Free or Effective?

Recently I was with a group of youth workers who were discussing the need for an effective spiritual gift assessment written just for students. We talked for a while about what would make the assessment effective and ways to administer the assessment so students would be in the correct mindset to get the most out of the gift assessment. We talked about the need to take out confusing language and the importance of simplifying the questions. Then someone mentioned that they had a 200 question spiritual gift inventory written for adults; it was copyright fee and they could send it out to everyone in an e-mail later that day. That offer killed the discussion; free trumpted the need for effective. The census in the room was, if it’s free, let’s use that one. I know we are all trying to do youth ministry on tight budgets but let’s keep the goal in mind of helping students grow. Remember – Doing less ministry effectively will do more for your students than doing tons of ineffective ministry.