What Every Church Should Know About Student Leadership Development Pt. 2

It’s Hard

If you looked at some of the available literature on youth leadership development in churches (which usually consists of one chapter in a book) then you might get the impression that developing young leaders is easy.  

In fact, it reads almost like a recipe.  Pick these students, teach them these things,  and do these activities.  Next, shake them up, pour them out, and you’ll get student leaders.  Problem is that life isn’t that tidy, and neither is a youth ministry program.

One of the things I wish I had been told up front is that leadership development isn’t easy. It isn't easy to start, and it only gets more difficult as you go along.

There are no magic recipes to make your leadership development program work.  There are no super-lessons that will instantly turn apathetic youth into leaders.  There are no guarantees that the students you pour so much into will go on to become great Christian leaders.  

Like all other aspects of ministry, leadership development takes a lot of time and effort.  We shouldn’t go into it thinking that it will be a walk in the park or an afterthought to the rest of the youth ministry.  Done right, leadership development takes just as much effort and preparation as the rest of the youth ministry.  It takes constant tweaking, sleepless nights in prayer, planning, and research.  Oh yeah, and did I mention that you’ll be pouring tons of time into these students?

If you are going to start a leadership development team, keep these things in mind.  Way too many leadership teams are started and then quickly thrown away when it’s discovered that they take more than 10 minutes of prep time.

Don’t fall into this trap; your students deserve better than that.  Go in knowing that leadership development takes time, effort, and plenty of both.  This isn’t about being negative, it’s about going in with your eyes open. 

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