Supporting Your Team or The Quietest Sushi Night Ever

An article by Matt    No Comments

Several years ago while working with middle schoolers in Atlanta we had a large event where we encouraged all of our students to bring their friends.  A typical Wednesday night gathering with this group would have 130 to 150 students worshiping and doing the goofy things that only middle schoolers do, but on this night we saw more than 320 students come out for a night of all out craziness.  As you can imagine our staff was psyched for the turnout, our students were amped up on Mountain Dew and sugar, and our leadership team were looking forward to seeing the response to the message that was going to be presented.

Two hours later as the team finished cleaning up and prepared for our Wednesday night tradition of $1 sushi night we had a little air let out of our balloon when an angry parent stormed into the building upset that someone had offered his son pot in the bathroom.  After about seven minutes of intense conversation the parent stormed out after asking what kind of kids we were allowing to come to these events and promising to sit down with our Senior Pastor and share this story with him.

The usual joy of sushi night was somewhat tempered that night after that discussion.  On one hand we were excited that so many students had heard the message of Christ that night, and we were looking forward to seeing how many of our guests would be joining us the next week, but on the other hand we were a little worried about the conversation that would come the next day about the incident in the bathroom.

The next morning the obligatory heads up was given to the Senior Pastor and to our great relief his response was along the lines of “Great job, those are the kinds of kids that we need to come out to these things!”

This morning Seth Godin’s blog post was on having the back of those that are serving under you.  His main point is that there is a difference between saying you have someone’s back and actually doing it.  That morning, our leadership team knew that all the talk about valuing student ministry and supporting us in our efforts was more than just talk.  Yes, we should have had someone keeping an eye on the bathrooms, but the risk you run in doing an outreach event is that people with sin issues come out to them.

As a leader in the church how do YOU show your team that you have their back?