Best People on Your Biggest Opportunities, Not Your Biggest Problems

By Doug Franklin September 26, 2012

I was recently working with a youth ministry that had a new young couple wanting to join their volunteer staff. The church was large and had many home groups already meeting. The couple was passionate about students who were in trouble and needed guidance. Kind of a dream come true story; young couple wants to serve with students who are the hardest to minister to. The youth ministry needed help desperately in a group that was made up of apathetic students who seemingly just didn’t care about church or God. What do you think the ministry did? You’re right, they placed the couple where they had the need not where they were passionate. We do this a lot in youth ministry because we are usually putting out fires. We don’t get ahead in our recruitment of volunteers so we don’t have the luxury of placing people by passions.  Truth is we are actually hurting our ministries more than helping them. Sure in the short-run we feel good about filling a hole but in the long-run we will be filling that hole again soon because that couple will only stay one-year and then leave. We must be disciplined as youth ministry leaders to do the hard work of recruiting the right staff so we can be prepared to place people on our biggest opportunities, not our biggest problems.