For most of us in youth ministry the word “leader” is in our job
description. Yet are we leaders because our job description says so or
because we actually bring to life a God given vision? Most often
we wear the name tag “leader” but it doesn’t makes us one. We teach
students that positional leadership is ineffective but we count on
positional leadership to keep our role at church. So why don’t we
spend more time on developing our leadership? After all when they fire
you they will say it’s because you lacked the leadership needed for the
job. I believe there are a few reasons:

1. We don’t understand leadership
Too often we think it’s something you have or not have. This is not
true, leadership is just a set of principles that you apply to
situations you face. Leadership can be learned even if you are an
adult. Every personality can lead. The problem is we have given
leadership to the loudest not to the most effective. Read books, listen
to teachers and change your behaviors, these actions will all lead to
greater leadership.

2. We don’t know ourselves
We spend time trying to be like other leaders we like that we don’t
spend time getting to know ourselves. Knowing how you operate can grow
your leadership. Study yourself, get to know what you do really well
and do that. Find others to do the other stuff. By dong just that you
will grow your leadership.

3. We don’t like leaders
We think leaders keep score and we don’t add up. I meet lots of youth
workers who actually hate leadership. They have had bad experiences
with past leaders or they dislike it when they are asking to take more
responsibility, so they think leadership is to blame. It’s not, and
they need to grow up.

4. We don’t think ministry should have leaders.
We just want to love people and help them. Leadership is a waste of
time because it has nothing to do with helping people. College
students tell me this a lot. This would be true if Jesus asked us to
work alone but he didn’t; he asked us to serve him in community and
communities need leaders.

5. We are afraid
Leadership requires risk and some people don’t like risk. The sad part
is some of these people migrate to ministry. The only way this changes
in this world is when someone takes a risk and steps out. God made
this world and he made the rules of human nature. He knows and
understands risk. Christ’s life on earth was all about risk. If you
struggle with risk start small and work your way up to bigger risks
but start taking them.

Our guest blogger today is Bob Barrows – Bob is a counselor, pastor and friend. He leads an organization called, New Directions Life Management.

I have no doubt that it does. All of us will experience emotional or physical hurt in our lives we never anticipated. A story I came across recently reveals one of the keys to surviving our pain.

As the story goes, there once was a man who was sentenced to 25 years of backbreaking labor. His wrists were tied to the handle of a huge wheel that was inlaid in the wall. His job was to turn the wheel 10 hours a day. For years, day in and day out, the prisoner would wonder what he was doing with this wheel. What was the meaning of his work? What was on the other side of this wall? Was he grinding grain? Pulling up water? Moving some sort of conveyor belt? For 25 years he contemplated the meaning of his work, and for 25 years he spun that wheel. It was grueling, but he survived. When his sentence was complete he was released from prison. The first thing he did was run to the other side of the wall to see what he had been doing all this time. What did he see? Nothing! There was nothing attached to the wheel.  Upon discovering there was no purpose to those many years of suffering the man collapsed to the ground, had a heart attack and died.

Do you see the key to surviving our pain? It’s in believing that despite all evidences to the contrary there is an ultimate purpose on the other side of our pain, a purpose that is being worked out even as we struggle. Job, a man in the Bible who experienced more loss and pain in his life than we can imagine, never knew the unseen story that was unfolding while he suffered.  Satan had proposed a test to God, using Job as the guinea pig.  Although Job passed the test God never let him in on what was behind the test.  Yes, in the midst of his hurt he wondered why, but at some point he realized that through it all he had come to know God as never before.  In the end, that was all the explanation he needed and in the end, all his hurt was transformed into beauty.

The writer of Ecclesiastes says in chapter 3 verse 11, “God has made everything beautiful in its time”.  I believe that the degree to which you or those you love may be hurting right now can become the degree to which you will one day discover, unlike the man in our story, that there was a greater purpose behind the pain. Your hurt has meaning. Placed in God’s hands, it isn’t wasted.  On the other side of the wall there is beauty, and what you are going through today is a necessary part of the ultimate story God is writing of your life. It promises to be a best seller, and it WILL end well, whether in this life or the next.  ”It hurts!” will be replaced by “It’s beautiful!”.

