YPT Podcast Episode 37: Student Leadership as Discipleship (Doug Franklin)
Preparing students for leadership doesn’t mean we’re always putting them in front of the room. It simply means we’re challenging them to trust the Lord by serving him courageously with their gifts and passions. In this way, student leadership is an expression of student discipleship… but how do we get started? That’s the topic for today’s conversation with Doug Franklin from LeaderTreks.
Discussion Questions:
What is leadership, what isn’t leadership, and how does the gospel shape the way we approach that question?
Could you share a little from your own background about your own personal journey of leadership development?
How did you discover the power of leadership development in ministry to teenagers?
When we say that leadership development is an expression of discipleship, what does that mean?
As a youth pastor, I’ve had many starts-and-stops in launching student leadership teams. Most of them fizzled out after just a few meetings. What are some common struggles youth pastors face and how can we set our students up to really catch a vision for spiritual leadership?
If someone’s listening and they want to get started but don’t know what the first few steps would be, what would you recommend?
Excerpt from the Conversation
Mike: So as I've talked about leadership with others and shared about LeaderTreks , some of the pushback that I've heard is, “Well, isn't that just like a Christianizing of leadership principles? I don't really see how that's ministry. How is that discipleship; you're just kind of giving kids job skills for the future.” How do you respond to that?
Doug: I think that's a valid question because I think you could look at the business end of leadership and the fly like an eagle and the take the mountain, all those kinds of things. I'm not really a big endorser of that kind of leadership, right?
I'm a much bigger endorser of the Jesus leadership style. I just go back to the story of Jesus and Zacchaeus. Jesus is coming into town. Zacchaeus has heard about him and wants to see him. And Jesus sees Zacchaeus and he says, come on out of that tree, little man. I can't remember the song exactly, but I'm coming to your house today because I want to talk to you about things that are going on in your life.
To me, that's a story of leadership, right? Like that's a story of Jesus could have entered town, found all the religious leaders. He could’ve talked up a big storm, made himself a big deal; but instead Jesus looked for the hurting people in the crowd and said, “Hey, how about I come to your place tonight and we talk about your life?” And I think there's discipleship and leadership right there. When I think about our students, I think a lot about Zacchaeus, to be totally honest. I think our students have a lot of questions. They're curious. They want to know what life is really about.
They know that they're missing something. They know that they're empty. They know that something isn't just right. And Jesus comes along and we come along as Jesus's reflection and we're like, “Hey, we wanna come to your house. We wanna talk to you. We the tip of the spear and we're coming into your place and we wanna be able to share the good news of Jesus Christ with you, the gospel of what Jesus Christ did for you and how you can deal with this uneasiness, which is really sin.”
And we want to be able to do it. So when I think about this discipleship and this leadership, I'm thinking Jesus. I'm thinking we’ve got to follow the Jesus sort of model. So, one way I like to think about it is I like to think about the growth of a student spiritually.
… And so a disciple is one who walks in obedience to Christ and experiences life to the full. And then I think when you're at that level, then you start to think to yourself, okay, I wanna help others become disciples. I wanna become a disciple-maker. And then you move to, I'm a leader. That's the move from discipleship to leadership is, I'm gonna impact and influence other people to become followers of Jesus Christ. So we're a new believer, we're a worshipper.
We're a disciple, we're a leader. And I think that's the interaction with discipleship and leadership that's so important.
More About this Episode
Doug Franklin is the Founder and President of LeaderTreks Youth Ministry. Doug and his wife, Angie, live in the Chicago area and were instrumental in the months leading up to YPT's launch.
Resources mentioned:
Rethinking student leadership (free ebook)
Join YPT's Facebook group: @youththeologian (make sure you answer the membership questions)
Follow YPT on Twitter/X: @youththeologian
Follow YPT on Instagram: @youththeologian
YPT has published an ebook that's a free download for subscribers. Youth Ministry is Theological Ministry collects ten articles from the YPT archives to help new readers catch the heartbeat of Youth Pastor Theologian is written by six different contributors from across America, Mexico, and the UK.
