What Every Church Should Know About Student Leadership Development Pt. 4

It Will Test Your Faith in Your Students

Going in to a leadership development program, I had certain expectations of my students.  Because they had  volunteered for leadership training, I figured that they would be mature, respectful, Christ-Centered students.  

I couldn’t have been more wrong.  Without going into details, I have to say that I spent a lot of time ranging between disappointed and horrified as I dealt with issue after issue with my students.  It really rocked my boat.  Before I knew it, my faith in my students was waning.  

Because leadership development demands that we be closer to and spend more time with our students, we tend to get more enmeshed in their lives.  They also get more enmeshed in our lives.  As this happens, we learn all about our students in a way that we haven’t before.  As everyone’s warts appear, we can get rather disenchanted with our students if we’re not careful (they can get disenchanted with us, too).  

I think our expectations are at the heart of the issue here.  We must expect students to be mature, respectful, and Christ-Centered, just as we would expect any other believer to act in this way.  However, we must also remember that just as we screw up, so will our students.  Sometimes, they’ll screw up real bad.

When things get dicey (and they inevitably will), our reaction determines whether a failure will turn into a lesson or into a situation that may alienate your students and keep them at arm’s length.  I’ve seen how one screw-up alienated a student so much that he quit the leadership team and fell away from the church.  Sure, He could have handled the situation differently, but I could have as well.  If we allow ourselves to become disillusioned with our students after a failure, it’s more likely we’ll lose faith in the entire process.  Our groups start to hurt, and then it disappears.  

Just as we expect our students to act a certain way, we must also expect that they will mess up.  We mess up, and we shouldn’t expect anything more from our students.  Practicing mercy and grace is not only the right thing to do in these situations, but teaches a powerful lesson that your students will hopefully pass on in their time.  

Preparing ourselves now is essential.  If someone had told me before I started that I would have periods of tremendous disappointment with my students, I would have looked at them like they had a third eye.  Now I know better.  I’ve been there.  

Best practice?  Before you start a team, or even if you have a team now, have a policy about how you’ll deal with moral and legal problems with your students.  How will you react?  What will their status on the leadership team be?  What process will be used for restoration?  How will you deal with the rest of the students on the team?  

And most of all, prepare your heart.  Ask Christ to give you a spirit of forgiveness and mercy.  Ask Him to make His grace real to you in a way that you can make it real to other people.  Humble yourself by daily reminding yourself that you too, sin and need forgiveness. That way, when the inevitable happens, you’ll know what to do and in what spirit to do it.

What Every Church Should Know About Student Leadership Development Pt. 3

It Takes Time

There are no shortcuts when it comes to developing leadership in young people.  In many business leadership development programs, development revolves around very company-specific competencies.  It’s easier to set a time frame on specific competencies, but less easy to set a time frame on the teaching of leadership principles, on discipleship, and on mentoring.

Because many churches don’t have the time or budget for a leadership development program, they tend to leave leadership development to retreats and conferences.  If your development program takes place in a weekend retreat, or a conference (no matter how good it is) then you’ll probably be disappointed with the development that’s taking place.  Don’t get me wrong, conferences are great places to develop leadership, and I love a weekend retreat to develop leaders.  However, leadership development is more organic; it doesn’t take place over the course of just a few hours.  It takes a lifetime.   We have to resist the temptation to allow retreats and conferences to constitute our entire leadership development program.  It’s easier in the short run, of course, and faster; but in the long run very little leadership development will take place.   

A leadership development program takes constant, intentional, targeted work; and that takes time.  Because we are working with individuals with different personalities who are in different places, we can’t put a time frame on their development.  Some of your students are going to soak this stuff up quickly.  With others it will be longer sinking in.  Either way, you’re going to spend a lot of time developing leadership.  

Please don’t believe that leadership development is a quick process, or fall prey to the summer intern line of thought.  Leadership development is a lifelong journey for every leader.  Young leaders are no different, except they are just starting their journeys, looking to you to spend as much time on their leadership development as you did on yours.

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. 

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.  

