Youth Ministry Basics: Planning

I have learned a lesson over the past several weeks:

The more planning you do, the more successful you set up your leaders and the event.

It may not seem like a very life altering lesson, but when you get down to the nitty gritty about it, planning is something that we dont always do best at in youth ministry. I would put myself in that category, that I have not spent the time planning for a long good amount of time, before we did something. I had the mentality that if we were going to be doing something, have a base plan and hope that students come. Thats about all my mind would plan. I never saw the need to plan, the need to plan far in advance and what the benefits could be. Although as I learn more about ministry and about events, I am learning that the planning of behind the scenes and what the flow of the night is going to be is more important than almost anything else.

Take for example: if you are planning a youth ministry fall event:

What is the goal of your event?
Where is the event going to be?
How are you going to advertise?
What are you going to advertise?
How are you going to get leaders to commit?
How will you generate excitement?
Who is going to be in charge of games?
Who is going to be in charge of food?
Who is going to be in charge of decorations(if you have any…)?
Who is going to be the logistics person?
Do you need release forms?

These are just a few of the questions that may not be the up front thoughts in our heads when it comes to planning. In my mind, the big questions and the only questions are these:

What are we going to call the event to get students to come?
What are we going to do?
Where is the event going to be?
How do we advertise?

That’s about all I would think about. Hoever I am learning very quickly that 4 questions will not be enough to plan a successful event.

When you get into new seasons of ministry, some events are going to be easier than others to plan. However when you think about some of your bigger events, the more you plan, the more you help your leaders succeed as well as the event itself.

We had a fall kick-off this past Tuesday and it was one of those moments that I learned a lesson.

Other than not playing kick-ball with a pulled groin muscle, I learned the amount of planning that you put into any event/program/trip will determine the success of that particular event. We spent lots of time in conversation, lots of time in Starbucks and lots of time on the computer. Planning everything we could. Now we definitely left room for things to just kind of happen, but in the grand scheme of the event, we planned out butts off. But in the end, we are able to look back and see the fruits of the planning and meetings that we all had.

Is there a process that you use to plan for events/programs/trips that works really well for you?

I would love to learn about how you plan for events.