Subscribe to the NetworkThree Little Mistakes That Are A Big Deal
Over the years, I have made lots and lots of mistakes…some big and some little. What I’ve learned is that there are some mistakes that seem little but are actually a bigger deal than you may realize. Here are three….add your suggestions:
1) Failure To Communicate With Parents: This can take a variety of shapes…everything from failing to communicate a simple date change to failing to accurately communicate the cost or time-frame of an event to failing to communicate things about their child that they should be aware of. You win the hearts of parents through trust and good communication with them is one of the best ways to build or break that trust.
2) Failure To Empower Leaders: If you only see your adult volunteers as “worker bees” or “task masters” etc. you are missing a huge opportunity. When that is their role, your ministry is limited to your vision and your passion. Instead, encourage them to have vision and passion of their own, and empower them to expand your ministry.
3) Failure To Seek Help: Insecure leaders try to do everything on their own. Insecure leaders think they have the best ideas. Insecure leaders are afraid to admit they need help. You may be smart, but you aren’t as smart as you plus somebody else!
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This may seem very elementary for some, but one of the biggest struggles I have in student ministry is training and empowering leaders. What exactly does this look like? Any tips or advice in this area of ministry? Thanks.
In my first year, I think the biggest little mistake I made was just being organized. Keeping registrations, fundraiser info, camp info, etc. in some type of order would have saved me a lot of headaches. The older and wiser me now knows that even better than keeping it organized myself is having someone else keep it organized for me
I’ve handed most of this responsibility off to my wife who is a lot better organizer than I am.
Jeremy, I think the biggest thing with empowering leaders either students or adult volunteers is just giving them the opportunity to lead. Finding something for them to do and then teaching them to take it over and run with it. This year we’re focusing on beginning a student leadership program. My goal is for it to be fairly structured in the future, but this year it’s going to be fairly informal. That means putting a youth in charge of collecting registrations or picking up the pizza or putting together announcements and delivering them, etc. I think with us youth pastors the hard part is figuring out where to start. The second hardest thing is being ok when it’s not perfect or not the way we would do it.
That’s what I think, anyone else?