I know there’s a lot things we could add to this list, like needing everyone’s approval, neglecting the role of the Holy Spirit, pretending to act like someone you’re not, siding with teens against their parents, etc. But there’s one problem that often goes overlooked that will undeniably create very unhealthy relationships with students possibly worse than anything else, and that’s this:

Every adult youth leader needs healthy adult relationships, or their relationships with students will quickly become very unhealthy.

Unfortunately, I’ve seen this story play out too many times. An adult youth leader may not connect well with other adults for any number of reasons: their maturity level isn’t up to par; they felt rejected in high school and now try to find that security in youth group teens; they think being an adult is “uncool”; they look to teens for self-worth; and a host of many other reasons that are related to emotional baggage. The end result is they become a peer for students, not a leader. And students don’t need more peers.

Signs that a youth leader is lacking maturity and healthy adult relationships

• Whenever an issue arises in a student’s life, they rush to “save the day” and often make a bigger deal out of the situation than the student does.
• When there’s a disagreement between a student and another adult youth leader, the adult will side with the teen and even unintentionally pit the students against the other leaders, even in scenarios where no sides needed to be taken in the first place.
• The leader will confide in students about issues in their personal life that should only be shared with a spouse, a pastor, or a close Christian adult friend.
• Whenever the adult has free time, they spend most of it hanging out with the same group teens (as a peer group) and rarely with other adult friends.
• The leader will entertain gossip and complaints (sometimes even start it) with students about other youth leaders, the church, and even other authority figures, like parents and teachers.
• When a student confides in them, they promise to keep it a secret and never to share it with anyone else. The unintentional result is that some students, who need professional help, never get it. By the time you find out about it, it’s too late.
• The other extreme is when the leader goes out of their way to fish out “juicy” private information from students because it strokes their ego and feeds an insecure self-worth when they know a teen’s personal secrets.
• They are really involved with a friend-group/clique of teens and generally don’t reach out much to other students.
• Other adult leaders and parents, whom you know and trust, express concern to you about the leader (in a non-gossipy way) and their input aligns with your unspoken observations.
• When you try to express concern about any of this to the leader, they become defensive and make excuses, often causing them to separate from the team of adult leaders even more than they already were.

Because their maturity is lacking, they will unintentionally create division and will ultimately hinder the maturing process for students. Often their hearts are in the right place and they mean well, but they are blinded by their immaturity and fail to see the damage they’re actually causing.

So, how should you handle it? Every situation is unique, but here are some general principles.

How to address the situation

• First, it’s important that you spend a decent amount of time in prayer. It’s an obvious first step that too often goes overlooked.
• Talk with your sr. pastor (and other church leadership, if necessary) about the situation and get their input and advice. These conversations always work best with the godly advice and guidance.
• Sit down one-on-one with the leader and have an honest, open conversation. Do your best to speak the truth in love. Express your concern and pray they are receptive.
• If they humbly see truth in your observations, then work together to connect them with other maturing adults who will help them grow spiritually, relationally, and emotionally. Establish some sort of regular, on-going mentoring relationship, either from yourself or someone else.

If they make excuses, get defensive and refuse to listen to your concerns, then discuss the next steps with your sr. pastor. The process from here will be pretty sticky. Depending on the severity of their immaturity, there’s a good chance that the leader may need to be asked to step down from the youth leadership team. Sometimes they can be dismissed with the intention of restoration after certain expectations have been met, like establishing accountability, working through some personal issues, mentoring, and adult relationships. Other times they will have to be dismissed permanently. Either way, the confrontation is often the most helpful component because how they respond to confrontation will show their true character.

But be forewarned: dismissing this kind of a leader will be a very ugly process. The teens who love him/her will definitely look at you like you’re the bad guy. Even though you’re doing it for their benefit, you can’t tell them that because then you’d have to explain why you’re doing it, and you would never talk poorly about someone else just to make yourself look better (even though the other party may not play by the same rules). But you still have to do what’s in the best interest of the teens and the ministry whether they understand it or not. The Lord knows. Sometimes being a leader is like being a parent: you have to make the tough decisions for their own sake even if the kids don’t like it nor understand it.

