Have you ever heard of the Pareto Principle? The Pareto Principle says that you get 80% of your impact from 20% of the causes. Here are a few examples
20% of your church pays 80%of the tithes
20% of your youth ministry makes 80% of the noise
20% of your message is the 80% that’s good
It’s safe to say then, that 20% of your year gives you 80% of the bang. That means 20% of your year, approximately 11 weeks, brings your youth ministry the most momentum, the most opportunities to reach the lost, the most opportunities to grow, and make the most opportunities to make an impact on your students. Do you know which weeks they are? If you do, are you taking full advantage of them?
You only have so many weeks to impact a student from the time they come into your youth ministry time they leave. That means, if a kid comes in 6th grade and stays faithful for six years you have 312 weeks with them, 66 of those weeks will have made the most impact.
Let me offer what I think are the most important weeks in the life of a youth ministry, yours may differ, but you still have to find YOUR 11 weeks in the year where you can make the biggest difference.
The second week of January
The week before a retreat
The week after a retreat
The week before camp
The week of camp
The week after camp
The week after someone receives Christ.
The week before an outreach
The week of the outreach
The week after an outreach
The week of graduation
This is just one of the articles (with a worksheet) you will find in my resource, My Youth Ministry Playbook. If you don’t feel like you have a track to run on, this resource will not only give you planning tools (who, what where, why) but it teaches you how to plan.
Watch me break it all down in this livestream over on my Youtube Channel.