Three Essentials When Pitching a Leadership Team

I’ve been thinking about how difficult it was to get a leadership development team off the ground when I first did that five years ago.  The hardest part, as I remember, was pitching the idea to the church.  I had to pitch it to our leadership board.  I had to pitch it to my pastor, and I had to pitch it to the youth.  I also had to pitch it to myself, but I hope you’ve done that already.  I broke two of the three suggestions below (plan and prepare) and I paid for it.  It cost me time, momentum, and ultimately support.  

If you are looking to set up a leadership development team in your church, school, for your homeschool association, or in a local civic organization, then the next few posts are going to be for you.  They’ll tell you why and how you should pitch the idea of a leadership development team in your particular setting.  In the meantime, there’s three things you should probably do no matter who you’re going to pitch to: Pray, prepare, and plan.

Pray

 I can’t emphasize this enough.  This whole process should be bathed in prayer.  Time in prayer should help work the other two out.  This whole thing belongs to God anyway, so it might be a good idea to consult Him about it.

Plan

You need a plan.  If you go at this haphazardly, you’re not going to get anywhere, and you’ll get there quickly.  Who are you going to talk to?  In what order?  Have you set up those meetings?  You get the picture.  Get a plan.

Prepare

Preparing is the second most important thing you’ll do as you pitch the idea of a leadership development team (next to prayer).  Do you know why you should have a leadership development team?  Most people will want to know that.  Do you know what your leadership development team will do?  Most people will want to know that.  Do you know what your leadership development team will cost?  That’s the 64,000 dollar question, now isn’t it?  Preparing for the pitch meeting means you can answer some of the questions that will inevitably come your way, and you look like you know what you’re talking about, even if you don’t.

Training Tomorrow’s Leaders Today,

Matt 

Passports at the Ready

I got this comment about Haiti relief efforts the other day from Michael Rhodus, a friend of mine from Excelsior Springs:

"my church is urging people to get the passports. When this phase is done we will be sending teams down to help a missionary we help support in Carfu . He was out out country when it hit , but arrived there a few days ago with a medical team.I would like to go if it is safe enough.Pray about it. We are also taking up offerings to help him. He does not get money from the Red Cross."

What a fantastic idea!  One of the things about the disaster in Haiti is that the relief efforts will not be short term.  We will be at this for a long time.  Not knowing where the biggest need will be, we should be developing short term (money to good organizations) and long term (may I suggest mission trips and long term relief teams) strategies. 

Getting your church in gear with passports and whatever training you can give them is a good first step in preparing for a long-term relief strategy.

Training Tomorrow's Leaders Today,
Matt

Not of Your Church

Last night I took our youth group on a little trip.  We went to a church in a small town on the other side of Kansas City that was running a ministry for young mothers.  It's called Baby Grace Ministries, and is run by Anne Farmer and Juli Yocum.  This is a great ministry whose effectiveness is clearly visible.

The students that I took really enjoyed it, and I think it did them a lot of good to get out and see others in action.  This reminded me that it's so important to learn about and celebrate the things God is doing outside of your local church.  Youth can get so used to the things in your own church that they forget that there are other churches doing other things.  Sometimes they forget that those other things serve and glorify God just as much as the ministries your church participates in.  And sometimes, if we're not careful, our youth will begin to think that their church is the only one capable of doing things right or worth doing.  We have to guard against this kind of pride and arrogance.

Here's why I think visiting other churches and ministries is effective:
1.  It gets the kids off of their home turf.  Students need to see that God is worshiped and served in more places than just your church.
2.  Students gain an appreciation for other people and denominations when they see them in action.
3.  People from different churches and denominations think differently and have a different culture than do the people that we serve and worship with regularly.  Letting our kids see and experience different people will broaden them and perhaps give them new insights they might not have received staying on familiar ground.

Question:  What have been some successful trips to other churches, denominations, or ministries that you or your youth group have taken?

Training Tomorrow's Leaders Today,
Matt