Have you ever worked with a youth leader like this? How did you handle it? What advice do you have for others who are experiencing it? Comment below.

—————————————————————–
Please help support the youth ministry mentorship, the Online Missions Trip, and MinistryQuestions.com by subscribing to YouthWorker Journal. Get your FREE no-risk trial issue of YouthWorker Journal today, the best in youth ministry resources!

Last Monday the youth pastor at NewSpring Community Church, Brad Cooper, joined us for LIVE YM Talk to discuss our topic of, “Leading a team of volunteer youth workers.” As a youth pastor who works with hundreds of teenagers and adult leaders, he shares from his experience about how to lead a team of leaders.

Some of the things we talked about:

• Setting expectations for adult leaders
• The process of “basic training”
• Helping leaders use their gifts and passions within the ministry’s vision
• Moving leaders through “Direction, Coaching, Supporting, Delegating”
• And a lot more…

You can listen to the whole conversation below or grab it in iTunes.

Play this episode

Subscribe to LIVE YM Conversations in iTunes

Next Monday’s discussion

November 30: Next week we’re doing our very first MinistryQuestions.com episode where we’ll be answering recent questions and debates from MinistryQuestions.com. If you’d like us to discuss your question, post it at MinistryQuestions.com between now and then. The show starts at 2:00 PM eastern time. Call (724) 444-7444 and enter ID 19105#, or use the link on the LIVE YM Talk page to listen online and join the chat room.

Join our next LIVE Youth Ministry Conversation!

Dennis Beckner joined us last Monday to talk about keys for a successful start in youth ministry as a volunteer. Dennis has been a volunteer youth leader in the sr. high ministry at Saddleback Church for the past 10 years.

Some of the things we talked about:

• The unknowns of walking into a new ministry
• Easing into the ministry vs. jumping right in
• How retreats will help you past the initial struggles
• Maintaining respect as both a friend and a leader with the teens
• And a lot more…

Although we discussed a lot things, we barely scratched the surface of everything Dennis had to share with us. So, he typed up the rest of his notes that we didn’t cover in the recording, which you can download here.

You can listen to the whole conversation below or grab it in iTunes.

Play this episode

Subscribe to LIVE YM Conversations in iTunes

Next Monday’s discussion

November 9: Next week YOU are the featured guest. We’re having an open discussion where you can ask questions, seek advice, share prayer concerns, vent, share stories, whatever you want. At 2:00 PM eastern time, call (724) 444-7444 and enter ID 19105#, or use the link on the LIVE YM Talk page to listen online and join the chat room.

Join our next LIVE Youth Ministry Conversation!

This guest series is contributed by Bill Allison of Cadre Ministries.

• Read Part 1
• Read Part 2

Training Killer #3: Poor Planning

One prevalent reason many training offerings are not well attended by volunteers in the church is not because volunteers lack commitment to the church, their ministry, or personal development, but because the training opportunities are not planned with the life, ministry, and schedule of the average church volunteer in mind.

Be sure to be cognizant of—and to avoid—these four common planning blunders the next time you plan training for the volunteers in your church:

1. Poor Scheduling
A common planning gaffe vocational church leaders tend to make is planning an excellent training session for volunteers at times that are nearly impossible or extremely inconvenient for most of their volunteers. If you schedule training when volunteers are not likely to attend, don’t be surprised when only a few attend.

When training volunteers in your church, it is absolutely critical to look through a volunteer lens when you plan the timing of the training! Plan training for times that work best for the schedules of the majority of your volunteers—not what fits best in the schedules of the full-time staff. In some churches/ministries, a Saturday morning works best. In others, Sunday afternoon or night is best. Still in others, a weeknight for 2 hours is best. You must figure out what works best for the volunteers in your church/ministry. The best training offered at inopportune times for volunteers will still be a poorly attended training.

