Cast the Leadership Net – Who do you invite into leadership?

Guest blog - Wes Henson, part 1

When it comes to inviting students and adults into leadership, where do we start?

Years ago I started to invite students to be part of our leadership team. We had a “kickoff” trip followed by a mix of weekly and monthly meetings. I had two girls who showed leadership potential and I invited them to join the team. Initially they resisted but I stuck with the invitation and convinced them to join us.

Fast forward a few months and they had essentially stepped out of our leadership team. I would remind them, but they were resistant. Looking back, I see the mistake I made.

I would rather help someone who is willing to grow than someone who seems naturally gifted to lead but not willing to grow.

I still invite students to join our leadership team, especially ones in whom I see leadership potential, but I have stopped trying to convince them to participate in our leadership program.

Why? Because willingness beats ability.

I would rather have a student who is willing to experiment, grow, struggle, and succeed at leadership because they are hungry to grow, than to have someone we have to drag to keep up with the team.

Our leadership net is wide. We invite everyone to join. Don’t get me wrong, we set the bar for leaders high, and we have a team for them to join, but it’s not exclusive beyond a willingness to contribute and participate.

You never know who is waiting to be invited, either. Which leads me to maybe the greatest lesson I’ve learned in the last 6 years about recruiting adults to help with student ministry. Because leadership development doesn’t only happen in teenagers.

Wes Henson, Student Minister, Trinity Baptist, Kerrville, TX

Student Ministry Leadership

When thinking about Student Ministry leadership there are at least two relevant points of emphasis:

1. Developing leaders.

2. Providing leadership for your Student ministry.

Each of these points hold equal significance.

Look at it this way. Developing leaders is making disciples and providing leadership is serving.

When these two elements are present in your ministry, you have a shared ministry model that promotes growth and membership engagement.

With this model in mind, you are not the only one aware of the vision for the Student Ministry or the only one accountable to the vision.

Your Student Leadership becomes your partner in ministry.

Here is a guide to help think about how your Student Ministry leadership becomes your partner in ministry:

Communicate–use every means possible to communicate with your leadership the purpose of the event. Don’t rely on digital communication alone. Conduct a stand up meeting (huddle) 30 minutes before events to reinforce the purpose of the event, go over specific assignments, and pray.

Observation–pay attention to what is happening in the room. Encourage leadership to be ready to share observations and offer feedback.

Evaluation–meet up again after the event to get quick feedback. You can do deeper evaluation the next day or at your next planning meeting.

These three quick hits will create a pattern of ownership and will be one part of training leadership to becoming a partner in ministry.

Creating a leadership culture

Everything you do is a part of your culture–your room, your messaging, training, enlistment and the list goes on. The question for us is, what are we doing to influence the leadership culture in our ministry?

You are already doing every one of the things listed above, but are you doing them intentionally or accidentally?

Taking intentional steps will create a shared understanding of the vision, purpose and values of your Student Ministry.

Your decisions will start to reflect behaviors within your organization that will influence how you collectively think and operate. You will start to look like a team.

Your shared purpose will sync your organization and the steps of growth will become rhythmic and systematic. When it is not in sync, it will be easier to determine and adjustments can be implemented.

A healthy leadership culture draws attention. People become curious, They want to know how to be a part and strength begins to build on strength.

A leadership culture creates member engagement. This is when you have momentum. John Maxwell repeatedly says, momentum is your best friend.

Take a hard look at your culture. What have you created? How can you begin a more intentional shift?

Creating an inviting culture

Everything you do is a part of your culture. So there are many things to consider when it comes to creating an inviting culture.

The basic framework for an inviting culture is meeting space, branding, and programming. Each of these is unique to each ministry and is met with varying degrees of expertise. This basic framework is important and reinforces the culture you seek to create.

Building on the basic framework, consider your language, ownership and opportunity. Then celebrate the fruit.

Language–bring a friend. Say it often. Sure your slides, social media and brochures are on brand but are you talking about it? You talk about the things that are important to you. Do your students know that reaching students is important to you?

Ownership–the innovation loop includes others. When others are included in creating the culture, they participate and advocate for the mission. They understand the vision, generate ideas for accomplishing the vision and give feedback on the progress. You need these people in the loop.

Opportunities–students need something to invite their friends to. Special events are a given, but focus on how to establish this in your weekly programming as well. Messaging will be tricky. You don’t want to become like the Sunday morning announcements, so be creative in messaging the opportunities.

Celebrate–you need to be careful for sure, but encouraging those who are inviting others is important. Affirming words go a long way in creating culture. When introducing someone who has been invited you can mention the person that invited them. When someone is baptized, recognize those who played a role inviting them.

In a recent Student Ministry we created an invitation tree of those that started attending and inviting others. The tree represented several generations that all started with one invitation. We shared the tree as an example of what was taking place in the ministry and how we could continue to reach others.

Start rethinking your culture basics and beyond.

An Event You Can’t Miss

If you stand before your students to announce an event and say the words, “you can’t miss this event”, you better be prepared to deliver. While it sounds overwhelming, the process is simple.

It is understood that any event will have scheduling conflicts. That shouldn’t keep you from doing outreach events. The first step to your can’t miss event is scheduling. Gather all of your calendar resources and pick a date. You can evaluate later.

