You know the old line: “We’re really a friendly group here. We like having visitors.” Most often, the truth of the matter is that many established youth ministry settings have few visitors, and those that they do have rarely become regulars.

The question is “How can we setup what we do in youth ministry to maximize our effectiveness at

• inviting youth to join in what we do,

• nurturing youth in faith discovery,

• encouraging youth on their faith journey,

• providing youth opportunities to put their faith into action?

The first step is to make it a goal for these things to happen and do all of your planning with those intentions in mind. You plan for these worthwhile things to happen and you seriously work on those plans. It doesn’t fall out of the sky. Somebody has got to be working at it, making it happen. Youth ministry programs that are attractive to visitors and that are successful at bringing new people into the group in the long term are always well planned and deeply intentional.

Creating a Welcoming Environment
How does a new person, a visitor, an outsider see and respond to what your church has to offer in youth ministry? That is a much harder question to answer than you may think. In most cases, we are the insiders. Everything is familiar to us. No matter how we try, it is extremely difficult for us to see things with visitors’ or newcomers’ eyes.

But, here are two strategies for getting a better perspective on new people, visitors, and outsiders—their needs and issues:

1. Send youth (and possibly adults) from your group to visit other youth ministry settings in other churches and in other communities. Be honest with the people in the settings you visit about what you are doing. Let them know you are researching what makes youth ministry attractive and comfortable for new people and visitors. Ask them to go about business as usual. After your people visit other groups, ask those youth to report on what they have learned.

2. Do a quiet, two-question survey, such as the following, with every visitor to your youth ministry settings at the end of his or her :

a. What about your visit here would encourage you to come back?
b. What happened that made you feel uncomfortable or out of place?

Do this survey away from the group as the person is leaving or as a follow-up to his or her visit. Develop a trust level so that he or she can feel at ease to tell it to you like it is.

As people report their findings, have someone keep track of the responses in writing in a journal, notebook, or on large paper.

No doubt, patterns will start to emerge from the data collected. Begin to “plan into” your youth ministry those things that were positive and encouraging to others. Begin to “plan out” of your local youth ministry those things that were negative or caused feelings of exclusion.

Be careful not to make the assumption that since many visitors to youth ministry functions come as a guest of a regular participant, they will be automatically well cared for. Some youth have more social skills than others do. Some youth bring a friend as a guest and then just hang around with him or her. The visitor doesn’t connect with the group. Other youth figure that a guest can to make it on his or her own and can sink or swim alone.

When the group plans together to make your youth ministry setting user friendly, they take the needs and concerns of visitors and newcomers into consideration. Any good environment requires regular care and maintenance. A positive youth ministry environment is no exception.

From Youth Reaching Youth, © 1998 by Abingdon Press. This material may be reproduced for educational purposes.

Other articles in the Youth Reaching Youth series:
Planning Visitor-Sensitive Youth Settings.
Jesus Said, “Go!”.
Faith Conversation Skills.
Making Disciples of Jesus Christ.
Telling Our Faith Stories to Youth.

Brought to you by your youth ministry colleagues at Cokesbury.