Three ways to care for those you lead
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Investing in the spiritual and emotional wellbeing of your leaders will bring longevity to your ministries
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7 Principles of Effective Ministry to Children and Youth
If I had to describe ministry this year in a picture it would probably be a picture of a phone. Like many others, I spent a lot of time on the phone this year. For many people it was hours spent calling families, organising permission for zoom kids club or …something else?
For me it was calling children’s ministers. During these conversations where we were trying to reimagine children’s ministry, I would often ask these two questions:
How are you?
How are your leaders?
The answer to these two questions are even more significant than you might think.
One of the 7 core principles of effective youth and children’s ministry that have been distilled over years of thinking, practice and experience by Youthworks Advisors is this:
Invest in spiritually and emotionally healthy children’s ministry workers who lead with intent.
The spiritual and emotional wellbeing of those discipling young people is critical for the ongoing sustainability of children’s ministry. Healthy leaders exhibit resilience, maturity, self-control and the ability to make good decisions in the face of ministry pressures. They are invested in their own wellbeing through self-care and can maintain appropriate boundaries within their relationships. Moreover, they have a genuine trust in the grace and sovereignty of God.
This is why the role of the children’s minister is not only to disciple children, but to disciple the leaders who disciple the children.
Investing in your leaders spiritual and emotional health can happen in many ways. Some of these include:
1. Encouraging regular times of personal spiritual growth
When was the last time you asked your leaders about their personal Bible reading and prayer life? Just by asking what they’ve been reading in the Bible can open up significant conversations about how God is working in their life and growing them in their faith. It is not a conversation to make anyone feel guilty. Rather, it is an opportunity to share both encouraging things and hard things. It is an opportunity for the children’s minister to walk along side their leaders, as they preserve and grow in their faith.
Having some devotional resources, you have used and are willing to recommend is a good idea too. If one of your leaders is struggling with their Bible reading, being able to share something that might help them get into a good routine is an easy way to invest in their spiritual wellbeing.
2. Set up mentoring relationships
One of the things I love about church is that it is a gathering of people from all generations. Setting up mentoring relationships is one way to make the most of the wisdom of older generations, and to invest in the lives of the younger generation. Titus 2 gives us a model for this, where wisdom is passed down from one generation to the next. If every one of your leaders had someone praying with and for them and, encouraging them in their faith, this would help contribute to a strong, mature leadership team doing effective children’s ministry.
Who are the older people in your church who can meet regularly with your leaders to read the Bible and pray and to invest in their them?
3. Meet with them regularly
Be committed to regularly meetings with your leaders. It might be termly, monthly (or yearly if you have a large team!), or even more frequently, but meeting with them regularly is good way to support them and be able to check in with how they are. Have a few questions that you ask each of your leaders. Questions like:
How are you?
What is God teaching you at the moment?
How can I support you in your role?
This is a practical way to invest in each of your leaders, regularly, which will build a strong and mature team of children’s ministry leaders.
The beginning of a new year is a great opportunity to put new plans in place. What can you put in place in 2021 to help you invest in the spiritual and emotional health of your children’s ministry leaders?