One last scheduling warning: Offering training for volunteers that falls in the midst of a church calendar that is overloaded with events and activities forces volunteers to choose between the training or some other church event that either precedes or follows the training event.

2. Poor Communication
Once you’ve landed on a training workshop and a time that is most opportune for the volunteers in your church, volunteers will need clear and advance communication about the training. Everyone is busy. Schedules are filled way in advance. So plan ahead—and start communicating at least two months in advance for maximum volunteer participation. Give advance, clear, and personal
communication about the training.

3. Failing to Provide Childcare
If you really want adult volunteers who have families to come to your training, you would be extremely wise to offer childcare at the church during the training. This alone could make the difference in whether or not busy volunteers with small children come to your training! Whether or not you offer childcare during a volunteer training opportunity speaks volumes to those you are trying to train. Does offering childcare during training sound like too much work? Welcome to real volunteer ministry!

4. Forgetting to Offer GREAT Food and Snacks/Goodies
As insignificant as this may seem, offering great food and snacks/goodies could be a significant factor in getting volunteers to come to your training — no joke. Think about it: If you provide food and snacks/goodies, you’ve just saved volunteers time. They don’t have to plan, pay, or prepare a meal. If there’s one thing a volunteer appreciates deeply it’s someone who values their time. Few things say, “I love you” to a volunteer better than “We’ve got the food and snack/goodies covered.”

I just finished training 100 volunteers who teach and lead small groups. When the pastor came up to close the training in prayer, he mentioned that he would be offering ongoing training over the next six months and that at the first time of training next month there would be a chocolate fountain. There was a collective audible gasp of delight! People loved it. I ask you: Is this bribery or wisdom? I’ll let you decide. (Okay, I think it was incredibly thoughtful.) But don’t miss my point. Good food and snack goodies are always a plus. Great food and snack goodies have a magnet-like pull on volunteers, and any money you spend on doing the food and snacks well is money well invested in the volunteers who serve in your ministry.

To be sure, there are plenty more training killers that keep volunteers from showing up for your training. However, if you avoided the blunders mentioned all three parts of this series, you could be on your way to a volunteer training break through. Who knows, the next time you offer training to the volunteers in your church, your training time could be filled with… volunteers!

FREE Amazing Time Management Secrets for You and Volunteers

Bill’s book on Recruiting, Motivating, and Retaining Volunteers in the Church

Subscribe to Free Monthly Online Training from Bill and Cadre Ministries

————————————————————————————–
Bill Allison is the founder of Cadre Ministries, a ministry whose Eph. 4:11-12 obsession is to equip churches to make volunteers wildly successful. Cadre fulfills this obsession best by training trainers to take training back to their local ministries. Every month he publishes Cadre Connection, a FREE gold mine of training resources for volunteers in the church — and those who love volunteers in the church. Subscribe for free.

This guest series is contributed by Bill Allison of Cadre Ministries.

• Read Part 1
• Read Part 3

Training Killer #2: Cotton Candy Training Content

Another killer of training in the church is weak training content. Frankly, when it comes to training and resources for volunteers in the church today, there’s a lot of fluff out there! The dysfunctional premise of much of this cotton candy training seems to be:

• “We can’t—and shouldn’t—expect much out of volunteers.”
• “Volunteers are not as gifted as fulltime pastors and church staff.”
• “Volunteers won’t really put in the work necessary to be trained to do ministry well.”

I heartily disagree with all of these faulty and unbiblical premises about volunteers in the church—for the following reasons:

Fiction: “We can’t—and shouldn’t—expect much out of volunteers.”
Fact: We should expect what God expects from every Christian.

