A new season is a great opportunity to pull your leadership team together for equipping, connection and training. I have often found that putting a date on the calendar for mid January is a perfect time for an extended meeting time with your volunteer student ministry leaders.
Here are three things to include in this meeting:
- Community
- Prayer
- Training
You can set this meeting up in whatever format works best – maybe it’s a Saturday morning or a Friday evening. It can be Sunday afternoon following church. Whatever could work for you, carve out a 2-4 hour time block and invite your team together. Just give something a try!
Community
Invest in friendships and connections. Have some food. Tell some stories about the ministry during the last four months. Celebrate together the work you’re involved in. Play a quick game together.
Prayer
Ministry teams often pray before and after meetings and events. Prayer is the lifeblood of the ministry and if you could take some time to invest in prayer without the pressure of a ministry program beginning, it can really be powerful. Invest time in directed prayer – praying for the ministry, for the students, for the homes, for the lives of this generation, for needs within the team members lives’ and for the lost students and families in your community.
Training
Inspire your team through training. Help grow their leadership. Talk through the characteristics you want your leaders to have. Learn together how you might improve or tweak your ministry with students. Ask questions and get the discussion going. Use this time to build up your leadership – when they get better, everything will get better.
If you need some resources to help with the equipping time, here’s are two that we have created:
Get and Keep Students Connected using these four ideas!
This resources will give you four short video clips, topic outlines, discussion questions and action steps for these topics:
1) Stirring
2) Incarnational Ministry
3) Community Of Participants
4) Expectations
Plus other bonus videos to use.
This resource includes 12 One page PDF devotions and development concepts for student ministry leaders. Each page includes the topic, a quote, discussion questions, scripture and a prayer. It’s perfect for conversations during your leadership meeting.
Topics include:
1) How to watch for great leaders
2) Understand how most students leave
3) Combat student busy-ness
4) How to give student ministry away
5) The importance of a funny bone and more…
