How do you identify and initiate student leaders?

I was a youth worker in a church where student leadership was a major goal, but it was really hard to meet. Mostly what we were calling leadership was actually just laboring. Partly it’s because our leadership model was servant. In fact, in some cases it just increased expectation of their participation in additional Sunday school classes and volunteerism. In my final years of that particular ministry, I shifted the goalposts of what my expectations of student leaders were and how I identified and worked alongside student leaders.

What changed? Well, I realized that, for many of my students, a focus on leadership development didn’t make any sense. I could only help them become leaders within their communities to the extent of their abilities, charisma, and opportunities. Truth be told, though, there wasn’t a great deal of opportunity a lot of the time. Student leadership was also a way of proving yourself for students. They could climb the ranks of esteem within our community by being student leaders and volunteering for all manner of things. If a pastor did that, we wouldn’t call it healthy, so why would I want to teach this model to my students?

When those who were already serving and shaping their community became obvious, initiating those students into further leadership became all about the fullness of their being, not meeting my needs or the needs of my ministry in terms of labor.

For my students who loved music, not all of them wanted to be leaders of the band or had the skills to corral people. But one was super passionate about playing the guitar. More passion than talent to begin with, you know? Developing his leadership was all about facilitating learning experiences for him, including opportunities for him to fail well. As his ability and experience grew, it was only natural for him to share that with other students. Now he leads the band and works with a team around him, also encouraging younger musicians to grow in the same way he did.

Another example was purely practical. She wanted to become an events manager in her vocation, so facilitating her leadership simply meant giving her opportunity to practice by helping out with events and camps we ran for the ministry but only because she really wanted to and could apply the experience to something practical.

However, I think we need to be realistic. You wouldn’t teach your students to drive and then not let them behind the wheel for a few years. Remember how frustrated you were in the first few years of your own leadership experience—eager to spread your wings? False hope creates a fertile breeding ground for hard-heartedness, disappointment, and frustration.

As one student said to me this year, having just started at university, “So what am I meant to do now? I’ve been a student leader at youth group, and in my school, and now there’s nowhere for me to lead, nothing for me to do, and I just feel frustrated. What’s the point of teaching me how to lead if there’s not any chance for me to lead?” Student leadership in his youth ministry didn’t translate to leadership or influence within his broader church community, which was slowly eating him up.

There are two concurrent actions required: reshaping the goals and values underpinning student leadership and creating real opportunities for actual leadership within the church. We have to be prepared to let go of some of our grasp and to nurse bruised wings, rather than refusing to let students fall or fly out of the nest.

Invest time in developing students who want to lead and have opportunity to.

Your expectation or goal only needs to be their development into wholeness.

Don’t mince words: Students are tougher than they look, so be honest about how and where their actions can open doors of opportunity.

Stand aside, stand behind, stay wise: If others won’t step aside to make space for the students who have something to offer, then you be the one; it’s easier to give away what you have and put your money where your mouth is. Never be in a position where you can’t back them up, help them through it without helping them out of it, and keep the communication open all the time. If something doesn’t go well or students disappoint themselves or you, don’t be sad, don’t be angry. Be the person who offers healthy, constructive, graceful perspective to work it through and go again. That’s the nursing bruises part. You’ll become a trusted ally and friend.

The concept for how we build student leadership opportunities for our groups generally comes from how we identify the purpose of leadership. The church today seems obsessed with leadership culture, constantly hawking conferences, books, blogs, maxims, etc. Too often church leadership has been about creating personality-based kingdoms rather than being constantly enlivened by the views of the kingdom all around us. With this in mind, we have aimed to offer a variety of opportunities throughout the ministry year to allow students the opportunity to step toward the dreams and ideas God has given them.

Early in ministry, I succumbed to the concept that leadership required a charismatic personality and the ability to be front and center. I created a ministry team model where students fit niches within my ministry that helped establish the programs we ran regularly. This model worked in some ways, but when I got the chance to start over in my current ministry context, I decided to try a different path. Over the past few years, my students have taught me a lot about leadership from a much more organic model.

One of the issues that I have had to wrestle with in this free-flowing framework is whose ideas get the attention. For many years I have wanted students to help me create a program I envisioned. A while back, one of my students approached me with an idea inspired by Zach Hunter’s book, Generation Change. She hoped that as a group we could put on a Shack-A-Thon, helping educate people about homelessness and raise funds for a local shelter. However, I had an idea I’d been stewing on for a bit, so I took her idea and tried to redirect it. Needless to say, it never got off the ground. It wasn’t the vision God had spoken to her heart. It wasn’t until some time had passed and she approached me again that I was willing to lay down my ideas and encourage her to embrace her own vision. Leah’s Shack-A-Thon was a fabulous success this past summer with 50+ participants raising more than $5,000 and learning a ton along the way about homelessness, leadership, and how cold it can get in Ohio on an August evening.