The Bible teaches that all Christians (including “volunteers”) are full-time ministers whether or not they get a paycheck from a church (see II Corinthians 5:18- 20 and I Peter 2:9 just as a couple of examples)! Therefore, the church should fully expect from volunteers what God expects out of every Christian:

• a life of loving God and loving people (Mark 12:30-31)
• regular personal study of Godʼs Word (II Timothy 2:15)
• prayer (Philippians 4:6-7)
• worship (Romans 12:1-2)
• service (I Peter 4:10)
• financial stewardship (II Corinthians 8:7)
• sexual purity (I Thessalonians 4:3-8)
• biblical community and loving accountability (Hebrews 10:24-25)
• sharing the gospel clearly (Mark 3:14)
• And everything else commanded in the Bible (see your Bible)

These commands (not suggestions) from God are not just for pastors and church staff, but for every Christian! Therefore, it is right to expect all believers — including volunteers in the church — to be growing and developing in the personal application of God’s commands. This is normal Christianity and should be an essential part of any volunteer training in the church.

Fiction: “Volunteers are not as gifted as fulltime pastors and church staff.”
Fact: Pastors and staff are not the only gifted servants in the church.

While most church volunteers have not studied theology formally in a seminary or Bible college, all saved volunteers are gifted for ministry! (See I Peter 4:10.) Furthermore, it is not uncommon for volunteers to be as gifted for ministry — or even more gifted for ministry in certain ways and areas — than their pastors. You would think that all pastors and church staff would welcome this as a God-thing, and a good thing! Think about it: How cool would it be to have a group of gifted volunteers serving away in the church with passion and excellence? However, insecure pastors and church staff have an uncanny ability to ignore high potential volunteers and, ultimately, these gifted volunteers end up at a church where a secure pastor puts these “ministry partners” into play where their giftedness can be maximized for the glory of God.

Make no mistake about it: Volunteers in the church are gifted to do ministry by the same Holy Spirit who gifted the pastor! (See I Corinthians 12:7.) If we think volunteers are second class workers in the church, not as gifted or able as formally educated pastors and staff, then our efforts to train volunteers will tend to be fluffy and lack disciplemaking substance.

Fiction: “Volunteers won’t really put in the work necessary to be trained to do ministry well.”
Fact: Volunteers desire biblical training with specific application.

I just spent a weekend with sixty extremely committed and hard working church volunteers in Pennsylvania. These folks drove from several states and eagerly gave up their precious time and paid considerable personal and financial expense to participate in serious, interactive, rigorous, biblical, and extremely practical ministry training. These volunteers threw themselves into the learning activities, took notes, prayed fervently, laughed heartily, loved each other intensely, and pelted me with questions about the nuts and bolts of doing ministry biblically and effectively.

Below is an e-mail (used by permission) I received from two of the volunteer youth workers who attended the training weekend. As you read the e-mail, pay close attention to the fact that not only are these volunteers working hard in their ministry— but they are also diligently working hard at applying the training they received to their lives and ministry:

My husband Dwayne and I were recently at a youth workers retreat where we experienced training with Cadre Ministries. We very much enjoyed the weekend and heard God speak to us through the training.

We appreciated the focus on building our own relationship with Christ first and foremost. We won’t soon forget the illustration with the water being poured out into cups to then overflow into others. It brought to mind John 15:5, apart from Him, we can do nothing! We need to stay connected to Jesus.

Through Cadre’s Ministry Is Relationships training, we received affirmation in beginning a mentoring ministry at our church where we will pair a youth with an adult mentor. We see this will be a great way to help build relationships and build the Kingdom.

We also appreciated the personal growth plan challenge that was presented. It is helping us apply the things we learned over the weekend. We also hope to implement the Smart Goals into our mentoring program.