Student Leaders Grow Into Adult Leaders

No matter what church I visit, or what church leader I talk to, they will all tell me the same thing:  We need more leadership.  Whether it’s to run new ministries or to take over old ones as existing leaders move, burn out, or pass on, the church is constantly in need of new leadership.  

Where do these leaders come from?  Do they magically appear out of thin air?  Of course not.  New leaders are the product of God’s gifting and development.  Many churches are joining God in this process and have set up leadership development programs to help these emerging leaders grow and learn.

One place that we’re not always looking however, is in the ranks of our youth programs.  The fact is, when we don’t develop leadership within our youth we are missing out on the leadership of many young people that God has gifted and called.   I know that many church leaders are careful not to put too young a person into leadership positions, but the truth of the matter is that student leaders grow into adult leaders.  Before you know it your students are out of school and out of the youth group; ready and willing to lead.  

We need to develop the leadership of young people just as we need to develop other leaders in our church.  Youth may seem too young, too immature, or unwilling, but if we don’t start developing youth leaders, we are missing a great opportunity to invest in the future of our young people, and in the future of our churches.

3 Common Buy-In Problems Leadership Programs Face

Leadership Programs fail for many reasons, but one of the main reasons is buy-in.  Here are three buy-in problems that spell certain doom for most leadership development programs.

Student Buy-In

Obviously, if the students you are serving don’t buy in to a leadership development program, there isn’t going to be much of a program.  Having committed students is at the heart of what you’re doing.  Usually, the lack of student buy-in is because of a lack of depth in other programs or a problem with the pitching of your vision.  And sometimes, they just don’t respect you.

Parent Buy-In

I know that a lot of time those who deal with youth consider parents to be their enemies.  Truth is, they should be your best friends.  Because you are only speaking into a student’s life for a short interval each week, parents’ role in leadership development cannot be overlooked.  Just like in youth ministry, parent involvement is key.

If the parents of your emerging leaders aren’t buying into a leadership development program, your program will suffer, if it survives at all.  Make sure that you are talking to parents constantly, and including them in the process.  Give them training, materials, and opportunity to help develop leadership in their own children.  

Administration Buy-In

Here’s a real killer.  Whether you’re in a school, a church, or civic organization, if the guys who run the show aren’t buying into a leadership program, don’t expect to make a lot of headway.  Studies are showing that if the lead person or persons of an organization don’t participate in a leadership development program, that program doesn’t run as well or long as it should.  

Lack of administration buy-in will affect things like budget, space, time, and participation.  Pitch your vision for leadership development early and often to the people in charge, and move forward cautiously if those in charge aren’t completely on board.

Don’t be blind.  Buy-in problems are real, and they sink leadership programs everyday.  Don’t ever assume that everyone is on board with your program.  Pitching your vision, both to individuals and groups, is essential both before you start and while your program is operating.  Involve other people; don’t run your program like its Area 51.  Buy-in is essential to your program’s survival, and if you don’t pay attention to it your program will not-so-slowly fall into trouble.  

3 Things You Can Do Right Now To Develop Young Leaders

So, you don’t have time, money, or support to start a leadership development team?  Here’s three things you can do to develop leaders without having an actual “program.”

Model Leadership-Lead where others can see.   Invite emerging leaders to participate with you in everyday work like planning, phone calls, lesson prep, and all those other mundane things that add up to great leadership.  Invite them into your morning prayer time, meetings, and other places that they’ll get the feel for leadership and learn the process.  Best of all, it doesn’t take up much extra time, because you are already doing these things.

Disciple-We already know that the best Christian leaders are those that are Christ Centered.  When you put an emphasis on discipleship, you are investing not only in the spiritual maturity of those you teach, but helping emerging leaders see what Christ demands in a person whom He’ll use as a leader.

Mentor-All right, this one takes a little extra time, but short of an actual program, mentoring is probably the best way to develop individual leaders.  Take a young person under your wing and pour your life into them.  Don’t just use this as a time to teach about leadership, but show the emerging leader how to live a sustainable life in Christian Leadership.  A mentoring relationship may be the most influential relationship in an emerging leader’s life.

Not having the green light to start a leadership development program doesn’t mean you can’t develop young leaders.  There are plenty of opportunities; you just have to look for them.