This week I'm heading up to the National Youth Ministry Convention on the Gold Coast.

On their Facebook and twitter updates the other day they asked for people to send in great youth ministry stories to be shared at the conference. I think this is a great idea! But it did get me wondering, What is a great youth ministry story? What qualifies apart from it happening to me and therefore I think it's great?

Here are some options:

It's about numbers, the youth ministry has grown in the last two years from 10 kids to 500. Is that a great story?

What about this. A guy has been doing all the right things, been faithful to God and seen 5 years of fairly fruitless ministry. Is that a great story?

The idea of faithfulness is definitely the key part of a great story. A person being faithful to his or her task and seeking God in that as well as been aware how God has worked in that situation, be it through learning more about Him, learning more about yourself or seeing others grow spiritually (including new converts). Too often faithfulness is an excuse for unfaithful lazy people to do nothing and then cite the "it's not about numbers" line to defend themselves. God knows our hearts.