Overall we just were glad for the refreshment and the time to build our relationship with God. Thanks and Praise be to the Father!
Sheri and David, Volunteer Youth Workers for Nine Years (so far)

Are these volunteers working hard applying the training they got to their own lives and their volunteer ministry? You bet. Weekend after weekend I have the high honor of working with volunteers like this. When the training is intensely biblical with very specific application to their lives and ministries, volunteers are more than willing to put in the work necessary to be trained to do ministry well. Don’t miss this point: It’s wrong to view volunteers as theological or ministry lightweights who only want a “101 Easy Techniques Approach to Volunteerism in the Church.”

The truth is that many volunteers want more than the cotton candy training they are being offered. They’re silently asking, “Where’s the beef?” (Remember that commercial?) The real question is: Will you and your church keep living in the land of fiction when it comes to training volunteers, or will you and your church stand and deliver meaty ministry training that encourages and equips them to love God and love people?

FREE bonus audio download: What keeps volunteers from really stepping into God’s purposes for their lives

A $0.99 training tool for you to use with volunteers: You’re Never Just a Volunteer

————————————————————————————–
Bill Allison is the founder of Cadre Ministries, a ministry whose Eph. 4:11-12 obsession is to equip churches to make volunteers wildly successful. Cadre fulfills this obsession best by training trainers to take training back to their local ministries. Every month he publishes Cadre Connection, a FREE gold mine of training resources for volunteers in the church — and those who love volunteers in the church. Subscribe for free.

This guest series is contributed by Bill Allison of Cadre Ministries.

• Read Part 2
• Read Part 3

Training Killer #1: Lecturing Instead of Training

Perhaps the biggest mistake church leaders make when attempting to train volunteers and create a volunteer training culture in their ministries is that they allow the “trainer” to lecture.

Let’s be very candid: who is doing the training and how the training is conducted makes all the difference in how many attend the training. If you lecture, most volunteers will show up for “training” one time — and then most likely not come back to any “training” you offer in the future because it was boring. Because most volunteers in the church are nice, they would never tell you to your face that the training was boring, but if they stop coming to training (I want to say this as directly and politely as I can) there is a high probability that the training you are offering them is boring.

Mark my words well: Lecturing tends to kill the attendance of any of your future volunteer training efforts — and ultimately destroys your ability to create a true culture of training volunteers in your church. The goal of training is heart and mind engagement, passionate interaction, and biblical life-change, not the filling in of blanks in a training manual while the “expert” drones on and on! The training you offer volunteers in your church should be facilitated by a “guide-on-the-side” and not a “sage-on-the-stage.”

FREE bonus PDF download: Six ways training is different than lecturing (a.k.a: The Training Genius of Jesus)

Read Part 2! Part 3 will be here on Thursday.

————————————————————————————–
Bill Allison is the founder of Cadre Ministries, a ministry whose Eph. 4:11-12 obsession is to equip churches to make volunteers wildly successful. Cadre fulfills this obsession best by training trainers to take training back to their local ministries. Every month he publishes Cadre Connection, a FREE gold mine of training resources for volunteers in the church — and those who love volunteers in the church. Subscribe for free.

This fall our ministry is launching a couple new high school small groups and I want to make sure our leadership team does all it can to ensure that they are successful and vibrant. So, at our leader meeting last week, I asked the veteran small group leaders leaders to give their input about what works and doesn’t work in our high school small groups — things to avoid, things to do, and issues to watch out for. Based on the feedback from my veteran leaders, here’s a list of some “best practices” we’ve learned over the years: what works, what doesn’t work, and what works best when there are several options.

1. Meet in one host home consistently and regularly.

Rotating and switching between homes on a weekly or even monthly basis leads to confusion for many teenagers, parents, and even other youth leaders. It also makes it difficult to build momentum and for teens to feel comfortable in one place that is familiar to them. When the host family is not around, it’s best if the host is willing to let the group meet in their house that week anyway. Once in a while it can work okay to meet in a different home — the C-Group leaders just need to be in very close communication with Tim Schmoyer and Ruth Nelson about it so we can over-communicate the change to everyone else.

