Collaborative Community Meeting #1—Ministry Site Coordinators/Directors

Collaborative Community: We intentionally work together with the local churches, agencies, and other partners to provide sustainable youth and family ministry.

Meeting #1:

Briefly share one personal High and Low from the week and one ministry high and low from the week (15 minutes)

Intro to topic—Define in your own words what collaborative community strategy means to you. Share together definitions and then land on YFC’s established definition. (5 min)

Self Reflection to establish environment of disclosure and vulnerability: Have staff answer these questions personally on a sheet of paper (15 min)

  1. I believe Youth for Christ does youth ministry better than any other organization.
  2. YFC has more to offer than other organizations.
  3. Collaborating with other organizations is a waste of my time and I don’t feel like I see the fruit of the partnership.
  4. It seems too hard to partner with the church. I feel like they don’t get lost kids.

On a scale of 0-10 I would rate my ministry site’s effectiveness at collaborative community as…

Ask staff to share some of their realizations

Time in the Word together— (25 min)

Read aloud Colossians 1:15-20; 2:1-3; 3:11-17. Facilitate a discussion around these texts.

How are these texts pointing to collaborative community strategy?

What actions/verbs do we need to demonstrate as we collaborate together?

What needs to change in your heart as you think about collaborating with others?

Spend some time in prayer together, confessing times of failure, asking for God’s help, and direction for the future.

Meeting #2

Review definition of collaborative community.

Share either a time that you saw collaboration work effectively to reach a lost kid or a time that the desired result wasn’t met. (15 min)

In what ways can collaborative strategy help you more effectively reach lost kids? Brainstorm with a partner and then share as a large group. (15 min)

Mapping Exercise (30 min):

Write out your ministry site’s existing partnerships and the roles contributed by both organizations. Develop goals and 2-3 action steps to strengthen this partnership.

Write out potential partnerships within your community and the roles that both YFC and the partnering organization could contribute. Develop goals and 2-3 action steps to develop this relationship.

Come back together and share your goals and actions steps with the group. What are you anticipating as you began these partnerships (i.e. fears, expectations, excitement)?

Be prepared to revisit these goals frequently in your supervisory meetings.

Pray to close meeting.