What Every Church Should Know About Student Leadership Development Pt. 5

It Will Stretch Your Leadership

When I was in school preparing to become a teacher, it was told to me that I would learn what I was teaching better by preparing to teach it.  Sure enough, those teachers were right.  As I studied for lessons and prepared to teach, I came to a better understanding of what I was teaching.  

I’ve also been told, in my very short career as a minister, that if you don’t first preach a message to yourself, allowing it to change you, then it is very hard to preach to and ask for change in others.

It should come as no surprise that teaching leadership is the same way.  Teaching leadership will stretch your leadership in two ways.  By teaching leadership principles you’ll gain a deeper and more abiding knowledge of what it means to be a Christian leader.  Also, you’ll be leading a group of people, gaining the benefit of the experience that leadership brings with it.  

You’ll be a living example to your students for what you’re teaching.  You’ll be gaining and exerting influence, modeling the leadership principles of Christ, and showing your young people through your actions what it means to be a leader.

Bottom line is this:  As your students are learning, so are you.  As your students become better leaders, so will you.  Teaching leadership stretches your own.  

What Every Church Should Know About Student Leadership Development

There are a lot of things that I wish I had known before I started developing student leaders.  I wish I had been more prepared.  I wish I had planned more.  I wish I had thought through the whole idea.  I wish I’d known how much time it would take, and how much effort.  

I wish I had someone like Next in Line to guide me through the process.  To tell you the truth, that’s part of my passion for Next in Line Ministries.  There are so many things that could have gone better had I had someone with some experience standing beside me. 

All that being said, I was thinking about what I wish I’d known before I started.  I thought about the dirty truths that I should have known, despite what I was being told in the literature.  So I came up with five things that I wish I had been told before I started.  If you heard these things before you started, you were truly blessed.  If you didn’t, then you probably know what I’m talking about.  

My prayer is that I catch a few of you before you start a leadership development team.  I don’t want to be negative, but I want to be real about what happens in a leadership team from day-to-day.  I want to be real about the struggles that you will probably have, and about the kind of walls that you will probably have to break down.  I want to be real because I would have benefited from someone being real with me.   

So here’s the top five things that I wish I had known.  

It’s Not Easy

  

It takes time

It will test your faith in your students

It will stretch your leadership

It’s totally worth it

We’ll talk about each of them in the weeks to come.   In the meantime, if you have anything that you wish you’d been told before you started developing young leaders, let me know.   I’d be curious to know what kind of things would have helped you.  

Four Questions To Ask Yourself Before the Pitch

Before you ask someone else to take on the responsibility of a leadership development team, there’s a couple of questions that you should probably have answered yourself already.  

We’ve talked about the need for planning and preparation, and here are a few questions that will help you prepare before you pitch:  

Who:  Develop An Identity

Who is the organization that you are pitching the idea to?  Are they a local school?  Is it a church?  Who the organization is and what they do will determine how you approach them about leadership development.  Do you belong to this organization?  Do you have any existing relationship with this group?  Are they a fit for a leadership development team?  You probably wouldn’t pitch a leadership development team to a local book club, but you wouldn’t hesitate to make sure your school district has a leadership development program in place.  

Why:  Develop A Reason

Why would the organization that you are pitching to want to start a leadership development team?  Is there something about the organizations purpose or mission that points to developing young leaders?  Are they equipped to carry out the team or program?  An organization is going to want to know why they would do what you’re asking them to do.  Make sure you have an answer for them.  

Answering this question might require some research.  Do it.  It’s time well spent if it answers questions before they are asked.

How:  Develop a Way

How can this particular organization be a catalyst for leadership development?  This may seem a lot like the why question, but it is different.  With why we gave them a reason, now we’re giving them a way.  Know the organization that you’re pitching to so well that you maneuver their resources and talents around like a conductor before her orchestra.  They know these resources exist within their organization, they may just not know how to use them to develop leaders.  You do.  You asked: How?  Know how they could specifically pull off a leadership development team, and be ready to show them when you meet.

What:  Develop a Vision

Finally, ask: what benefit can a leadership development team bring to this organization?  What benefit can it bring to their community?  What will be the end result of a leadership development team at this place and at this time.  This question develops a vision for you and for the organization that you’re pitching to.  It helps you see (and them, subsequently) what it is you’re working towards.  This is very important.  Without vision, this idea won’t last long.  This last question will become very important as this process continues.

If you’re about to pitch the idea of a leadership development team to someone, I hope you’ve already asked yourself these questions.  If you haven’t, take some time and mull them over.  When it comes to pitch time, you’ll be glad you did.

Training Tomorrow’s Leaders Today,

Matt 

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