What impact am I having in the lives of the kids I serve?

Some of the best youth workers constantly ask themselves this question, but the answers are hard to find. Much of youth work is a form of seed planting. The fruit may not be evident for years. That’s why we assembled three youth ministry veterans to discuss youth workers’ impact.

Les Christie is the chair of the Youth Ministry Department at William Jessup University. He is an energetic, international speaker and the author of more than a dozen books, including When Church Kids Go Bad: Loving and Working with Rude Obnoxious and Apathetic Students.

Duffy Robbins, Professor of Youth Ministry at Eastern University, St. David’s, Pa., is a 35-year veteran of youth ministry. He speaks around the world to teens and people who care about them.

Mark Matlock is the PlanetWisdom culture, content and idea guy at Youth Specialties. He heads the PlanetWisdom Student Conferences and Real World Parents seminars.

YouthWorker Journal: As we explore the issue of impact, lets look at the big picture: How can youth ministers know if they are having any impact on students’ lives? What does successful impact look like?

Duffy Robbins: When Jesus talked about impact—although, of course, He never used that word—He made a simple statement: A tree is known by its fruit. Jesus said it all comes down to the quality of the fruit. His precise words were: “I have appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last.” What that says to me is that successful ministry impact is about seeing lasting fruit in the lives of our students. So, how can we know if we’re having impact? We watch for the fruit.

Mark Matlock: I think one of the most challenging aspects of youth ministry is that we are working with students during an extremely malleable time in their lives. When they leave our care for college and adult life is when we are able to see evidence of our disciple-making efforts.

Les Christie: To know if we are impacting students’ lives we must ask questions of not only the students but also parents, church leaders—paid and volunteer—and outside observers. The real acid test will come 20, 30, 40 years from now. Then we will have a chance to see the effects of our ministry over a lengthy period of time. Success, though, will come when Jesus says to us, “Well done thou good and faithful servant.” But, the success is never ours; it is God’s. We are just along for the ride. The key is just to hold on.

YWJ: How do you measure and improve impact?

Mark: I think we are compelled to measure something that will determine growth and impact, but we must choose measurements wisely. Of course, when you measure impact, there’s always the risk of oversimplifying; but I don’t want to use that as an excuse to avoid evaluation.