The Monday Morning Debrief: Communicating with Leaders

Communicating with leaders is vital to having a successful ministry.  If your leaders do not feel apart of what is going on they are going to lose focus, have no clear purpose and feel out of touch with the overall vision of the ministry.  So what are effective ways to communicate to your leaders and what should you be communicating?

What to communicate?

• Keep giving them the vision of the youth program.  What do you want to do and where would you like to take the program?  Keeping them plugged into the overall direction of the ministry helps keep them focused on the task at hand.
• Update them on “business”.  In order to be really effective, leaders have to know what is going on.  They have to know what is coming up and what the expectations are for them from you.
• Offer other areas in which they can help out such as planning.  A lot of leaders have great ideas and the more they feel like they “own” an event or have had some part in the planning, the more likely they are to get excited about it and promote it to the students.
• Encourage them in Christ.  I know they don’t need another sermon but a quick devotional and mediation on growing in Christ shows them that you care just as much about their spiritual direction as you do what they can do for you as a minister.

How to communicate?

• A simple, regular one is an email.  An email out to your leaders once a week highlighting a few business items and give some props out to some job well dones is always a great encouragement and keeps the leaders in the know.
• Leader meetings are always great too.  That way you can
• 1-on-1s.  These are great for you to really talk to leaders individually and “get real”.  It is your chance to see where they are at and for them to be honest with you and vice versa.  The 1-on-1s are great individual time with the leaders and where they feel like their voice can be heard.

What do you think?  What are other ways to communicate to leaders and what else do you communicate to them when you meet up?  TAKE A MINUTE and process and then post a comment about what you do so that we can all benefit.