2. Leaders who are consistent.

C-Groups work best when leaders are as consistent as possible. Of course, there will be things that come up and prevent a leader from being present once in a while, but inconsistency overall hinders the relationship building process and makes it difficult to establish a place that feels safe for teens. If a leader knows ahead of time that they will be in and out for a season, they are still welcome to be a part of the C-Group team as their schedule permits, but they will be partnered with another small group adult leader who can be consistent most weeks.

3. Breaking into smaller groups.

Some C-Groups have as many as 30 regular attenders. When a C-Group is larger than 10 teenagers, having a meeting of everyone together works great for some topics, discussions, and issues, but we’ve found it works best in the long-run when a C-Group launches into smaller groups of 5 to 8 teens for discussion and Bible study. Whether or not breaking into smaller groups around the home happens every week or for the whole evening is dependent upon the dynamics of each C-Group, but it is strongly recommended that breaking into smaller groups somehow becomes a part of every C-Group. Although there may be some initial resistance when a C-Group has been meeting all together as an entire group for some time, it usually wears off and the long-term benefits of the quieter teens being able to share more openly will greatly outweigh the initial push-back.

4. Have dinner together at each C-Group.

This has been an ongoing staple of our C-Groups since they started years ago. Dinners are usually cooked by parents or youth leaders and financially reimbursed by the church’s youth ministry budget. When we provide dinner at C-Groups, many positive things happen: 1) Teens are more apt to attend because they come straight from their sports practice or school activity rather than going home to eat and then being less inclined to leave their home again. 2) There’s something that’s very relational about eating together. It provides the perfect context for talking about everyone’s weeks and sharing stories. 3) It creates a very welcoming and “homey” atmosphere for teens, especially newcomers. It calms nerves and eases anxieties about being in someone else’s home with people they may not know.

5. Share “house rules” every week.

Every home has different rules and expectations they ask of the people who are visiting. There’s nothing wrong with that — it just needs to be communicated to the teens every week. Start every meeting with a quick introduction, point out where the bathrooms are located, and go over any other rules the host family might have. Also share group rules and expectations at that time, like, “What’s said here, stays here,” and, “One person talks at a time,” etc. In addition, leaders and regular attenders are expected to model the rules and expectations every week, as well as be intentional about setting the tone and atmosphere for the evening.

6. Keep ‘em guessing.

It’s good to be proactive about not getting stuck in a rut. Change the meeting a bit each week, try things that are new, do something different. Some kids like teaching videos, some don’t. Some teens learn best from discussions, some learn best from a leader teaching. Sometimes it’s best to say in a larger group with everyone together, sometimes it’s best to break up into smaller groups. Be flexible and let the kids come with an expectation that tonight will be a unique night unlike all the others, something they won’t want to miss.

7. Come prepared.

Teens can tell when a leader throws a lesson or an assignment together at the last minute. When a leader is prepared for the meeting, it communicates to teens that the leader have a sense of direction and leadership, it gives the group confidence in the leader’s overall leadership, and it allows the leader to alter the course of a meeting (if necessary) because he/she is able to make choices regarding what they will cover, especially if a teen comes with an life experience they need to talk about.

These “best practices” are geared toward our context and experiences. What would you add or change based on your experience in your ministry context?

Today Brian Eberly joined us for our LIVE YM Talk and led us in a discussion about the importance of building a youth ministry team. Although most of us are aware that it’s critical to have a team of leaders surrounding us in youth ministry, sometimes we forget why it’s so necessary. Brian gives us many good reminders as well as some tips and ideas for how to improve.

Some of the things we talked about:

• Why building a team is so important
• Ideas for promoting unity, training, and working with their schedules
• Good and bad reasons why someone might serve
• Answered questions from the chat audience
• And a lot more…

You can listen to the whole conversation below or grab it in iTunes.

