Youth Ministry and Student Leadership
Photo by Tim Marshall on Unsplash
One of the most common discussion topics in youth pastor Facebook groups has to do with student leadership. In particular, how do we identify student leaders, equip them for leadership, and deploy them in our ministries (and in the community). This is a really good and important conversation. After all, the Apostle Paul said pastoral ministry should “equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ” (Ephesians 4:12). Discipleship, then, must involve some measure of equipping students for ministry.
Over the course of my sixteen years in youth ministry, I’ve implemented various approaches to student leadership teams - some with greater success than others. Here are a few reflections about what I’ve learned and where I stand today.
Ministry or Leadership
I prefer talking about equipping students for ministry rather than leadership. I know many who argue it's the same thing, but the wording really does matter. As the good folk at LeaderTreks say, “Leadership is influence.” Therefore, since we all have some measure of influence (friends, family, etc.), we are all leaders to one degree or another. Although leadership and ministry are related, they aren’t synonymous.
Conversations about leadership invites students to leverage their personality, passions, and giftedness in a multitude of contexts in order to influence others in a way that reflects the character of God. I’ve used LeaderTreks’ materials to coach students to discern how the gospel shapes their own leadership potential. Leadership development is a significant element of students’ ministry training. But whereas “leadership” has to do with a students’ influence over others, I talk about “ministry” as something that is explicitly Christ-oriented.
I think of leadership and ministry similarly to how I differentiate between outreach and evangelism. Both are expressions of a life that’s been transformed by the gospel. One is more subtle and service-oriented, and the other is obviously and explicitly Christ-proclaiming. Leadership and ministry development are both extremely important and valuable components of student discipleship.
Cast a Wide Net
Emphasizing “leadership” can draw out students who believe they are leaders but are spiritually apathetic, while keeping the quiet kids with genuine faith on the sidelines. This is why I prefer casting a wide net and named my team the Student MinistryCrew. I don't have a strict application, because I don't want to form a team of spiritual elites. Instead, I invite high schoolers who are interested in growing as student ministers to come to the informational meeting. At that point, I'll walk them through the basic mission of our youth ministry, explain why we run things in youth group the way we do, talk about the Bible's teaching about spiritual gifts and the body of Christ, and let them ask questions. Then I share with them my expectations for students who join the Student Ministry Crew and tell them I'll be holding them to those commitments because responsibility comes with the appropriate level of accountability. This usually means the students who aren't teachable or committed self-select not to participate. It also creates a teachable moment for those who opt-in and then need to have a hard conversation later. Inviting unlikely students onto the team might be the very thing that creates a disciple-making relationship between them and a youth leader.
The one thing I do draw a hard line about is the expectation that Student Ministry Crew participants have professed faith in Christ. If a student is a Christian but hasn’t been baptized yet, I strongly urge them to do so, but I don’t make it a requirement - although I wouldn’t let someone who is unbaptized have any teaching responsibilities. This can also be a moment for students who have not professed faith in Christ to talk with you about what’s holding them back. Of course, approaching these conversations with pastoral sensitivity is a must, because we want to lean into the need to have student ministry be professing believers while avoiding a situation where students falsely claim to be a Christians in order to get on the team.
Disciple Your Student Ministry Team
It's important to give student ministers meaningful responsibilities. Let them plan an event, choose the activities, and have a say in the way you run your programming. Don't let them change the mission of the ministry or give them unhindered authority. If you call them into ministry and leadership but they can only do things you “allow,” then you are building a team of puppets not leaders. As you train them to think carefully about your ministry’s mission, invite them to think of ways to establish the ministry culture you want to build and protect.
Failure is always an option. Every good leader has drunk the bitter cup of failure more often than they care to remember. For your students, that means they'll try something and could fail. Never set students up for failure, but make sure they know that failure is an option but it’s not the end of the world. Create a safe space for failure by sharing your own hard-learned lessons. When something doesn’t go according to plan, patiently help them evaluate, take responsibility for what went wrong (without pointing fingers or casting accusations at each other), and then move on. Too many students think about failure like it’s the end of everything. But if you lead them through the evaluation process with humility and grace, it will become part of the discipleship process.
Recruiting, training, and deploying a team of students for ministry is incredibly rewarding. It’s also much easier to write about and discuss than it is to actually do in real life. My best advice for starting is this: start small, start simple, and pick easy victories. Find good resources (like “Student Leaders Start Here” by LeaderTreks) to train your students to think about how the gospel informs their ministry and leadership. As you stack up small victories where students are growing into leadership and ministry, and as other students see their peers doing the work of ministry they’ll catch a vision for it too. It’s a beautiful thing when students discover their potential for leading others to Jesus and making a meaningful impact for the sake of Christ.
