In my early years of youth ministry I did some stupid things. Looking back now I smile at one in particular and shake my head in wonder at my naivetĆ©. And I wanted to share it with you because Iām hoping that the lesson itās taught me is something that will help you in your particular context.
You see, our youth ministryās name was Tidal Wave. The whole church was water-themed and with āTidal Waveā as our name, it gave us the water feel as well as a beachy/boardwalk feel. So I got it in my head to do something creative.
Nearly every youth ministry has some way of signing their students in and getting information on new people who show up. We had info cards that covered the basics of name, age, contact info, and a bit more. New students would fill them out and in 3-5 minutes theyād be back in our hands for record keeping purposes. This is where my bright idea comes in.
I decided to go the extra step and make these cards really neat looking. I got them designed to look real sharp when they were printed out (probably spending a few hours on that). Then after cutting them down to size I got a candle and seared the edges of the paper so itād have a slight burnt-edge look. Then after that I made up some tea and tea stained the paper so it would look like washed up paper youād find along a beach.
Looking back now I can only shake my head at what a marvelous waste of time and effort this all was.
These papers were in their hands for maybe 5 minutes max. They didnāt really care what they looked like. It was just a sheet of paper asking for contact info. Sometimes they wouldnāt even want to give that. And here I had spent hours – HOURS! – on them.
This gets me to the point: In order to win in youth ministry (or any ministry or endeavor really) you need to have the ability to discern what needs your A-level work and what gets C-level work.
My personality is such that I just love to go above and beyond. I love to exceed peopleās expectations and to achieve the āwowā factor. Thatās why this story even exists. However, you canāt always do A-level work on everything. You will have to pick and choose what gets your biggest focus. And know this, that when you choose to do above and beyond on one thing you are automatically tipping the scale so that something else isnāt getting as much attention and effort.
So I believe there are 3 wise questions you and I can ask before working on something that will help us to determine whether it should have us going for gold or aiming for bronze:
Is this going to matter to anyone tomorrow?
If neither you nor the recipient(s) is really likely to remember the effort tomorrow, thereās a good chance it doesnāt deserve the main focus of your time and energy. Do the job well, but donāt go overboard in this area. Failing at this kind of task may be notable and memorable, but overachieving here is likely to be wasted effort.
Is this the best use of my āgold levelā effort?
Please know that Iām not arguing for doing mediocre work!! Iām just arguing that we have limited amounts of time, limited amounts of energy, and more than enough places to spend that time and energy. So we need to be wise on what we choose to spend our āgold levelā energy on.
So what matters most in what youāre setting out to do? Whatās the big idea? Whatās the best thing you can do to accomplish your mission? What tasks are directly connected to that? THAT is what should get the āgold levelā work. Without that kind of focus itās like an artist who chooses to spend hours painting on Charmin 2-ply!
Is this something I even have to be the one doing?
Because Iām such a proponent of doing things excellently, let me just give one more idea and a question that fights for the best result but still calls for the best use of your time. Sometimes you shouldnāt go all out on a particular task. Itās not the best use of your time. However, maybe thereās somebody youāre training or working with and it would actually be a good use of their time. Iāve used interns and their incredible offer of time and talent to do 1% changes in our youth ministry that I couldnāt really take the time to do, but that made a HUGE difference when they did it. I couldnāt thank them enough! This is one of the great benefits of teamwork.
Do everything you do as unto the Lord (see Col. 3:23-24). Work well. Produce great stuff. Give it your all. But your āallā doesnāt spread as thick over everything as you and I would both like. So what is going to be done to a satisfactory level and then left be? And then what is it that should get your absolute best effort? Go win the gold in that!