How to Choose the Perfect Leader for Your Student Ministry
Matt’s eyes were huge as he entered the conference. The sea of youth leaders in one location exceeded his expectations. He felt confident this would be the place to discover the qualities of the “Perfect Leader for Student Ministry.”
The plan had been to interview enough student leaders in three days to build a profile of the “Perfect Leader.” His professor had even given him the names of a few strategic people to seek out, but beyond those he had been on his own. After talking to over 100 men and women, Matt began to write the following thoughts.
When building your leadership team consider the following concepts:
Tweet This- Have a discipleship plan for each of the leaders. Everyone needs discipleship, not just students!
- Take time to build an operating system which both empowers and develops your leadership team.
- Look for people who are teachable and want to grow personally in their spiritual life.
- Recruit people willing to participate in an accountability relationship.
- Find people who have a burden for students. You can teach philosophy but you cannot teach burden.
- Have a process for screening leaders.***
- Select intergenerational leaders, not just the twenty-something’s.
- Resource the pool of parents (yes, even grandparents) who would love to volunteer.
- Challenge the leaders to live a life “worthy of imitation.”
Matt asked a veteran leader to look over his notes and make suggestions. As the leader reviewed Matt’s notes, he felt he had only missed one thing. The leader surprised him when he said,
“Matt, here is what you are missing: there is no such thing as a “Perfect Leader.” Only imperfect people pointing students to a Perfect God. Yes, we need to recruit wisely, train effectively and minister efficiently but we are going to do so with flawed people and that includes us. What is exciting is that God chooses to use us. I encourage you to always recruit the best people you can to be leaders but remember God uses us in spite of our imperfections.”
Matt learned some valuable lessons writing his paper but realized the real test would come when he had to put what he learned to practice.
How have you put some of these same concepts into practice in your ministry?
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[***Disclaimer: I am not dealing with legal matters here but suggest some degree of background check on every individual working with youth to any degree.]
