Four Leadership Anchors for Youth Ministry
e.m. moulton

Fruitful youth ministry places a high demand on leadership. It takes leadership to lead a ministry team that is dedicated to mobilizing students for the Kingdom! It takes leadership to build a team of committed adults as a part of your student ministry. It takes leadership to build effective ministry bridges to the parents and families of students that builds trust and community. In fact, youth ministry may be one of the toughest ministries to lead effectively because we are called to lead students and adults, respectively! If we take seriously our calling as youth ministry workers, we need to take seriously this issue of leadership. If you are like me, you’ve probably thought a good deal about leadership- what makes for fruitful leadership and how do we know when we are leading effectively (perhaps even now you’re conjuring images of the “coolest” youth ministry personality you’ve ever met or heard or who’s book you read recently- or who’s DVD you saw last). I would venture to say that most of what we think of regarding leadership tends to focus on the charisma of our personality or natural talents. I am discovering that, while charisma and talent can be useful in leadership, there are certain obtainable factors that we can work on to help us grow as leaders. Put simply, growing in leadership, like so much in our journey, is a matter of growth in character and wisdom. It’s a matter of hard work. The question is, are we willing to roll up our sleeves?!

Revelation-Saturation//:
Leading assumes that we have something worth giving, something worth sharing, something we know or are able to see and, consequently, are able to offer to others or point others toward. Spiritual leadership demands that we experience revelation, or what I call saturation. Mentioning the issue of prayer and study and private worship seem utterly obvious- and they are! But this is where the sustaining fire is kindled and maintained. Leading in ministry is a visionary call to see what God sees and to listen to what God is saying. As youth leaders, we need to be filled with the Holy Spirit, saturated with God’s presence. Jesus lead from a place of revelation, he daily sought the Father and “saw” what God was doing and saying. This in turn is what Jesus did and said. Spiritual leadership demands we spend time in God’s presence. Leadership starts with intimacy with God. It demands that we be filled to fullness in Christ. It demands that we overflow with God’s Word. This initial leadership anchor sets the critical tone for all the others. We cannot demonstrate from a place of personal, spiritual impoverishment, we cannot proclaim the gospel with conviction and passion and we will be powerless to activate and commission others when we ourselves are going nowhere. A saturated servant leads with God’s vision and God’s vision is contagious and intoxicating. John 5:19//Romans 12:1-2//Ephesians 5:18-20

Demonstration//:
The power of setting a consistent example should never be underestimated. Leading by example, second to being filled with God’s presence, is the most critical element to practical leadership. We must demonstrate and lead by example. Paul modeled being unashamed of the Gospel and literally set an example of suffering willingly for the gospel of Christ. If we want our students to worship, we must worship. If our desire is a passionate, prayerful youth ministry, we must demonstrate passion and prayer in our example. If we want our church to take youth ministry seriously, then we must demonstrate excellence and high standards in the way we present our selves and our ministries. Jesus demonstrated to his disciples everything that he wanted to teach them. He modeled everything that he himself commanded and eventually, the disciples “got it”! The trick here is that we can’t model what is not truly already a lifestyle. This is what students generally refer to as being a “poser”. Modeling and demonstrating cannot be token “acts” on our part, but rather, they must be the overflow of our devotional practice.1 Timothy 4:12//John 8:32//

Proclamation//:
Sometimes the most obvious things are the hardest to spot. When it comes to effective leading, often the thing that gets overlooked is simply proclaiming the vision- communicating to students and/or leaders the purpose and direction of the ministry. Jesus communicated early and often to his disciples about his kingdom and its purpose. He cast vision before the disciples- he spoke the dream of God into their lives. This is what we must do as leaders! Do your students know the vision statement of your ministry? Do your adult leaders know it? Do you have a vision for the student ministry that you lead? Identity is formed, partly, through effective proclamation! Are you shouting the vision from the rooftops?! Proclaim the vision. Say it today, tell it tomorrow, shout it out next week! I bet you can tell me the new “McDonald’s” slogan- why? You have heard it (and seen it) a thousand times! Preach the vision. Put it on flyers. Put it on the wall. Put it on business cards. Make bumper stickers! Put it on your web-page. Make t-shirts! Do something and proclaim it! Do it now. Do it later. Communicate. Habakkuk 3//Deuteronomy 6//Mark 15:16//

Activation-Delegation//:
Activation is, in part, the ultimate test in leadership. And it is necessary. Activation is the challenge of giving away the ownership of the ministry to a team of others. It is allowing others around you, who are saturated with God, who have witnessed your example, who have served along with you and who know the vision, to step out and lead in the ministry. Activation is allowing someone else to coordinate the retreat, allowing someone else to lead the small group discussion, allowing someone to teach the session or allowing someone else to serve according to their gifting. The activation stage in the leadership process is exciting because it allows your ministry to grow beyond the dependence of one person and it broadens the influence of the ministry all around! This was Jesus’ plan with the twelve disciples all along. He envisioned from the beginning passing the responsibility of spreading the gospel to the core of twelve, who, in turn, would multiply this leadership across the world. Amazing. We must refuse leading our youth ministries by ourselves. As some wise person once said, “One is too small a number for greatness.” 2 Timothy 2:1-2// Matthew 10// Exodus 18

May we saturate, demonstrate, Proclaim and Activate as leaders. May we grow in each of these areas. These are four disciplines and practices that we can master- that we are able to improve upon. I like to tell the guys I play basketball with that, “I cannot control whether my jump shot is gonna’ be “on”, but I can control my effort, my defense and my intensity- those are character issues!” May we work on these four areas- it’s a character issue. God help us to lead courageously!