This past year our youth ministry staff had to submit a yearly budget proposal. This was the first time our church asked the staff to request a budget for the year. I and my teammate began the process of collecting data from the past two years. We gathered stats that included attendance, commitments to Christ, baptisms, new students in our ministry, students who went to summer camp, etc. We worked days and countless hours on this budget.
Once we completed gathering all this information, we made a PowerPoint presentation with all the data and pictures that reflected the kind of ministry we were asking our church leaders to support through the budget. We explained where the money went the past two years and where we planned to put it toward in 2018. We worked really hard for this budget and presented it to the advisory broad.
This hard work paid off because we got more money than last year, but, most importantly, we lead up. We were told that we had the best presentation and that others on staff should follow our example. It was great to hear that we lead the way!
We really didn’t see this as some sort of competition with other areas of our church’s ministry groups, but a call from God in our lives “to do our best.” In this case, doing our best meant that we would have the funding to continue the kind of ministry we have been doing at an even greater level–eventually impacting more young lives with the Gospel.
Whenever we do our best for God, we have the opportunity to “lead up!”
Written by Gerardo Mancilla ’13
Gerardo completed the residency program at Christ’s Church in the Valley and earned a Master in Strategic Ministry degree. He is married to Morgan ’13 and currently serves as student minister at Rescue House Church in Winston Salem, NC.