Leading by Example: Words and Actions

God gives each one of us things in our lives about which we are passionate. Help your students realize and
understand what it means to passions. Help them realize what they are passionate about.

Check out this great new Freebie

What’s the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear “student leadership”? More than half of us think, another meeting with students and the rest of us think, put the students in charge. Actually we are both right – a good student leadership program has both training and experience tied together. The problem is we often go with our first thought which is one or the other.

To have an effective leadership development program you need to focus on the two sides of leadership development. You must have solid leadership training for students and you need to give students real leadership experience where they play the role of a leader. When these two sides of leadership development are in balance you have a solid student leadership development program. When you just focus on one or the other you get a program out of balance.

How do you balance the training with experience?

Let’s look at a case study – youth pastor Bob wants his student leadership team to run this year’s winter retreat. For the last several years he has taken care of all the details including the games and the spiritual content of the weekend. He realizes this retreat is a perfect opportunity for his student leaders to step up and breathe some new life into an old activity.

The retreat is over a long weekend in February due to parent teacher conferences. The church has a long-standing relationship with a camp in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan that is close to a ski resort. Pastor Bob sits down with his team in late October to give them the challenge of coming up with the winter retreat program.

Bob already has a good leadership experience lined-up in the retreat itself, now he needs to add some pre-experience training to make the leadership development effective. When he lays out the challenge for students to lead the retreat he requires students to commit to three training lessons, two in November and one in December. Students are all in.

At the first training session students are excited because they think they are going to be dreaming up new games and deciding how much time they get to ski. But Bob has some different ideas. He first starts with a dream session on “how we want to be different after the retreat.” Students are puzzled – what does this discussion have to do with being the leaders of the retreat. Bob explains that leaders of retreats don’t just think about what is going to happen but they think about how people are going to grow spiritually because we don’t go on retreats to ski but to retreat and focus on lives with God. Bob goes on to explain that by deciding what outcome we want we are able to pick activities that help us reach our goals. Now students are thinking differently, they start a white board session on what are the spiritual needs of fellow students. This first training session ends differently then how it started. Students are transformed from thinking about activities to thinking about how activities can help them minister to fellow students.

At the second training sessions students are focused on spiritual outcomes for the retreat and start to plan what activities will attract students and help them reach their goals. Bob wants to use this training session to teach his student leaders about strategic planning. He knows their first thoughts are to pick activities and the last thing on their minds is what it will take to accomplish these activities. So as activities are chosen Bob asks students to make lists of all needed material and equipment for each activity. He also asks the students to assign one member of the team to be the leader of the activity. As the second training session comes to an end Bob hears students say things like, “man, a lot goes into this – who did this before?” Bob thinks to himself, “I love student leadership.”

At the third training session Bob knows he still has lots to cover and wants to make sure his student leaders get the most out of the experience. In the coming weeks his student leaders will make the announcement in youth group about the winter retreat. He has decided to focus this training on helping students cast the vision for the event to fellow students. Bob understands that announcing time, place and cost will only excite a few students. Bob asks his student leaders, why are we having this event and how will you describe it to your friends? After a short but productive discussion Bob asks one student to stand up in front of the team and give a practice announcement. With much excitement the student stands up and tells the group about all the cool things there are going to happen on the retreat but never mentions the potential of the retreat to have an impact on students spiritual life. Bob asks the team if the student hit all the bases. They quickly realize how hard it is to communicate what is in their hearts not just wants in their heads. Bob breaks the team into groups of two to work on casting the vision for the retreat.

The student leaders have learned a lot – the process wasn’t actually what they thought it would be but they have learned a ton about how leaders operate. Through this process they set the goals for the retreat, strategically planned for all the events and prepared to cast of vision to fellow students.