Play this episode

Subscribe to LIVE YM Conversations in iTunes

Next week’s discussion

August 7: Next week Mark Matlock is our featured guest. He’s been doing a lot of research on how to use improvisational techniques for group learning where a group can follow certain guidelines and teach themselves in very unique ways. This ground-breaking discussion will definitely be a talk you’ll want to be a part of!

Join our next LIVE Youth Ministry Conversation!

When I came to Alexandria Covenant Church in February of 2006, there were about 20 adult youth leaders on board. As of this past spring, we had 72 adults serving in one capacity or another in the youth ministry. Most of recruiting comes down to having a strong vision that compels people to become a part of a movement that’s bigger than they are. Keeping them on board for the long-haul involves not only the vision, but also a couple other key things that I do, as the youth pastor.

1. Continually cast the vision. The vision drives everything you do in ministry. People don’t get excited about serving because you beg them to teach a Sunday school class that no one else wants to teach. They need to know why, the difference their involvement will make in the bigger picture of where your youth ministry is going, doing, and becoming.

2. Pray for them and with them. Your ministry needs to be saturated in prayer. That includes the adult leaders. Ask them how you can pray for them and their families. Whenever you’re together, pray for them. When you pray alone, remember them.

3. Make sure everything they do with the youth group is free. Reimburse anything that is ministry-related. If they take a kid out for ice cream, if they go on a trip, if they drive kids to an event, reimburse it all. We even have a youth group account set up at a local grocery store where leaders can charge food if they buy it for their small group or a class. (More on why volunteers should always go for free.)

4. Provide opportunities for training. The largest budget line item I have for our youth ministry is training. It is easily the best way we can invest money in our youth ministry. There is no substitute for a well-trained, passionate youth leader. Buying curriculum only lasts a couple weeks, but a leader who loves what they do and feels confident and supported by the church will do it for a long time. And we all know that longevity in youth ministry is essential for effective ministry.

5. Shower them with gifts, notes, and praises. Every Christmas I make sure I write a thank-you note of appreciation to every leader and include a little gift. Throughout the rest of the year I sent random postcards and emails encouraging them, thanking them, and telling them how much of an impact they’re having. In fact, I don’t think I ever send an email to a youth leader, either personally or to a group of leaders, without thanking them.

6. Always publicly support them. Not only do they need you to thank them and praise them privately, but they need to hear you praise them publicly, as well. Every year our church has a special Christian Education Appreciation Sunday where we highly them, thank them, and publicly “show them off” in front of the congregation.

7. Model the boundaries and expectations you hold for leaders. It really helps unify the team when you all follow a common “code of conduct” together. It shows the rest of the team that it’s not just something you expect them to do, but that this youth ministry thing is something you’re all in together.

8. Value their input. If you call it a “team,” then make sure you treat it as such. It’s not a one-man show with a bunch of little followers who do your bidding. You may be the team captain, but you’re all still on a team together. Listen to them, include them in decisions, and hear their criticisms and encouragement equally.

9. Delegate the authority that goes along with a responsibility. Every responsibility usually comes with authority in that area, but unfortunately too many “leaders” put people in charge of something while retaining all the authority of the responsibility. If you put someone in charge of an event, give them full authority over that event (within reason, of course). When one of my adult leaders or a student leader is in charge of putting something together, I support them 100% and do whatever they ask me to do. I even let them veto me.

10. Utilize their passion. Every youth leader feels like there are “holes” in their ministry that they need to fill — small groups that need leaders, classes that need teachers, trips that need chaperons. While it’s tempting to use leaders to make a more “complete” ministry, use leaders were their passions lie, not just where your ministry’s “holes” are.

Someone on MinistryQuestions.com asked for advice on how to retain youth leader volunteers. I gave a brief version of what I listed above. Do you have any advice for her?

———————————————–
Support Life In Student Ministry by checking out MinistryWebsites.biz for easy, simple and effective web communication for your ministry.