The Numbers Game: How Small is too Small?

The numbers game in youth ministry is downright awesome!  What better way to compare your ministry to others than to show them that you are drawing more students than them.  When someone says, “I have 50 students each week”, I love shouting, “I have 51 sucka”!  When someone says that they have 5 small groups active and running, I love telling saying, “Wow, I can’t remember a time when I had just 5 small groups running.  I’m up to 6”.

Just in case you don’t know my humor, I have a very sarcastic, subtle sense of humor (which I am not advocating as good.  I’m just saying it is what it is).  Therefore, I hope you did not take that 1st paragraph seriously.  So, let me be clear here, when you get into comparing how many students you have with other ministries, THE NUMBERS GAME IS DOWNRIGHT DETRIMENTAL TO YOUTH MINISTRY.  It keeps your focus on how many rather than how can God use you in the lives of your students.

Now, even though comparing your attendance numbers to other programs can be detrimental to youth ministry as a whole, there is another numbers game that can be just as harmful.  Let me explain using something that happened to me last month.  For over a month, we have been promoting a DC Day to our youth.  It was going to be a trip into DC from 1-8 pm in which we were going to go visit the Crime and Punishment Museum and then all go out to dinner somewhere downtown.  We did this last year, going to the Zoo instead.  I was expecting a good turnout considering that we had a group of over 20 student for last years event.  Unfortunately, that did not happen.

Instead of the many students showing up as I was hoping, we had just 2 show up.  It was at this point that I had an interesting decision to make – do I take the 2 guys downtown or do I cancel the event because so few came?  To some, this may not seem like a hard decision, but to me I had a few things going through my mind.  First off, I had this whole cost/benefit analysis thought.  Would it more beneficial for me to take these 2 students downtown and spend 8 hours with them or would it be a bigger benefit for me to not go downtown and spend time with them and more students around the area.  For me, I thought it would be a bigger benefit if I stayed local.  However, the other thought that was going through my mind all morning was Christ comment in Matthew 25:40 when he said, “I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.”  Now, these boys who showed up were not the “least of these”, but I was viewing them as least because had more people shown up, I would not have thought twice about going.

So, what did I do?  I decided to go.  But that was when another interesting situation came about.  One of the boys decided he no longer wanted to go and went home which left me with just 1 guy.  Do I go now???  I decided against going which was not a popular opinion with the lone student, but we did end up hanging out for a bit before I took him home, which ended up being a good thing as I got to know him a bit more.

This story was told to highlight the issue of when is a small too small?  What do you do when you have a small turnout?  Do you cancel?  Do you change your plans and do something different?  For me, depending on what the what we were doing, I would either cancel or readjust the plans – cancel being a very strong option for special events.  That was until my Associate, Katie, challenged me in this.

Katie said it quite simply when she told me, “We say we don’t care about numbers, but we cancel events when not enough kids show up. I think that if we care about people over program, than 1 person is enough to put a program on for.”  I believe God uses people and situations to refocus us and convict us of actions in our lives.  I believe that God used that comment to slap me as a wake up call.  It was like he was saying, “Wake up Tom!”  Katie’s comment was right on and challenged me in the consistency between what I say and my actions.  I am a huge advocate that numbers is not important, yet when just a few show up, I do not value that time as much.  Do you think Christ would respond the same way?  I am thankful for having someone like Katie around to challenge and push me in ministry because now I am encouraged and look forward to our next event when just 1 or 2 show up.

Benefits of small groups and events:

No matter what size program you have, there are some benefits to small size groups/event.  Two benefits are:

1. It helps you build community.  It allows students to get to know each other on a different level.  Any time you have a mass of students show up to an event or your regular youth meeting time, you have to be much more intentional about organizing opportunities for the students to get to know each other.  But, when you have a smaller group, by just you all being in that shared experience together provides a natural connect that can last much longer.  For example, we did a high school overnight in the Fall Overnight and we had a solid turnout come.  However, we had a smaller than expected guy turnout come.  Instead of being flustered with the lack of guy turnout, one of our volunteer leaders Phil, began and developed new relationships with them which ultimately turned into the core of his current small group.  Had Phil neglected time with those few guys, he would have missed the opportunity to build community with them and possibly miss out on a small group discipleship opportunity.
2. When you build community, you can begin to build your program.  I remember going to Willow Creek’s Church Leadership Conference back in 1998 when I was a 1st year Intern at my first Church.  At the conference, they had a Youth Ministry component.  It was there that Bo Boshers, the Youth Pastor, said that they began their ministry with less than 10 students.  Can you imagine the youth program at Willow Creek having under 10 students at any point in their history?  I cannot, but they did.  What do you think would’ve happened if Bo and the Youth Ministry team said, “Today, we only have 4 students showing up, we are going to cancel our time together”?  They would have never grown.  I’m not saying that the Willow Creek Youth Program grew primarily because leaders cared for their students, but I am saying that those students who came, even though they were small in numbers, knew that their leaders cared about them and were valuable and that went a long way in establishing that program.

Final Thoughts

Having a small youth program and small turnouts for events is perfectly fine and can be very beneficial to your students and your program.  However, I want to throw out a few suggestions as you process this.  First, keeping track of your numbers and how many students are coming to events is important because it helps you quantify whether or not you are hitting your target.  It also helps you realize when someone is missing or has not been around in a few weeks.  As I discussed above, where keeping track of numbers becomes a problem is when you use it to compare it with other programs and ministries.  The amount of students you draw and are comfortable drawing is something that is between you and the Lord.  It has no bearing on whether or not you are doing a good job.  But, when you keep track of who is coming and who is missing, it is helping you identify whether or not you are hitting your goal.  In addition,  it is helping you value students so that you can contact them and let them now they were missed if they haven’t come in a while.

Secondly, when you have a small group and are developing community, it can be very easy for those students to want that group to be their clique.  They can get into the mindset that they don’t want more people to join because it is theirs.  I have been apart of some of these groups and it can be very challenging, but what you have to do is continually cast the vision for the ministry God has given you.  So whether your ministry is to 5, 15, 30 or 100 students, you have to cast the vision of outreach and growth of the kingdom of heaven.  Not growth for growth sake, but growth for the kingdom of heaven.  Who then, wouldn’t want others to join kingdom of heaven?

Although the numbers game can be helpful in some ways, the unfortunate thing is that I have seen it negatively effect youth programs and ministers.  Do not let it affect what God has called you to do and who He has called you to minister to.

TAKE A MINUTE and…

1. Identify how you feel about the numbers game.  Are you like me when I said I don’t care about  number yet cancel or do you keep the event going no matter who shows up.
2. Plan out a strategy of what will happen when just a few show up.  Should you keep the plan as it or do you readjust your plan? Write down what will you do if just a few people show up and then enact it when it happens.

If you have thoughts to share about the number game, please comment so we can all learn and grow from it.

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