Leading change is a priority skill for any effective leader. Change happens (whether forced by natural processes or birthed by intentional and innovative thinking), and therefore, leaders must know how to adapt to it and lead through it.
In my opinion, this is one of the greatest challenges facing any youth worker. Often the need or desire for change is desperately required but the skill set to make change and lead others into and through change is lacking.
There are several key components to leading change. First, leading change requires a leader who listens carefully. Before change is executed (or while it is happening around you), take intentional and specific time to listen to responses to questions such as the following:
· What is God saying to me? To others?
· What is my heart saying?
· What are others saying?
Determining the pace at which you lead change should be proportional to the surrounding environment and the many elements that make that culture what it is. Listen carefully as you lead change, or it can quickly get out beyond your grasp, causing the process to get off on the wrong foot.
Second, leading change requires that you develop a team of others who can help you navigate and lead. Seeking a team of people who share in a new vision and the responsibilities necessary because of the new vision is imperative. At times it will feel like you can do it on your own or that it would be easier to do it on your own. Don’t fall prey like so many others to that line of thinking. Resist the temptation to lead on your own. Develop a community of people (doesn’t have to be a big one!) to help you lead and who can support and encourage you and test your ideas, etc.
Third, let the team you assemble shape the vision. Don’t make the mistake of inviting others into the process of helping you lead change and then not give them a chance to shape the way the change is made. This obviously doesn’t mean that you give in to other perspectives or opinions that may take you away from the very things you observed and learned as you listened carefully to the surrounding environment. However, it does mean that you must give others the opportunity to refine the vision in a way that allows everyone to buy in.
Fourth, chart the course or develop the strategic plan to move ahead through the change. I run into a lot of youth workers who do the three things above rather well, but when it comes to sticking to a plan, they’ve forgotten to develop a plan to begin with. From A to Z, determine as best as you can what the appropriate and applicable steps are to make change. Obviously, this plan must be flexible and adaptable.
Fifth, you need to actually put the plan to work. Again, the plan is there to help you navigate through change. However, regardless of how good the plan is, if it isn’t acted upon, it’s a failed plan. Have the courage to listen carefully, develop a team, cast a vision, set a plan, and then actually make the plan work for you.
Finally, leading effective change requires that you track progress and assess your leadership. Effective change may mean that your original plan needs to change or that the roles certain people are playing on the team need to switch or the vision originally crafted needs to be stated in another way. Whatever the adjustment, you can’t make it if you are not willing to authentically track the progress and assess your own leadership.
The bottom line is this. To lead change is a skill that every leader needs to develop and refine. The way you lead change at one time will be different than another time, most likely. So be open to change and let it change you as you change it. You will be a better leader if you can respond proactively to change as opposed to reactively.
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Change. Sometimes it needs to happen fast, like firing a leader or volunteer who is inappropriate or ending a program that has passed its prime. But in reality, even those things need to be handled more slowly than we want to.
When I began as the director of Christian Formation at Christ Church, a formal liturgical church, I had just come from a contemporary mega church. I didn’t really understand or know their language or their church culture. I had to slow down and pay attention, which is often frustrating to someone who likes to hit the ground running and get things done.
It takes two years to learn a church culture and four years in a place before the people believe you are really one of them. Then the “old crowd” will put their trust in your ideas and in you!
What does that mean for change? Take baby steps. We have to use the What About Bob? strategy. What About Bob? is an old Bill Murray movie where he plays a lovable psych patient who must learn to take “baby steps” in order to grow and change.
Most of us don’t like baby steps. Most of us like taking big leaps forward because we can see and feel how far behind we are and/or all the possibilities of what could be. (Remember that all churches are behind regardless of their flavor).
In order to see change, we must take a long, slow, deep breath and first learn the culture of our place. When I got to Christ Church, I didn’t have a clue what the senior warden did or what an undercroft was or why the prayer book was so important. I couldn’t stand the curriculum, and I didn’t know if any of my Sunday school teachers had a relationship with Jesus because they expressed it so differently from my contemporary church friends. I had to take the time to learn and actually care about what was important to them. I had to get to know the people and place.
If you are just starting at a new place, leave things alone for a year! In order to see change happen, become a part of the place. It has to be “your” church, not “their” church.
If you want to change things, start by praying.
· Pray for people to go with you.
· Pray for favor with parents, leaders, students.
· Honor the people who disagree. That’s really tough.
Build relationships with key people. If we take the time to build relationships, we are more likely to be successful in whatever change we want to lead.
