People all the time ask me, “How do you define success?” or, “How do I know I am being successful?” The concept fills blogs, books and staff meetings. It is the make or break for many in youth ministry and often is the difference between keeping or losing a job.

It is a tricky question with sometimes trickier sets of answers, especially when the answers are more slow cooker than microwave.

My answers/reflections come as I enter my 22^nd year of youth ministry, as well as wrap up my first year at a new church and end a summer spent with two of my former students from my previous church as interns.

You May Be Able to Define Success in Youth Ministry…
5 to 10 years from now

Year one is getting to know the ministry, church, area, people and the history. Year two is forming and shaping how your ministry needs to look, whom it targets, and what your vision for your ministry approach is going to be. Year three is when you actually start running your own youth ministry. So…at the minimum, you cannot start defining success until at least year five at a given church—and maybe not then!

Success Can Be Defined by Longevity
When they choose to serve
While we like to fill our lessons with information and a couple Greek words, success in ministry cannot be seen through how much knowledge and facts we have imparted. Often in youth ministry, we spend much of our time studying and then delivering lengthy amounts of information, but our students actually don’t retain much of it. There is no quiz or test at the end of their time in our ministries to assess how much our students learned or the number of facts they remembered in order for us to know whether we passed or failed as their shepherds.

What we can observe is life, actions and service. Are the students we have served turning around and applying what they have heard in serving others? This is not the obligatory annual mission trip and holiday service project but something that lives beyond our efforts.

Success Can Be Seen When Students Decide to Serve!
When faith and story is shared
For many in youth ministry (and often in the church as a whole), the definition of success is found in numbers: numbers in the pews, number of salvations, number of rededications, number of baptisms. These are all easy ones and warm, fuzzy ways to reassure ourselves we are not failing. All those things are wonderful, and I do not want to belittle those things; but those numbers are often false positives of success in ministry.

Consider Some Different Numbers:
– The number of students and young adults who honestly, confidently and regularly share their faith in a personal relational way;
– The number of students who can tell you the entire story of the Bible and its connections to the gospel throughout;
– The number of people coming to Christ, not through an event or a forced encounter, but because someone was willing to share their own faith story with them in an authentic way.

Success Can Be Defined by Authentic Faith Stories Being Shared
In the family
Youth ministry is about us ministering to young people. We dedicate hours to loving, leading and learning. We sacrifice so much in the hope that young people will want to follow Christ with their lives. We take our youth groups away to camps, retreats and on other trips. We host concerts, events and lock-ins.

We pack our schedules and work extra hours. We work so hard for the mission and the calling. We look back after years of serving a group, a church or a place. We remember the names and faces of so many students into whom we have poured our energy and efforts. However, we may have missed the most important young people we are called to serve and end up failing because…

Success in youth ministry can be defined best when our own children choose to follow Christ!