Henri Nouwen, in his book The Genesee Diary, gives an account of life within a monastic community. While baking raisin bread one day as part of his community responsibility, Nouwen made an interesting observation. Working at the raisin washer along with Brother Theodore and Brother Benedict, they had to stop their work because Brother Theodore was convinced that a stone had somehow fallen in among the raisins.
Theodore insisted, " 'We have to find that stone. If a lady gets it in her bread, she can break her tooth on it and we can be sued!' Pointing to the large bathtub-like container full of washed raisins, he said, 'We have to push those through again until we find that stone.' "
As Nouwen describes it, they pushed millions of raisins back through the washer again until finally, in the very last handful, there it was: "A small purple-blue stone, just as large as a raisin."
He goes on to write: "I was impressed, not only by Theodore's alertness, but even more by his determination to find it and take no risks. He really is a careful diagnostician. This little stone could have harmed someone -- a lady or a monastery."
Evaluating a youth ministry is the careful process of looking for stones among the raisins, taking the time for careful diagnosis so that our fruit brings glory to God.
In How to Evaluate your Youth Ministry, Part 2: The Principles of perceptive assessment we began looking at a three-stage process for evaluating a youth ministry program, a process that begins in Stage One with determination of the vision; then into Stage Two, with an analysis of three main ministry areas: Program, Personnel, and Personal.
Since we have focused on Program, let's now analyze our Personnel.
Evaluating Our Kids
What are our students' needs?
We in the church have a bad habit of scratching where nobody itches. We plan programs on the basis of traditions, expectations, seasons of the year, or whatever curriculum happens to find its way into our hands.
Unfortunately, that approach leaves us answering questions the kids aren't asking and ignoring some of the questions they are asking.
The only way to remedy this problem is to evaluate your students' needs:
What are their felt needs?
What topics do the kids want to talk about? Example: "Duffy, can you talk about how Pokémon cards reveal the secret of the anti-christ?"
What are their real needs? Do they need greater familiarity with the Old Testament, or with fundamental biblical truths, or the call to missions, or the basics of community, or instruction in various lifestyle issues?
Surveying the Surveys
The 5-4-3-2-1 Survey. You can get this information by doing something as simple as the "5-4-3-2-1 Survey." Take five minutes, and on a blank sheet of paper, write down four topics you would like to see the group study, three activities you would like to see our group do, two ways we could make the youth group better and one way you feel you could be better used or involved in this ministry. I also recommend as a simple, user-friendly resource Incredible Youth Group Surveys by Rick Bundschuh (Youth Specialties, 1998).
Specific issues surveys. You can put together a short opinion survey related to a specific issue. Before doing a four-week series on sex and dating, for example, I surveyed my high school students to get their thoughts about some of the issues I was planning to examine. It was unscientific, of course, but it gave us a feel for how our students viewed some of these questions.
Ask them! What do the students think about our program? Youth programs are for youth. That means our evaluation must include some reading of how the students perceive our ministry.
Of course, the "5-4-3-2-1 Survey" will help you get at this, but there are other ways of evaluating. One simple way to find out what the students think, of course, is to ask them. Students are remarkably responsive when they believe we sincerely value their opinions.
Or you could list a range of questions on a survey asking students how they feel about Sunday school, youth group meetings, extra activities, congregational worship, etc. Give them the option of four simple responses:
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Love it
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Like it
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Lose it
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Let's change it (with blanks for suggestions).
There is still need for a third area of evaluation of the students in our ministries: their spiritual growth. But, we'll devote our attention to that question in an upcoming article.
Duffy Robbins chairs the department of youth ministry at Eastern College in St. Davids, Penn. This article first appeared in the May/June, 2000 issue of Good News Magazine. You can access their website at www.goodnewsmag.org.
