STAY
NIGEL WINDER | Southern Regional Director, SUNZ
the
KEY QUESTIONS TO ASK TO STAY ON MISSION
M
inistry to young people can be like climbing a mountain: there are potentially hundreds of pathways to the summit. Each trail will be different, depending on where you start and choices made along the way. We are blessed with such a mountain load of resources to support our ministries to young people. Any Google search can potentially provide a blizzard of suggested sites to visit and our inboxes are flooded with great resources and a tonne of ideas on how to do ministry in new ways. It is enough to make us feel quite overwhelmed. The winds of change brought by a pandemic storm have topped up this mountain of resources with a fresh covering of material. However, the main reasons we do ministry haven’t changed with COVID-19 or any other major global or local event—just some of the ways we deliver that ministry. Through times of change, many ministries have gained fresh clarity about what really matters above all else: connection with God and connection with each other. Many of us have been asking ourselves: ‘Which pathway do I take to achieve this? Which resource or method of delivery do I
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use?’ The key to finding our path, I believe, is to consider where we are now, and then fix our eyes on our end goal (the summit)—and then ask ourselves some questions. Why does this ministry exist? The starting point is to ask why our ministry exists. The answer to the ‘why?’ question becomes our summit reference point to help guide us into decisions about resources, processes and forms of delivery. It is no coincidence that very few mountain climbers get lost climbing up a mountain. That’s because they are working towards a single point. They have the summit to keep looking up to as their reference and guide. The summit is their purpose for climbing, their end goal. It is this that keeps them motivated and on track. Many youth ministries have taken the time recently to stop and take a compass bearing, rediscovering the most important things to be focusing on right now. During a time of change we need to be confident in knowing our summit, our ministry’s key purpose and our end goals so we stay the path. What else do we need to be considering?
