A.C.T.S.
Here is the key (or acronym) to your success:) Never again will you have a bad fit with a adult leader on your team! Never again will you have any conflict! Never again will you get thrown under the bus! And most importantly, never again will you want to quit!
Yes, it is that easy. Simply memorize the acronym I am giving you, put it into practice and life will be perfect. So here it is:
A-affinity. Do you have things in common? Is it someone you can hang with?
C-character. Do they have a good one? Is it better than their competency?
T-teach-ability. Are they teachable? Can they say they are wrong or sorry?
S-spiritual giftedness. Has God given them the gifts necessary to complete the task? If not, this is probably not their call or task.
Labels: Leadership
CompetencyCommitment
Character
These are the three C's. They are 3 very important words. They are important in a marriage, a family, a business and especially in youth ministry. Think about it, everyone who works with students probably went through some sort of "evaluation" or "job interview" or something. As formal or informal as it may have been we all go through something. And I am willing to bet that one, two or all of the three C's (though maybe not mentioned by name) came up in the conversation.
I am down with the three C's. However, I am very much zealous about the order of priority we give to them.
In my experience of being interviewed for youth jobs (been through many of them in the last 12 years) to now doing more of the interviewing I have found out something that is giving me pause. The normal order of the 3 C's seems to be (though I doubt we intend this to happen):
#1
Competency#2 Commitment
#3 Character
As I reflect on my many job interviews I can not recall more than one (yes...only one job interview) in which many character questions were asked. However, every single one of the jobs focused on
competency as a primary point. Which communicates to me that
competency is more important to that church and to God than character. Again, I do not think we mean to do this and I am also guilty (is this a confessional blog? If so, you are not allowed to share my confession of sin with anyone!).
For example, many of the questions where, "What and how do you teach? How did you grow the youth group? What was your strategy? How do you train and recruit leaders? What is your vision? " etc....
Commitment was not far behind. "How long are you planning to stay? We want a commitment of 3-4 years. We want you to take the kids here...or there..." etc....
Notice what the questions where not. "How is your relationship with God? What do you do to strengthen it? What can we do to help? Here is what we think can help you....does that sound good? Do you have a spiritual director or mentor? Do you have someone outside the church who is a safe person to vent to and talk through things? How do you handle gossip and divisiveness? If you have a problem with a coworker how do you handle it? Here are some resources and training items we have to help you...would you be willing to read these?" And that is just all off the top of my head.
The 3 C's
re prioritised.
I think they should go like this:
#1 Character
#2
Competency#3 Commitment
I would rather have someone who is
ok on competency and great on character than someone who has average character and great competency. And I would venture to guess that any of you who have been bit in the butt by a coworkers or an adult leaders poor character would say "AMEN!" Not only that, as I look at my own life it is my lack of character from time to time that has most hurt others as opposed to some of the many bone headed decisions I have made in youth ministry.
Finally, a big fat thank you to Ryan
Hofacre for putting words to much of this stuff that has been bouncing around in my brain for many years.
Labels: Leadership, Training
I miss them. I think the Lord is spooling them back up again.
We had two really good ones last year that we turned into articles. One with Mark Yaconelli (youth author and speaker) and another with Mark Oestreicher (President of Youth Specialties). For the Fall/Winter I am hoping to do a bunch with such notables as:
Walt Mueller with cypa.org
Dr Chap Clark
Mark Oestreicher (focusing on his upcoming book "Youth Ministry 3.0")
etc...
So stay tuned.
I hope to make them into podcasts as well.
Labels: Book Review, Leadership, Miscellaneous, nuts and bolts, Parenting, Training, Youth Culture, Youth Specialties
Great (and very short) article on opposition in the church and how we, as leaders, respond to it. This article is from the Leadership Journal and is written by John
Ortberg who is the former teaching pastor at Willow Creek Community Church in Chicago and now at
Menlo Park Presbyterian in California.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/leaders/newsletter/2008/cln80714.html
Labels: Leadership
(Random thoughts from my experiences and observations)
Tend to be...
1) Entrepreneurial
2) Creative (individually...this is why youth ministries can be good and look so dang different from another good youth ministry. Collectively...a good youth worker who has a team will have a "culture of risk", meaning that they realize that 8 out of every 10 things they try may fail but they go for it anyway. When something fails they get back up, analyze, recalibrate, and try again!)
3) Disciplined in their devotional lives (This is HUGE in separating those who last and those who burn out)
4) Have a say in the vision of the church (meaning...they have a
sr pastor who values their opinion...a church that uses more of a team approach to vision and values)
5) Knows they are called to work with youth
6) Can be any age (in fact, they tend to be over 25)
(pic from vibewire.net)
Labels: Church Planting, Leadership
One blog I peruse often is Scot
McKnights (www.jesuscreed.org). I have taken a blog post of his and put it here because it is an interesting thing to think on. It is written by a pastor but I think it is good food for thought for youth pastors as well. I do not buy it hook line and sinker but it is a good thought stimulator at the least. Enjoy.
“If I could begin all over again” is a hard sentence for me to apply to myself for I still think of myself as just beginning. I feel like I am learning things today I should have known twenty years ago. So, with that caveat, if I had to start all over again, I would focus more on intentional discipleship of leaders in my church community.
I have ministered in a large church, an intentional community in the city and a missional church plant in the suburbs. In each case, there has always been the temptation to lead as a CEO, as a top-down leader. There has been the instinct to be present and control every facet of the church’s life. This has led repeatedly to excessive busyness and the feeling that I never have relational time with people. Over the years, I have been convinced this is a disaster. I have seen this as counter-Biblical (1 Cor 12, Rom6, Eph 4) and as counter productive if one desires to lead an organic missional community that multiplies itself in the neighborhoods (as opposed to a corporate organization). And so I have been learning, even these past three months, that I must ever fight this temptation and make time to spend with the development of leaders relationally, speaking into the their lives, bringing them along with me on hospital visits, in board meetings (yes we still must have a board meeting or two), letting them in on the struggles of everyday pastoral life and seeing how I personally struggle with all the various character strains that are inevitable in ministerial vocation life.
In the past, I have too often done leadership development unintentionally: spending time with new leaders as the occasion arose, bringing them along with me wherever I would go. I would seek out people who had evident skills and heart and then put them in charge of something. It was often hit or miss. When I began to see the church as the missional embodiment of Christ, (since 1993) I have sought to minister among multiple pastors, decentralizing the leadership authority in the church. I have bought into Hirsch and Frost’s APEPT (Eph 4) model of leadership before it was in print in The Shaping of Things to Come. Yet I have never fully grasped until most recently just how powerful the one on one, or one on three mentoring of leaders can change the dynamic of one’s entire church community life. It is inefficient and time intensive. Yet its effects reverberate through the church and magnify beyond the church into missional enterprise. Even these past few weeks, as I wrestle with the implications of this, I am seeking to organize my time to spend it with more young leaders. Take some time, 2 or three hours a week with one or two leaders, 3 or 4 hours a week with a group of three to five, every week for a year at a time. Then ask them to do the same. In five years, the impact for the Kingdom will be simply incredible.
Labels: Leadership
Got this from one of our leaders...
"You can debate method, but don't debate motive."
This was both convicting to me and encouraging because it was put in a way that my small brain could grasp it. I really like it as a ground rule for ministry teams and one to live by.
Labels: Leadership, Miscellaneous
