Like the other bloggers this week I will admit I am not the most creative person. But with that being said, there is an importance for being creative within the ministry.  Creativity keeps things fresh, which is ultimately what will keep students engaging.  Here are a couple things that help me with creativity within the ministry.  

Include leaders – Each leader has a different skill.  Use those skills to create creativity (can you say create creativity?).  For example, we have a leader that is great with prayer.  She has control of our student prayer teams, including celebration prayer, pre-service prayer, and intercessory prayer.  She comes up with great ideas that I never would have thought of.  If I didn’t use her creativity our prayer team would not be as effective.

Include students – I was a teacher in my past vocation and when I first started in youth ministry I had a teacher mentality where I felt I needed to create everything.  I felt message series, event ideas, and even game ideas had to come from me because I was the person in charge.  Well that didn’t tap into our students’ creative juices at all.  Once I woke up and realized that students have good ideas I decided to use them.  We have a student leadership team that helps come up with ideas for the ministry.  These ideas range from events they want to do all the way to message topics they want to hear.  Allowing the students to have a say in our activities keeps things fresh and creativity happens.

Don’t be afraid to fail – This is something I’m still learning, but my mentor is always pouring that into me.  He constantly tells me to just try something, if it fails try something else.  This “don’t be afraid to fail” mentality will help spark creativity.  It can make for a more relaxed feel because there is freedom in knowing that an event or game doesn’t have to be perfect.  Relaxation can then spark creativity.

Steal – I know, I know that’s breaking the 8th commandment.  Maybe I should have said “borrow.”  The point is that getting ideas from others is a great resource.  There are things we do in our ministry that neighboring churches do as well.  Google and Pinterest are also my friends.  The key with borrowing is tweaking the ideas to fit your ministry.  Looking at different ideas also sparks me to actually think of new ideas on my own.  So use what others are doing to get creativity in your ministry.

Again, these are just things that help creativity in our ministry.  This doesn’t mean they are fool-proof, but they help me.  Hope you find something useful from this!

Matt LaFree
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