I was jogging on the track at the recreation department where I work out. The track over looks a total of four basketball courts throughout the building. As I was running I couldn’t help but notice two teams of young girls, probably around the ages of 10 or 11 squaring off. This one portion of the gym is surrounded by about a fourth of the track so as I was jogging I could see several plays transpire on the court and every time I made it back around the court I could watch more of the game.
On one of the teams there was this one girl, for some reason she just stuck out to me. She was the fastest by far on the court, she rose about half a foot to a foot over the rest of the girls, and her presence simply commanded attention. If I didn’t know any better I would have thought her dad or mom played for a professional basketball team, the way she took control of the game. She was grabbing offensive and defensive rebounds, splitting the defense with her dribbling, sometimes taking it coast to coast with the opposing team barely being able to keep up with her speed, unfortunately her team was losing. As I rounded the track over and over I noticed one thing, this girl. She never passed the ball, she always took the shot, but the one problem was this…she had a weakness…her shooting. No one could match her speed, her height, or her other skills, but she could not shoot the ball. I watched her shoot up close and far away, but she never hit it. She would ignore her teammates that were closer to the basket and wide open so that she could take the shot, no matter how well she was defended, she never shared the ball.
Watching this play out made me think about how there are a lot of youth ministries that continuously lose. Too many lead youth workers think they have all of the skills that are required to lead their ministry and they neglect those around them that may be stronger in a specific area than they are. Just like with the girl basketball player, she possessed certain skills, but she could not have been the best shooter, however she thought her skills trumped the skill of the shooters. Maybe a lead youth worker has a degree that they worked very hard for (and paid a lot of money to earn) and they feel that this automatically gives them all of the answers to successfully oversee a youth ministry. Or, maybe a lead youth worker compares himself to those on his team and thinks more highly of himself than he does his youth ministry teammates so he feels he must control every aspect of ministry around him to make it run effectively. Viewpoints like these only lead to individual focused ministry versus team focused ministry.
When a lead youth worker has viewpoints that are focused more on self than on the leadership team, sadly the outcome is failure. It is no wonder why youth leaders can pay hundreds of dollars on conferences and seminars and still not see success and health in their ministry. If only youth leaders would learn to pass the ball to our teammates who are qualified in the areas where we are weak, we could see some of our failures turn into successes. As a lead youth worker it is okay to be confident in the gifts, talents, and skills that God has blessed you with, but it requires godly humility to recognize that it takes more than those skills to accomplish great things. Pass the ball to a teammate this week; ask for their opinion on specific ministry items, ask them to take the lead in a ministry area, operate in your strengths and allow your team to operate in theirs!