So what does having a more organic leadership model mean? A few ideas I’ve learned in the process of the last few years of empowering students:

When you have particular opportunities for students to lead, it’s appropriate to choose individuals. Not everything has to be fair or open. After all, it was Jesus who selected twelve from among the crowds.

Allowing students to create and lead will allow opportunities you wouldn’t have thought of. I asked Leah to create a student leadership team for Shack-A-Thon, and she chose some students I wouldn’t have. But they did an excellent job because she empowered them when I might have overlooked them.

Creating a variety of organic leadership opportunities, some more structured and others less, allows for a wider selection of students to get opportunities because they’re able to step into options that more naturally fit their gifts. For us, this has meant that we offer opportunities including student-led Bible studies, establishing the room environment, coming up with their own ideas, and leading other students in pursuing them. Instead of filling up our program schedule with pre-planned ideas, we’ve been trying to put more choices back in the hands of our students, allowing them to make the decisions.

Throughout this whole process, I’m constantly reminded that leading is actually about serving. I lead my students best and model leadership best to them by serving them as they pursue Christ, rather than trying to get them to serve my programming desires. It reminds me that I have as much to learn as they do, and this equal ground creates exciting opportunities to lead together in directions I would never have imagined on my own.

Joel Daniel has been walking with middle school students on their faith journeys for ten years. Besides leading the middle school ministry at his church, he operates as their instigator of justice, giving direction to their Justice League, a collection of diverse individuals who explore together how to tangibly employ God’s love. Additionally, he provides leadership for The 330, a network of youth pastors throughout northeast Ohio and is the founder of Seismos, an intimate, conversational, non-conference for youth ministers. You can connect with him at www.about.me/joeldaniel

I grew up through a Christian youth group. As a teenager who lacked confidence, was relatively immature, and also struggled as a Christian, I would not have scored very high on any potential leader grids.

Nevertheless, the leaders incorporated me into the team, supported me, and gave me opportunities to lead and grow. My ministry today and indeed my faith have their foundation in that experience and those relationships. It wasn’t even that they took a chance and I surprised them and myself; my leadership and faith development were very much a slow-burn process, steps forward and steps back. (Even now I can’t help cringing when I think about the first session I led).

However, trying to reflect a little more on this, I’m going to go with identification of student leaders being a mixture of prayer, intuition, and of course their willingness. As a key part too, not rushing into having a set idea of who would fit the role—or who wouldn’t. There is a huge danger in an approach that identifies only students who seem to have it all together (they often don’t, or necessarily make the best leaders); or one that ignores the ones who are not such obvious candidates (being believed in and being given the opportunity may be exactly what they need). God took a chance on us, eh!

In many ways, though, it is a discipleship question. Students are going to grow more in faith when they are given the opportunity to go somewhere with it, to model it and be part of a ministry team.

I remember a shy teenager called David who, in one of our chats, confided that the whole youth group thing wasn’t really him. As we chatted, it emerged that he loved organising things, relished playing a part, but preferred being in the background rather than taking part in the malarkey. I asked him if he would run the Tuck Shop, which he then did brilliantly (profit reports, stock control; the works). Through that process of finding a place and a role, he eventually became a small group leader and was one of six young people I invested a lot of time in…and learnt much from.

In terms of initiating student leaders, I think I’m clearer on how that might happen. Reflecting on my own experience and more recent conversations with teenagers in those roles, I think there are two really key components: 1. Be clear on what a task or role is and what is expected. 2. Review with them how it is going (or how it went).

I’ve recently had conversations with several teenagers who have been asked to get involved with the youth ministry among the age group below theirs. Two of these teenagers (in different churches) both felt that they didn’t know if they were being useful. They responded enthusiastically to being asked. However, without the clarity of what they should actually be doing, other than showing up; whilst also experiencing no review of how it was going, they weren’t sure they wanted to continue. Discouragement and self-doubt can easily sink young leaders.

If we don’t really work on the why, how, and then the review, we create a scenario akin to going bowling with the alley in total darkness. We won’t know what we are aiming for and, furthermore, won’t know if we achieved anything.

Reflecting on the young leaders I’ve trained, I’m sure there are some I’ve missed. I also know there are those where it didn’t work out as I’d hoped. I’m looking forward to see what the other contributors write about who, but I think the bigger question is the how.