Headlining the fairly long list of skills I'd love to develop this year are fund-development savvy and partnership cultivation. I'm more and more convinced that we as youth leaders are never going to dramatically change kids if we don't work together. Laboring on our own, we will have some impact. But it will never be world changing. These sorts of broad, kingdom-minded, collaborative ventures require funding—hence my ongoing need for fund-development savvy.
At this season of my life, my best way to gain new skills is to learn from the experts. By expert, I mean someone who is further along than me on the journey of developing that skill. So the list of experts in both of these areas is vast. Sometimes I learn by asking these experts specific questions. I keep a list of questions I'm wrestling with related to partnerships and fund development, and I ask these questions whenever I'm around folks who know more than me.
Even better are those occasions when I get to learn by observing. Last week I had a breakfast meeting with one of our current donors, along with one of Fuller's leaders who has amazing fund development chops. I learned so much by watching this leader from Fuller express sincere gratitude for the donor's support of our mission. That ninety-minute breakfast taught me more about fund development than any article I've read in the last year.
In my early days of ministry, most of my mentors were also folks in vocational ministry. We had the same schedules, talked the same language, shared the same goals. Now, more and more of my mentors are folks who are not in vocational ministry. I love learning from small-business owners, large-business CEOs, and retired venture capitalists. They don't quite share the same language or goals, but they bring fresh eyes to what I'm wrestling with in ministry. More often than not these days, it's these non-ministry colleagues who help me pin down answers. In fact, the two insights that have most shaped our work at the Fuller Youth Institute thus far in 2011 came from two business leaders, neither of whom has ever served as a youth leader.
Periodically I ask myself a few simple questions:
What do I need to learn?
Whom can I learn from?
How can I best learn from them?
You might want to try asking yourself the same questions, and then be creative in your answers to #2 and #3. I would bet there is a business leader sitting in the pews of your church who is eager to use his or her expertise for kingdom purposes but doesn't know how—and has never been asked. Perhaps you could take that person to coffee. Come prepared, with a list of questions. Maybe even give that person your questions ahead of time.
When it comes to mentors and skill growth, I tend to learn and be stretched the most when I think outside the box.
Knowing what we are like as youth ministers (and I know I generalise here), then a muse on time management may be a key part of looking at this question.
If you are anything like me (and please feel free to be excused from reading anymore if you are not), then learning and skill growth are a high priority in theory, but (and it's a major but) the time put aside, the good intentions, the reading, the interesting course or seminar
It may be worth mentioning too that it's not just time that prevents growth and learning; it is also sometimes what we already know. Youth ministers are seen as the experts in adolescence, engaging with teens and the emerging culture. What we do know (in communities where there are often fear and confusion about young people) can be a barrier to spotting the need for our development and in seeing the arenas where we have so much more to learn.
But, despite the barriers of time and existing skill, we need to learn! To be a disciple of Jesus is to embrace growth. Our call to serve Christ, young people, and the church surely implies a wish to grow in our relationship with Christ and to become better equipped at that to which we are called.
The question uses the verb pursue, which is "to find or employ measures to obtain or accomplish." The word denotes an intentionality. Given the barriers of time and existing knowledge, it's that intentionality that will be the difference between us meaning to learn and grow and actually learning and growing.
A learning theory that I found particularly useful to move toward intentional skill growth is the four stages of competency (or learning). It's a helpful progression that holds true for any area of learning. It's a useful way to look at our own development and skill growth.
The theory holds that in any new discipline we develop along a track that begins with us being unconsciously incompetent (we don't know what we don't know). We then progress to seeing what it is we don't know, becoming consciously incompetent. Having realised what we don't know, we can then begin to embrace learning, training, reading, and practice with a view to becoming consciously competent. The last stage is unconscious competence. The learning and practice are so full and so embedded within us that it is indistinguishable in our minds from common sense or. This can be applied to the whole field of youth ministry or to component skills within it.
Below are some of the things I see in intentional learners. They are also the themes I attempt to borrow and use to help me spot unconscious incompetence or steer me toward skill growth and conscious competence.
Reflecting and evaluating. Take time to listen to others. Question yourself. Make space away from the every day to critically examine.
Taking charge of the day planner. Block out space for reading or reflection. Search out learning opportunities as far in advance as possible and block the time out. Don't let an interesting poster for a learning opportunity haunt the desk or the notice board until it is too late, but book it—and put it in the day planner!
Read (and write). The best learners I know read widely, but many of them go beyond that and scribble, journal, or write, holding their thoughts, reactions, and practices as dialogues.
Embrace risk and humility. It's tempting to embrace skill growth in areas we are already pretty good at. It's more difficult to go after learning with things in which we have little to no ability or knowledge.
Find a mentor. Be a mentor. Learn from someone wiser and more experienced; allow that person to ask difficult questions. Conversely, mentor someone less experienced. That person's questions will challenge us to grow in skills and practice.
It's proven difficult to write about embracing skill growth. Maybe there are some key steps such as the list above, but mostly it seems to me, the key to skill growth is intentionally making it happen. Not easy but always worth it.
In the shadows of the busyness I call life, there is an almost nagging desire to remember the importance of self. This comes into focus in the light of my ability to achieve a certain standard of excellence for myself in service to others through ministry. The importance is evident in daily encounters with an ever-changing world.
There are two areas of personal skill growth that I pursue with intentionality: relational and intellectual.
Relationally, the people I associate with and invest in will often shape the situations I engage and my understanding of the world in which I live. New environments are great places to grow in one's contextual appropriateness and flexibility; an important skill.
Additionally, being intentional about maintaining relationships with people in industries and networks I'm not immersed in is important. I often think, When I look at the people I'm in communication with currently, how many are youth pastors? How many are lead pastors? How many are worship pastors? How many are in ordained ministry? Lay ministry? How many are from my denomination of Christianity? How many are not Christian? How many are in nonprofits? How many are in marketing? How many are in business management? How many are in healthcare or social work? How many are in community development? How many are in Ohio? How many are located outside Ohio? How many are between 18 and 22? 23 and 30? 31 and 40? 41 and 60? 60 and over? And so on, until I can ask myself, In what areas do I want to know more people so I can grow in my ability to understand life from a different perspective? Who can introduce me to someone in that area?
Diversity of perspective is valuable, especially when it challenges the acceptance of other perspectives as valid in the midst of disagreement. These are relational skills that, for many, need to be constantly nurtured. Having a couple of close mentors who are willing to invest in knowing you and challenging you is also helpful in growing relational skills.
Intellectually, reading is my primary means of personal growth. Reading also allows me to encounter new ideas and concepts, both practical and thought provoking in nature. This is how I grow regarding the skills I must engage every day. My bookshelves are lined with books on practical ministry, personal finances, conflict management, personal faith, leadership, philosophy and theology, poetry, social justice, organizational change, and other topics as they apply to my seasons of life. Often these books are recommendations from people in my network(s). Reading, processing, and engaging the concepts and skills in these books helps me continue to improve myself in those arenas.
The commonality between these two areas of personal skill growth is the breadth of diversity that I am intentional in creating. Regardless of the stages of life or professional arenas in which we find ourselves, it's vitally important to remember the value of being well rounded.
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