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Brooklyn Lindsey

There are two sides to this coin.

There are the young leaders who emerge in our ministry because I have seen the qualities I’m about to discuss and we’ve decided to nurture those students into greater leadership (because most of the time they are already leading when we realize that they are leaders.)

Then there are the young leaders who catch us by surprise. They don’t display the qualities we look for; they may be on the fringe; they may not say a word to anyone. But one day, they bloom and everything you’ve been teaching and modeling clicks for them. A leader emerges.

With that said, I want to be clear that there isn’t a standard list of qualities to look for in young people when considering them for leadership. It’s more like signals you see that tell you that a particular person has potential to lead.

A Few Leadership Signals:

People already are following them. Leadership is influence. If a student has an influential presence around other students (good or bad), then there is potential.

They have a contagious worldview. Check out their Facebook pages or listen to the way they talk to their friends. You can spot leaders when they are able to share their worldviews and get others to subscribe as well. I identify this sort of person in our youth group as the one who is always bringing friends to church. They have a convincing nature—both in convincing their friends to come and convincing their parents to pick them up and bring them too.

They listen to leadership and desire growth. These are the ones I find in discipleship—they are committed to more than just crowd youth ministry. They want to go deeper (not just at church but usually at school and at home too).

A Few Christian Leadership Signals:

You see them meeting needs without being asked. There is a smashed donut on the floor. They pick it up. There’s a new student clinging to the wall. They try to connect.

They are inventive. They try to create ways to reach out to other students all the time. My leaders are always in my face with new ideas (or old ones they think are new). “Let’s plan a dance!” “I want to raise money for clean water in Africa.” “How can we help the senior adults in our church feel loved?” These are telling questions and statements coming from young people. We should spot leaders in them when we hear these questions.

They are consistent. They walk with Christ at home, at school, at church.

They aren’t satisfied. They want a growing faith for themselves, and they also want others to know about the hope they have found. They will look for ways to be a connection for others.

When we see these signals in our students, it’s important to identify their strengths and give them opportunities to use them. So often we pat them on the back and tell them we are proud of them, but we overlook giving them a task, a commission, a place to lead where they are safe to lead. When we overlook them in this way, we miss so much of the field that is ripe for harvest.

A great resource to help in nurturing young leaders is Leaders Are Learners, by Doug Fields. It’s a great way to start the nurturing process if it hasn’t already started.

Claire Smith

God has allowed me to be involved in the nurturing and equipping of young leaders over the years. However, I cannot say I have consciously looked for particular qualities. In my various places of service, young people have attained leadership in different ways. Sometimes it has been by the election of peers to particular offices, at other times by default when no one else was willing to take up the mantle, sometimes by volunteering for particular positions and/or functions, and sometimes just by accompanying a more experienced leader. I have worked with whomever has presented themselves, both formally in training sessions, etc, and informally, by providing guidance, nurture, instruction, and accompanying them along the way.

When I look back and think about the many young people who became leaders with whom I have worked, there are four main qualities and characteristics that stand out: openness, sense of responsibility, creativity, and a desire to grow.

When I speak about openness, I am talking about young people having a desire for God and for God to use them, the ability to listen and take advice, willingness to venture into the unknown, and respect for peers and their opinions.

With responsibility I refer to the ability to carry through decisions and execute plans, the willingness to admit failure but keep trying, and being accountable to those who are more senior.

In identifying creativity, I note bringing something new to the endeavor, thinking things through and proposing ideas and actions that are fresh and help to move the work forward.

A desire to grow in some ways relates back to openness but goes beyond it in that this young person seeks and grabs hold of opportunities for formal and informal training and learning.

All this is undergirded by prayer and confidence in God, which leads to a sense of having been called by God to do a particular task in a particular place. Thus, even when this person appears to be timid, he or she has a strong enough sense of call and self to press onward.

You may notice that I do not pick out people who might identified as assertive, commanding, outgoing, gregarious, or any other qualities along those lines. These are sometimes overrated as qualities intrinsic to leadership. Young people with these qualities may gain the spotlight and gain a following. However, solid leadership is less focused on the individual and more focused on God, God’s will, and God’s people. Solid leadership builds so that there is life and energy in the present and the future regardless of the leader’s presence.

