What impact has COVID-19 had on Youth and Children’s Ministry?
A report which has researched how how youth and children’s ministers were affected by COVID-19 this year.
Read the full report here: https://yw.training/C-19Impacts
Attend the Zoom webinar on 19th November at 2pm: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81303475445?pwd=aE96SGxNM1N4YU9jd0wzWDB3eWNaQT09
From March to the end of May, the Youthworks Ministry Support Team had spent at least 540 hours on the phone to youth and children’s workers, had more than 170 Zoom meetings, made almost 300 phone calls or emails, run 67 ministry networks and written almost 40 articles about pressing on in youth and children’s ministry during a global pandemic (which to be honest, none of us had ever thought about before). We did all of this to encourage, equip, support, pray with, listen to, dream with, strategise with, and plan with youth and children’s workers in local churches and schools - the people on the front line of making the vision of Youthworks a reality.
That vision is this:
“An effective youth and children’s ministry in every church”
As you’d expect, our team had a lot of hunches as to what people were going through, how they were feeling, how they were going, how they were coping, what impacts they were facing and what trends were emerging. But in June we decided we wanted to further our support by finding out what was really going on.
We did this because we wanted to be able to help youth and children’s workers keep pressing on with that vision regardless of the circumstances.
We wanted to know what ministry was like for youth and children’s workers during COVID-19, how they were tracking in personal wellbeing, were they stressed (we thought they probably were… and we were right!) what were the stresses, how they were going spiritually, how their ministries had changed, what was working, and what wasn’t.
We wanted to know how their staff teams were going, how their volunteer leaders were going, how the young people in their care were going and how their partnerships with parents and families were going.
We also wanted to know how they were feeling about the future, what their plans were and what were the principles driving them.
Most of all we wanted to be able to learn, from the experiences during COVID-19, how we, in youth and children’s ministry, could press on with making our ministries more effective as we endure, emerge from and live in the uncertainty of this pandemic – as well as inform our ministry principles and practices should any other crisis come.
Read the full report here: https://yw.training/C-19Impacts
Attend the Zoom webinar on 19th November at 2pm: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81303475445?pwd=aE96SGxNM1N4YU9jd0wzWDB3eWNaQT09
The findings in summary
In June of 2020, in light of the impacts of COVID-19 on the Australian (and global) society and economy, and, in particular, the challenges it posed for youth and children’s ministry, the Youthworks Ministry Support Team set out to compile data on how youth and children’s ministry workers had been impacted by COVID-19.
We developed an online survey covering a range of youth and children’s ministry related topics, collected the data and began to analyse it. We found some interesting results.
Most respondents were Sydney Anglicans with various other locations and denominations represented. The responses were divided roughly in half between youth and children’s workers across a range of ages.
A majority of respondents were experiencing higher levels of anxiety, with many also reporting poor sleep, longer working hours and a range of negative feelings including exhaustion. However, many who reported these negative feeling also reported positive feelings such as “hopefulness” and feeling “encouraged”. There were significant challenges and yet, there was optimism and resolve to meet the challenges.
Many respondents indicated spiritual health and vitality which seemed to both make positive impacts on the health of their ministry as well as bleed out into other areas of their life.
A great majority of respondents indicated having regular staff meetings. This and other indications of well-functioning, supportive and aligned staff teams had positive links to various areas of ministry such as good volunteer engagement, young people serving one another, partnerships with parents and ministry being driven by clearer theological principles and agility in ministry – COVID-19 had a way of clarifying what was important.
More young people remained connected to youth ministries than children’s ministries during COVID-19 restrictions. Likewise, youth ministry saw more newcomers join ministries. In part this is likely explained by the relative difficulty of children’s ministry to have regular and direct contact with young people compared to youth ministry. As such children’s ministry placed more of an emphasis on resourcing parents and families. Observed spiritual growth in young people was positively linked to both retention and newcomers.
The vast majority of children’s and youth workers observed at least “a little” spiritual growth in young people. With just under half observing at least moderate growth. The strongest correlation with spiritual growth was the confidence respondents had in asking parents to disciple their own children indicating the importance of strong partnership with parents.
One of the most interesting findings was that having clear theological principles driving ministry was strongly linked to both observed spiritual growth in young people, as well as agility in changing circumstances in ministry. Principles worked in practice.
The findings give rise to a number of compelling recommendations for effective ministry both as we continue to disciple young people under the current variable restrictions and regulation of COVID-19 as well as for whatever crisis may come our way in the future.
Read the full report here: https://yw.training/C-19Impacts
Attend the Zoom webinar on 19th November at 2pm: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81303475445?pwd=aE96SGxNM1N4YU9jd0wzWDB3eWNaQT09