Launching new Ministries

The closest thing I’ve come to “launching” a new ministry was in the late ’90s (I know I’m dating myself here). I was part of Young Life’s mission to reach middle school students (WyldLife). Up until that time Young Life had been doing informal ministry with middle schoolers. In the late ’90s they wanted to make it an “official” part of their ministry.

I was apart of that 1st team in NW Fairfax, VA to start a year round middle school program. It was fun and really exciting. It was there that I really discovered that I love to start, build and recreate work.

Since then, I’ve been apart of 2 other Churches where I’ve helped to revitalize and recreate their Youth Program. Starting, revitalizing and stabilizing Youth Program have something that I have enjoyed very much over the years. It drove me completely and I found a ton of fulfillment doing that work.

Just recently, my Church (New Life Christian Church) has asked me to become the new Online Campus Pastor for our new mission.  It was an exciting opportunity for me because I have really enjoyed the social media side of youth ministry as well as a new chance to start a ministry up.

However, as I’ve gotten into the process of doing a lot of behind the scenes work while preparing for the launch of this Online Campus, I have realized that I’m out of practice on starting up.  And, starting up a Campus (even if it is online) is different than starting or revitalizing a Youth Ministry program.

Thankfully I’ve had the ability to talk to 2 people on Staff at New Life to help me process and plan as they’ve had a lot of experiences helping other Churches launch and even relaunch.

For instance, meeting with them have reminded me and also brought up important components of laucnhing a new ministry such as the importance of vision, beginning with the end in mind, as well as developing a prayer team, budget, demographic assessment and marketing plan.  It’s been very helpful and enlightening as it’s been a great experience overall.  But there is so much to learn still.

So, I’m wondering, have you ever launched a ministry before? If so, what were the 3-4 steps you took into launching that ministry with success?