Last weekend we spent Friday and Saturday with our youth leadership team. I honestly can’t come up with a better investment of my time and energy as a youth pastor than that. We had a great time eating, talking, laughing, and playing some games together. Our leaders are growing in number and in their leadership ability. As the saying goes, “Everything rises and falls on leadership,” because of that we poured into our leaders and had a wonderful time doing it.
We started Friday night with a personality test that every leader took. The DISC test was a lot fun because our leaders were able to get a better handle on their unique personality and how it meshes or clashes with others. We could have spent the whole weekend just doing that, but it was just a warm up for the rest of the weekend.
Next talked about the difference between servants and stewards. The inspiration for this teaching comes from Christine Caine of Hillsong Church in Australia. The main thought we wanted to communicate to our leaders was that we want them to grow, invest, develop, and lead the most precious commodity that I have to give them, students. We want them to see themselves as stewards of what they have been given. Our leaders are the key to growing our ministry. As of this weekend they are released to lead, further more, we’ve put them in a position to be successful and they need to do it!
Saturday morning came and the flapjack feed was on. We had four skillets and three varieties of pancakes to choose from; regular, blueberry, and chocolate chip. I must admit, I was having so much fun making them I forgot to eat one. It was a great start to our Saturday, something that I hope will become a leadership weekend tradition.
We finished our weekend by sharing expectations of the leadership of Live Youth Ministry. We again reinforced the idea that our leaders must give an account for what we are giving them. We are entrusting the lives of our students to them and they must invest, grow, and produce a harvest with them. I am fully confident in our leaders; this school year is going to be incredible.