Give yourself 4-6 weeks lead time to market the event. Use every normal means at your disposal, but do not limit yourself to these. Like everyone, students have information fatigue. As you plan, challenge your team to experiment with unique approaches. It may help to identify businesses that do this well like Nike, Apple, Insurance, etc.

Be creative in your concept and execution. The concept doesn’t have to be extravagant. I’ve shared previously that our best event was a middle school black out night, and all of our promotions just said, “Don’t Miss This, Wear Black, Bring a Friend.” We had record attendance that night.

Don’t try this by yourself. Bring a team around you-your dream team and come up with ideas. Collaboration is a necessity for these kinds of events.

In the end you want students to experience F.O.M.O. (fear of missing out). If they are talking about it the next day, then you are on the right track.

After the event, do good follow up. Make sure you talk about what is coming up next week and invite students to the next step

Don’t miss the can’t miss. You may never get a second chance.

Dream teams, team dream.

The hectic pace of student ministry shifts from summer to fall, and now you have to be ready for the rogers of weekly programming.

As you prepare, I have two questions:

1. What are your expectations this year?

2. Will you do this alone?

Usually during the summer ministry you have the opportunity to witness God’s work in students up close and personal. And maybe you wonder, will this continue?

If it were to continue, what would it look like?

As you start to dream, start with some time with God. Seek God’s direction as you think and pray about the next year. I think this works best away from the office. Maybe in a place where you can go and know that you best experience God’s presence. Take a journal and commit your thoughts to print. When you are done, consider this sequence.

1. Put your journal away for one week. After one week, find a place where you can review your notes. Make additions. Clarify some of your notes or write new thoughts. After this, highlight the things that stand out to you.

2. Review your notes one last time, and before you leave this space, decide one person that you can share your dreams with. It doesn’t need to be all you have written. Choose some specific things that you would feel free to share.

3. Make an appointment and share your dreams with someone you trust within two weeks from the start date. Be vulnerable and ask this person to share their dreams for the student ministry, and ask them to commit to pray for you this semester.

4. Within the first four weeks of your dream session, schedule a time to share your dreams with your student ministry team. If you don’t have a team, then this is the place to start developing a team. Ask others to share their dreams. Plan regular meet ups to review your dream sessions, pray and celebrate.

Dream dreams. Share dreams. Celebrate dreams.

Building a Launch Strategy to Reach Students

Creating a launch strategy creates a rhythm for your Student Ministry where you can vision through leadership training and preparation. Here are a few simple steps to get the process started.

1. Dream, but not alone. It is hard for solo ministries to reach students. Dreaming with others creates ownership. Bring people together to hear your dreams and share theirs. Dreaming becomes contagious when it is shared.

2. Plan and give ownership. People respond differently when they have a sense of ownership. One of my early mentors taught me that the more volunteers you have in the process, the greater your reach.

3. Strategize by setting measurable goals and expectations. An easy way to look at this structure is in three parts.

   Run up strategy > event strategy > follow up strategy

   If you want to move the needle, focus on lead measures not lag measures. A lag measure would be a goal for how many people show up. A lead measure would be how many contacts you make. Lead measures become visionary while lag measures are the review mirror.

4. Stretch. Create a “can’t miss event” with a call to action during your launch for a future outreach event during the semester. I first tried this approach in launching a new sermon series for our church. We set a specific date far enough in advance where people could add it to their calendars. During the run up strategy we keep saying, this is a can’t miss event. On the day of the event, every person received a free themed tee shirt. After the event the extra shirts were put away.

   Note: a can’t miss event is something that is sharable and memorable. It is something people will talk about later or regret if they are not present. This is not easy, but with practice you will build a reliable reputation. 

   This stretch was costly but helped us build the reputation around a can’t miss event. One of the most effective events in my experience was when our Middle School minister planned a black out outreach event. He never shared details. For the run up strategy he said  be here, wear dark clothes. We hit a new attendance milestone that night. 

5. Evaluate. What did you learn? Check your measurements, Adjust and make notes for your next launch.

Using a launch strategy will engage your current students and give you the opportunity to share your overall outreach strategy. A big launch at the start of the Fall semester is consistently the best time. Other launch strategies could be in January or prior to a major Student Ministry event.

Are you ready for Senior Sunday?

Nothing gets me going like a good discussion with Youth Ministers about their Senior Sunday experiences.

There is every reason these should be good experiences, but it may be the most challenging event to pull off in Student Ministry. There is a high level of creativity, thought and tradition that goes into every Senior Sunday, and the margin of error is razor thin.

In order to keep a healthy perspective and make the most of what should be a celebration of students, consider this in your planning:

• Create a system for over communication about how to participate. Get feedback each year and make notes for next year.

• Get volunteers to do the heavy lifting. Some of this can be created through a tradition of succession. An example is involving the Junior Class each year in set up and serving.

• Keep perspective and genuinely celebrate those students that have remained consistent.

• Keep it simple and don’t overthink it year to year. Work to create memories outside of the event. Write notes, have a conversation, share your dreams for the student.

• Decompress. LIke all other big events, find a way that you can intentionally evaluate and recharge.

Youth Ministers are heroes and sometimes heroes take their shots. Keep shaping students to shape the world. We are cheering for you!