DREAM
What does it mean to be successful in ministry?
Success can be a tricky concept when it comes to ministry with young people, particularly when thinking about work in schools. It used to be that we measured success by how many young people were coming along to the CU each week or signed up for a residential. We talked with other youth workers about how many students had become Christians over the last year or the ‘busyness’ of our programmes. Perhaps that is still the culture you are working in, or maybe you have resisted subscribing to that mindset.
A helpful verse to come back to when considering a theme such as success can be found in the writings of one of the minor prophets in the Old Testament. Micah writes: ‘What does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.’
Perhaps it really is both as simple and as complex as that. Thinking about success can be an opportunity to recognise achievement or it can lead to a dangerous sense of striving for greatness. Thomas Merton said: ‘At all costs avoid one thing: success… If you are too obsessed with success, you will forget to live. If you have learned only how to be a success, your life has probably been wasted.’
Try and find some time this month to talk or pray with someone about what ‘success’ looks like for you in schools, or to think about measuring impact and evaluating your work. We will visit the theme of measuring impact in greater detail on another schools’ work page.
DEVELOP
Coaching for ‘success’
Do you work one-to-one with students in schools, offering mentoring or even small group work? Perhaps think this year about offering coaching to your students, which is distinct from mentoring. Under the theme of ‘success’, during the autumn term it can be strategic to help GCSE students (14 to 16-year-olds) consider what this might mean for them ahead of their exams, or the same for 16 to 19-year-olds.
A coaching relationship, although similar to mentoring, offers a different kind of support for students, often in a limited and agreed time frame. In a coaching relationship questions are key. An order of these might be to:
1. Establish an area for development with the student or a goal to be reached, helping them to be clear about what the desired end state will look like.
2. Help your student to consider a range of potential ways to solve the problem or work towards the goal. Then help them analyse each one so they can work out which will get them closest to where they want to be.
3. Help them to build a plan that is practical and actionable. It can be helpful to use the SMART acronym (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely) when looking at plans.
4. Build in a form of accountability for taking the next steps, such as suggesting a time frame for them to come back to you and update you on their progress.
5. Validate your student and their hard work where deserved, including their commitment to growth in relevant areas.
Coaching does not require you to be an expert in the area that your coachee wants to develop in. Your job is to ask the key questions and help them process the steps they need to take. For a coaching session plan around the theme of success, please visit schoolsworkUK for a ready-to-use guide to use with year-11 students who are in their exam year. You will find a link to that on the main carousel on the homepage.
DO
‘Successful year’ assembly
If you were to run some coaching sessions for year-11 students, for example, this could be a good assembly to run to introduce the idea and advertise the opportunity to them. It also works as a stand-alone assembly for any secondary year group. For a full plan including a story to use, please see schoolsworkUK, where one of the main items on the carousel will read ‘successful year’ assembly.
Items to include:
QUESTIONS ‘What would this school year look like for you if you were to look back on it next summer and call it a “successful” year? What would you have learnt, what would you have achieved, what would you have said or done this year that you can feel a sense of accomplishment in?’
STORY Failures and success stories. See the download on the schoolsworkUK website.
FAITH AND REFLECTION
We can look at the idea of success in all sorts of ways. It is not always about making money or getting the top exam grades. Sometimes success is about making something good out of a mistake, overcoming fear or even choosing to say no. It can involve being true to yourself or your beliefs even when that is not the most popular idea or decision.
Include Proverbs 3:3–4 (noticing the use of the word ‘success’ in some versions of the Bible, such as the ESV): ‘Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. Then you will win favour and a good name [good success] in the sight of God and man.’
