"Building a Year Long Event Strategy for Students" Notes

Orange Conference breakout sessions was lead by Ashley Bohinc. She is a Middle School Ministry veteran and their session focused on events. More specifically, it was about how you can build a STRATEGIC year long event strategy for your student ministry. Here are my notes. Think about events over all the years that you oversee and then the year you are currently in. You have to stratigaclly plan to get them to where you want them to be Event: Anything that creats energy or momentum What is the “win” in your ministry? Random vs. Strategic event

• Random:
  • Meets vaious needs
  • Work independently
  • Competitng systems
  • Function as activities
• Strategic:
  • Leads to what is next
  • Work together
  • Copmplmentary systems
  • Function as steps

3 Questions to consider:

1. Does this event help me move people in the direction I want to go?
2. Is this event hindering something more important from working
3. Does this even have lasting value for the church beyond the week of the event?

You might have to kill something that is working great to accomplish a bigger plan Events – have something per season/quarter. They don’t have to be huge vents, just something that creates energy (2 big, 2 small). Try this…

• List all events
• Circle the events you can change to be more strategic
• Put an “X” by the events you should consider killling
• Underline the programs that are most strategic
• List evens you consider adding

When deciding events, consider from…

• Staff perspective
• Volunteer perspective
• Parent perspective
• Student perspective
• Outsider perspective

Each perspective is different and needs to be considered as you process what you should or shouldn’t do. Steps to transition to a more strategic event strategy:

1. Talk about it
2. Draw event spiral
3. Re-evaluate your current events
4. Re-plan your pitch
5. Get your leadership on board
6. Get your staff on board
7. Get your key, most influential volunteers on baord
8. Call an all volunteer meeting
9. Call a parents meeting where you talk about the “whys” and the “win”
10. Roll it out!

Events should strengthen and solidify small groups. What do you think? What is your events strategy in your ministry? How is it similar or different? Share them and your experiences below or on social media use my twitter handle @tapounder when you share.  [mc4wp_form id="8855"]]]>