Building Times — What are those?
Posted on Tuesday, February 11, 2020 by
Have you heard the saying “People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care”? 
It definitely rings true in youth ministry.
Building relationships of trust so that we even have a chance for students to listen to what we have to say is one of the most important aspects of our ministry.
A main way we build trust with students is through the shared experiences of building times. What exactly are those? By definition, building time is simply spending time in shared experiences with young people to build new relationships and grow existing ones. Building times are one of YFC’s seven relational ministry actions (RMA’s).
What is relational ministry? It is what it sounds like: reaching out and relating to young people through authentic Christ-sharing relationships wherein three stories are intersecting and interacting: God’s story, which has radically changed our story; our story which intersects with a student’s story introducing them to God’s story and the transformation He can produce in her life as well. YFC has patented 3Story; it’s our operating system, our way of life (pictured in our YFC brand of three interlocking circles). Some of the key moments where our story interacts with students’ stories are during building times.
Building times are such fun because they can look innumerable ways. We’ve had awesome building times with students hanging out in a hotel weight room, sledding down a hill, singing on a bus, talking over smoothies, chasing after squirrels; the possibilities are endless.