While we very much so value relational youth ministry, there are some among us who embrace an emergency room mentality towards our ministry – traversing from one kid’s personal crisis to another last minute prep for a program to drama within our own lives. Seth Godin recently blogged about those who view their jobs as if they were emergency room doctors.
It’s a mindset, not just a job.
You can pitch them as hard as you like about having them work to persuade their patients to give up smoking (after all, it saves lives in the long run), but I think you’ll find that they’re a lot more interested in stopping the bleeding.
We need emergency room doctors, no doubt. I just wonder if we have too many of them in your organization. If all we do is reward fast first aid in what people do at work, is it any wonder we don’t have enough attention to the strategy and choices that would eliminate the need for all that running around in the first place?
It helps to know how prevalent the "emergency room" culture is before you start training your people on a new long-term strategy.
There is a need for short-term thinking in ER youth ministry. There is also a personal rush of feeling significant in ER-YM, of being in the center of the storm… but none of this is empowering others towards sustainable youth ministry in the long run, none of this take a serious look at the long run… What if we did take a serious look at the strategy and choices that would eliminate the need for all that running around in the first place? What is your shared vision for the long run and how are you working towards incrementally on a consistent basis?
And, ladies and gentlemen, if’n ever I was to get a book published, you just read the first three hundred words.
Wow. Excellent insight. You should publish that book!
Like the reflections very much…..which others didn’t live the ER lifestyle and then expect us to be the same.
I loved this post! It is something “critical”, pun intended, that a lot of my youth leaders (myself included) need a reminder about. Especially that nugget about feeling significant… often the significant action and lasting impact doesn’t feel that way when we do it.
It would be great to live in a world that ER ministry is not as widely necessary. Now if we could get parents and youth (like our core teams)on board with the idea of getting forms signed, planning, making commitments to events, etc. done on time, then it would make things go so much easier. Unfortunately, our ministry relies on so many others doing their part too, that when it comes down to it, it seems rushed at the end, because everyone waits until the last minute.
Church is just not as “important” or as big a priority as the sports camps, and other school activities, and other things going on in parents and young people’s lives. I do believe that people think, “its the church, they have to forgive me if I am not on time with anything.”
I wonder what would happen if faith was more than one hour a week, and actually integrated into the whole 168 hours a week. That is my conquest…. and a difficult one it is in the trenches with young people.
I want that book. I am already writing the intro for you ; )
Wow, I re-read that all over again… I want that book as well!