Community Matters
Just recently, I had to have a sit down with one of our newer volunteer leaders. The other volunteers were frustrated as they felt he was contributing anything to the team or the ministry. So my purpose was to sit down and talk with him about what was going on. What I found out was that very early on, when he decided to be a leader, he did not feel like he was apart of the “community” of leaders at Cedar Run. He did not feel that the other leaders accepted him so he intentionally disengaged from them and never fully got on board. I can not tell you if he was right or wrong, but it was his perception and we know that a person’s perception is their reality.
What I ultimately got out of that meeting and left with was the fact that community matters. As Youth Directors and Leaders, we all know the value of building community with your volunteer leaders and needs to be a vital part of your ministry. If you do not understand ways to develop community with your volunteer leaders, check it out here, here and here. Having effective leaders starts with the community that is developed between the leaders. If a leader does not feel apart of the community, then he or she will not be as effective as he/she can be. The above example is a perfect case in point.
I’ve outlined ways before, here are a few more ways you can engage your youth leadership team as a community:
- Go out and do fun things together. Go out and play laser tag together or have dinner together. Or go watch a minor league baseball game together. The point is to go do “friendship” things together so that leaders do not feel that all you, the Youth Director, care about is what they can do for the ministry. By going out and having fun together, you are showing them that you want to be with them and that you genuinely like them. That goes a long way to building a good leadership team.
- When you have leaders meeting, spend some time talking more than just “business”. Talk about how you all are doing personally and how you all can be praying for each other. If all you do is sit around and talk “shop”, then you are missing a great opportunity to be real with each other and get to really know each other.
- Make sure you are connecting with them individually. Sometimes leaders will feel more a part of the group if they are connecting with the Head Leader, which is you. So make sure you are taking time out to connect individually with all your leaders on a regular basis.
Although you can do a lot to build community in your ministry, I have also found out that community is a two-way street. You may have all the above things in place, but like my leader example above, have leaders who still feel disengaged or not apart of the community. The leaders have to take it upon themselves to want to be apart of community. You cannot force community and make people want to hang out with each other. They have to want it just as much. So what I challenge all my leaders is that if they want to feel apart of the community, as a leader, have:
- make an extra effort to engage with the other leaders
- come to leader meetings and leader events so that you know what is going on in the ministry but also have the opportunity to get to know the leaders in a different setting.
These are just two action steps they can do. But I believe that if they make the effort in these two areas, they will feel more apart of the leadership community.
The reality is community matters. If your leadership team works together and functions as a community, there is going to be a great benefit to them and to the students. If you all fail to build an effective community, then the leaders and students will suffer.
So, TAKE A MINUTE and…
- Examine your leadership team. Are you building community within the group or are people feeling disengaged and not contributing?
- What can you do this week to build a community of leaders that are going to go after Christ and the youth at your Church together?
