Defining the Culture of your Ministry – Part II

Programs define what you do; Culture is determined by who you are.

In a Part 1 we had a look at four areas that build the culture of your ministry.  In this post we will look at a practical example of what that might look like in an imaginary parish.  This practical example might help you understand more about applying the general principles in your ministry.

Our made up parish will be called St Luke Parish for this example.  St Luke is a parish with one primary school, one Catholic high school and one government high school in the area.  The Parish has had a part time youth minister for two years as a trial.  The parish has three parish interns who are volunteering in the youth ministry team that we will look at in this example.  Imagine that you are also part of the Youth Ministry team at St Luke Parish.

Here are the four areas of Culture that we will reflect on in this youth ministry:

1. What will you begin?  Recently you heard about another Youth Ministry in the Diocese that has been running the Youth Alpha Course and you will look to run the course in a few weeks after a period of promotion.  This will encourage the young people in the ministry to develop a culture of learning (catechesis).  You want people to learn more about their faith and Alpha will enhance this.  One of the Interns heard about another parish that has some hospitality after their youth mass.  The Interns think this will work in St Luke parish.  This will develop a culture of hospitality and friendliness around the Youth Mass.  This will also keep the focus on the Youth Mass which St Luke’s have been working on for 12 months.
2. What will you promote?  Whilst the team have been working on the Youth Mass for 12 months, you haven’t really promoted the music ministry.  You will look for ways to promote the music ministry with young musicians as a way of drawing them into the ministry.  This will create a culture of inclusion where everyone can add their gifts to a ministry.  You also want to develop a culture where young people prepare for the Sunday mass during the week.  The Facebook group is one way of developing this culture.  An Intern will update the group page with links to the Sunday readings each week.  By providing links to Biblegateway.com the young people will become familiar with one tool that will help them study the Bible themselves.
3. What will you stop doing?  After months of social outings the Parish Priest feels this is distracting from the focus on the Youth Mass.  A culture has developed where people turn up sometimes and don’t RSVP at other times making events hard to plan.  Also people are choosing the social events yet say they don’t have any “spare time” for serving at the Youth Mass.  So the Youth Ministry will stop offering social activities on Friday nights and build a culture of staying after the Sunday night youth mass as a way of keeping the social connections.  The music ministry also decided that they will stop music rehearsal 30 minutes before the Sunday mass so that musicians can socialise with people arriving for Mass.  This will give space for CD music which will create a more vibrant atmosphere than the last minute practice.
4. Major on the Majors and Minor in the Minors.  After reflecting on your ministry, the Youth Ministry Team realise that the Youth Mass is important to the ministry, it is your Major.  The ministry team will work with the Interns to create a culture of service around the Youth Mass.  The attitude that you want to develop is that the Youth Mass is the high point of your ministry, not just something that we have to do.  So everyone in the ministry will place a major focus on building a culture of serving in the activities before, during and after the Youth Mass.  It is also important to develop a culture of invitation (Evangelisation) that encourages people to bring their friends to the youth mass not the social activities.  The social activities are a minor part of the culture so as a team you decide to reduce the emphasis on this for a few months.  The Interns suggest that the annual Christmas party be seen as a chance to celebrate the success of the youth ministry over the year.  This will be an “open mic” night where people share the stories of the year and the success of the ministry.

Now this is just one example of building culture.  In your ministry go beyond the programs you are offering to have a look at who you are as a ministry and what you are inviting new people to join.

Mark McDonald

Mark McDonald is the Diocesan Coordinator of Youth Ministry for the Diocese of Broken Bay.  You can follow Mark on twitter @mrmarkmcdonald