Case Study #5 Chronic Complainers and the Prickly Porcupine
Situation: Hannah has been youth director for 9 months at Westminster Church, the first full-time youth minister in the church’s history. Parents and kids describe her as a “porcupine.” Every time she is approached with a problem by parents, volunteers or youth, she responds with defensiveness, and a long description of how busy she is and how hard she is working. Despite all her hard work and effort, it is clear the youth ministry hasn’t grown as the church anticipated, in fact the numbers have decreased by 50% since she started. Hannah attributes the decrease in participation to students’ busy schedules, uncommitted parents and the fact that so many different schools are represented in the youth ministry.
The Solution: Westminster Church needs to establish crystal clear job expectations, including basic, measurable results expected from its youth staff. Without such documents and appropriate evaluation processes, Hannah will remain vulnerable to chronic criticism, unable to discern which concerns deserve her utmost attention. The church too will remain frustrated about the lack of results in its youth ministry, with no clear mechanism for holding its staff accountable for accomplishing the most important priorities of the ministry.
The Result: YMA provides both youth staff and church leadership with on-going coaching in how to structure staff relationship to maximize the likelihood of an effective and mutually satisfying ministry. Though the creation of results-based job descriptions and the establishment of clear accountability, coaching and evaluation processes, YMA helps senior pastors take much of the guesswork out of the management of its youth staff.
Additional Resources:
See sample job descriptions.
Read other case studies #1 #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7
Situation: Hannah has been youth director for 9 months at Westminster Church, the first full-time youth minister in the church’s history. Parents and kids describe her as a “porcupine.” Every time she is approached with a problem by parents, volunteers or youth, she responds with defensiveness, and a long description of how busy she is and how hard she is working. Despite all her hard work and effort, it is clear the youth ministry hasn’t grown as the church anticipated, in fact the numbers have decreased by 50% since she started. Hannah attributes the decrease in participation to students’ busy schedules, uncommitted parents and the fact that so many different schools are represented in the youth ministry.
The Solution: Westminster Church needs to establish crystal clear job expectations, including basic, measurable results expected from its youth staff. Without such documents and appropriate evaluation processes, Hannah will remain vulnerable to chronic criticism, unable to discern which concerns deserve her utmost attention. The church too will remain frustrated about the lack of results in its youth ministry, with no clear mechanism for holding its staff accountable for accomplishing the most important priorities of the ministry.
The Result: YMA provides both youth staff and church leadership with on-going coaching in how to structure staff relationship to maximize the likelihood of an effective and mutually satisfying ministry. Though the creation of results-based job descriptions and the establishment of clear accountability, coaching and evaluation processes, YMA helps senior pastors take much of the guesswork out of the management of its youth staff.
Additional Resources:
See sample job descriptions.
Read other case studies #1 #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7