As I mentioned earlier, I do not consciously look for openness, sense of responsibility, creativity, and a desire to grow before I am willing to work with a young leader. I will work with whomever God sends. However, when these qualities and characteristics are present, that young person will emerge as a leader through whom God builds a dynamic present and future.

Chap Clark & Kara E. Powell, Deep Justice in a Broken World (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2007), 58. Ibid, 93.

Kevin Farmer

One of the privileges I’ve enjoyed in my years of vocational service has been helping to nurture and equip leaders. This is not to suggest I’ve done a particularly great job with this task—only to say that I’ve counted it a great privilege to at least make the attempts to help. While it has been an incredible privilege to help leaders across age, gender, and ethnicity boundaries explore various aspects of leadership development, there has also been at least one aspect of this journey that has caused me significant angst—wrestling with the apparent differences between Jesus’ choices for leaders and the choices of the Apostle Paul.

Certainly we can easily give in to the temptation to oversimplify this subject and just reply, “Is this really an issue, is there really a difference, or are you just trying to make a dollar out of 15 cents?” I think there is a huge difference. In fact, the longer I’ve been in ministry, the more I’m convinced that the differences are not only subtle but also essential for our ability to discern prospective leadership qualities in both teens and adults.

Clearly we don’t know much about most of “the 12” of Jesus; only a select few. And unfortunately, there are not too many of us who usually have much good to say about the 12, especially while they traveled with Christ (most of our praise of the apostles comes after the Day of Pentecost). In fact, in light of Saul’s conversion to the Apostle Paul and his compelling admonition to both Timothy and Titus many years post his conversion, I wonder if even he would have counted any of Jesus’ 12 as leadership worthy. I’m rather certain I wouldn’t have!

It’s fairly easy to look at Paul’s list in his letters to Timothy and Titus and determine what type of qualities we should be looking for in potential leaders. But then you look at the selected 12 of Jesus and think, Why in the heck would he pick these guys out individually? (Not to mention, he picked these guys out to somehow work together.) But this is what he did! And perhaps he did it in large part to show us that we need to pay close attention not just to the rock-solid qualities of leadership Paul appears to value but also to the precarious qualities in which God himself seems to show interest.

Maybe this is, in fact, a blueprint for how we look at those teenagers whom we would never consider for leadership—you know, kinda like that embezzling, sellout, tax-collector Matthew; and those nondescript fishermen, Simon, Andrew, James, and John.

I can honestly say I’ve tried to stop looking at the list—whatever that list is—as a starting point. Instead, I’m trying to develop the habit of asking one question with one follow-up response: Lord, is this a person for whom you have a specific plan of leadership? If so, show me what qualities you see in this person that you want me to help develop or nurture.

This is not to suggest at all that Paul’s list gets thrown out. This is merely to say that Paul’s list becomes an accessory after the fact. It becomes a tool to develop those leaders God has already revealed. But if I start with Paul’s list, I might just miss that piece of coal that God wants to transform into a diamond. And to be certain, I can only help nurture and develop those qualities the Lord has already imparted. That’s how it happened with virtually all the leaders of Scripture, isn’t it? I certainly know that’s how it happened with me!

Kevin Farmer has been working with children, teenagers, college students and their families for more than 15 years. Over these years Kevin has been invited by schools, churches and other ministries across the country to provide teaching and offer inspiration to students of all ages, as well as to the people who serve them.

Kevin currently serves as the Pastor of Equipping and Empowerment at the Sanctuary Covenant Church in Minneapolis, MN where he helps create spiritual formation opportunities that grow people of all ages on their life-long journey with God. Because Kevin has a tremendous desire to see people grow into the fullness of all God desires them to be, he also helps people get connected to meaningful opportunities to serve, especially within their area of giftedness.

Kevin received his BA in Africana Studies from the University of Pittsburgh, his Master of Arts in Christian Education from Bethel Theological Seminary and is ordained in Specialized Ministry in the Evangelical Covenant Church. Originally from Philadelphia, Pastor Kevin now lives in South Minneapolis with his 3 favorite people; his wife Lynn, his son Noah and his daughter Maya.

What qualities do you look for in order to nurture and equip young leaders?

Brooklyn Lindsey

Claire Smith

Kevin Farmer

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