are in the process of developing new, collaborative platforms that will gather ministry leaders around theological and missional topics to reimagine how churches engage young people and how youth ministries reinvent themselves to address young people’s pressing questions. We are committed to the belief that the way we support young peoples’ faith journeys is through the collaborative efforts of dedicated leaders across multiple disciplines. Together, we can offer the really great news that adolescents and emerging adults seek.6
Youth ministry is about more than creating new ideas. It’s about creating new and renewed collaborative relationships that usher youth workers into ministry visions that once again capture the imagination. I’m convinced this only will happen if we’re willing to enter that new territory communally and collaboratively. We know it’s true. We believe it. Now, let’s really practice it-inside-out and together.
1 Leadership experts such as Peter Senge offer helpful information such as: http://nbs.net/real-collaboration-takes-more-than-meetings-and-powerpoints/. Also researchers on Emotional Intelligence suggest that EQ is necessary for the ways leaders work with others, e.g. Stein, S. (2011). The EQ Edge: Emotional Intelligence and Your Success. 2nd ed. Jossey-Bass.
2 Argyris, C., & Schon, D.A. (1977). What Is an Organization That It Can Learn? Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
3 For more information on the concept of social capital, see Chap Clark’s discussion in Hurt 2.0: Inside the World of Today’s Teenagers. (2011, Baker Academic) and the SEARCH Institute’s work on their 40 Developmental Assts.
4 If you are near the West Michigan area, watch for information at MarsHilll.org for how you can collaborate together at this February 2016 event!
5 For a more detailed description of my thinking on collaboration and formational arcs, read my chapter, “Rethinking Church Strategies and Structures,” in Adoptive Youth Ministry: Integrating Emerging Generations into the Family of Faith (2016). Chap Clark, Ed. Baker Academic.
6 Get more information on FYI’s initiatives and how you can get involved by checking out FullerYouthInstitute.org/Innovate for opportunities to connect, collaborate and innovate.