Whom do I need to build a friendship with who needs to “get” what I’m talking about? Who has influence that can help the change or stop it in its tracks? I don’t mean that you should manipulate people. I mean take the time to get to know people in your congregation—your staff members, your parent and team leaders, board members, etc. They are important to your ministry—as important as the kids in some ways. If they know you and know your heart and “get” your passion, then you will have a platform to share your ideas.
At his very first church, when John Maxwell was in his twenties, he made a point to take every board member out to lunch and get to know them personally. It changed his ministry. The board members became his friends rather than his enemies.
Discuss change. Don’t just do it. If you begin change without building the people’s trust in advance, you will find you are frustrated or fired before the second year. It’s like dating. You have to date your church before you propose. You have to woo them before you ask them to be different or go down a different path. Remember, in reality, only God can change other people. You can only change yourself.
Getting to know your church people means knowing their fears, their dreams, and why they do the things they do. You can see what roadblocks have stopped others and the ones that might stop you. Sometimes you may even have to learn a new language before you can communicate to those you want to lead. I had to learn to speak Episcopalian.
Ask yourself hard questions:
· Why do I think this needs to happen?
· What are my motives for change?
· Is this God’s idea or yours? Ask God to show you what he wants to change.
· Are you willing to compromise anywhere in your plans?
· Can you move incrementally versus scraping the whole thing?
Keep taking baby steps! Know that even after you’ve built relationships and even after you’ve prayed, there will still be people who don’t agree with you. There will still be naysayers who aren’t on your side. That’s normal. Just keep showing them compassion and keep praying.
If you have done your homework, taken baby steps, prayed, and spent the time to become a part of the community, you will have more peace in the midst of your ministry and know that God is at work in the changes for the long haul.
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Change is the artistic skill required of leaders. Widely effective leaders have learned to wield their creativity in multiple settings and with a variety of audiences.
Those of us in youth ministry commonly concentrate our energies on the transformation that Jesus Christ brings about in the lives of the young people with whom we work. That is, for most of us, the energizing payoff that we signed on for. The more we understand how to cooperate with the Holy Spirit to bring about this sort of miraculous change, the more fruit we can expect from our ministries. I don’t want to sneeze at this most significant of changes.
In Youth for Christ, we want our ministry site leaders to practice what we call the 5 Essentials. These biblically derived principles are intended to bring about the changes we all care most about; they are true whether we are working with students through Campus Life or with teens locked up in jail in our Juvenile Justice Ministries. In a nutshell, we want our leaders to enlist lots of people in frequent and specific prayer for our work.
We want to initiate uncommonly loving relationships with teens by pursuing them and engaging them in their world. We believe that in our Dr. Phil, advice-giving culture, we need to do a better job of teaching God’s Word and coaching kids to apply it in their lives. Much prayer, much love, much use of Scripture—these three Essentials bring about Spirit-graced life change for would-be followers of Jesus Christ.
The remaining two Essentials call us into a different kind of ministry site leadership. We ask our staff to be catalysts for collaboration among churches and like-minded partners in hundreds of communities around the country. Our goal is to help bring about the kind of unity that Jesus prayed for in John 17—that which testifies to the reality of the one true God in our midst. Together we hope to raise indigenous young leaders and empower them to multiply their influence. Both of these Essentials bring about change of another order—they aspire to reshape the very fabric of a community, something very different from helping individual teens through prayer, love, or teaching the Bible.
It requires an unusual vision to see how local churches can operate beyond their existing parish boundaries to come through as the body of Christ on behalf of young people who are far from God. Those who lead change that mobilizes other people must possess an inspiring vision and compelling character.
For example, humility positions leaders with the attitudes needed to listen and learn from others. In our YFC culture, we need to appreciate diversity of perspectives and others’ uniquely valuable contributions. Many who work in churches realize that they activate a willingness to change among parents and congregational stakeholders after they demonstrate a willingness to hear concerns, accommodate additional dreams, and even adjust their timelines so that there is genuine buy-in for the directional change being advocated.
Youth ministry is most simple when it represents a transaction between two people. “You wanna help me change?” a kid might ask. Permission granted.
But just try to drop the weekend retreat your church has “always” done from your schedule one year. Efforts like these reveal that there is always a definable group of people whose ownership is necessary for change to take place. Effective leaders see who needs to be on board, recognize what flexibility is necessary to secure their support, and bend like weeds to seal the deal.
Pure artistry.
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