Youth Ministry MOT

Every car I’ve ever owned bar one has failed its MOT every time. Sometimes they failed on stupid things like ‘there’s residue on the windscreen below the mirror where a GPS was once suckered on.’ Once or twice however, they have failed on cataclysmic problems. I once owned a Peugeot 406 which needed the entire exhaust system replacing at roughly the same price I’d bought the car for 8 months earlier. MOTs can kill you!

The truth is though, a lack of MOT is much more likely to kill you than the MOT itself. Whether with the authorities for driving illegally, or worse – driving unaware of a disastrous mechanical problem waiting to pounce like a coiled snake on the road. What if you’re breaks are about to fail or your airbags are jammed? Without an MOT you just don’t know what dangers are lurking under the surface waiting to cause disaster.

The same thing is true for people and churches isn’t it? Without a decent spiritual inventory and checkup every once in a while you could be heading unknown towards burnout and disaster. You could be suffocating under the fog of temptation, struggling against the yoke of celebrity worship, or – more simply – teaching continued crap to young people!

In a previous youth ministry job a new Associate Pastor arrived who offered spiritual MOTs to congregation members. For many this was a massive refreshment, encouragement and wake up call! So how about youth workers?

I offer here some MOT questions for a Youth Leader to check up on both your spirituality and your ministry. These questions are aimed at checking your teachability, discipleship journey, celebrity status/pride,

These are all based on the last six months.
– What training in youth work have you attended?
– What book(s) on youth work have you read?
– What book(s) on spirituality or Christian life have you read?
– Who have you talked consistently to about the depths of your relationship with Jesus?
– Who have you confessed your sin too / who has challenged you on your sin? How have you responded?
– What would happen to your ministry if you we’re injured and had to take six months off work starting today?
– What ministry area(s) have you trained/released/seen potential in a volunteer to take a lead in?
– What things have you said ‘no’ to and why?
– How many full days off have you taken?
– How many extra days out have you taken to just be with God?
– How many date nights / play-dates / visits with friends have you canceled & why?
– What key personal issue / conflict / struggle / shortcoming have you identified and have been working on? Have you seen growth?
– What consuming life event(s) has been going on and how has that influenced your ministry?
– Who have you invested personal discipleship time into consistently?
– Have you called your mum?
– What non-Christians have you connected with?
– How regularly have you started / ended your day with Jesus?
– How would you rate your gratitude level?
– Are you generally enjoying worshiping God with others?
– Are you regularly enjoying worshiping God alone?
– Do you get irrationally angry with road users?
– Do you speak with God about both trivial and deep things?
– Does God get regular opportunities to speak to you?
– If you made a list of you top ten passions and your top ten gifts (with probable overlap), how many are you getting to use regularly?
– Have you made opportunities to discretely serve others without recognition?

I’m sure there’s plenty of other good questions – these all came of the cuff. I’ll probably add / change them as time goes on. If you have others you’d like to add comment or message me and I’ll put them up.