Today all we want to do is offer you a question that will help your students grow closer to Jesus, learn more about themselves, and develop the gift and calling of leadership that God has given them.

Use this question as a prompt for a devotion, an introduction to a lesson, or as a discussion topic whenever you meet with your students collectively or individually.  These questions make great mentoring prompts.

Make sure you ask yourself this question as well.  You never know what God is looking to do in your heart today.

Today’s Question Is:

Who do you turn to when the going get’s rough?

Because there are so many outlets for the relief of stress or “cures” for what ails us, many of us, even those that believe we are strong in the faith, will turn to everything but our creator when it all goes to the hot place in a handbasket.  What do you turn to?  Who do you turn to?  Jesus is sufficient.

All that aside, very little is written on the impact that graduating seniors have on youth groups, and almost nothing is written on the impact on leadership teams.  I think this needs to change.

So, what does graduation mean for you?  What fears and anxiety do you have?  What changes does graduation bring about for you, the youth program, and even more pertinent to this blog, your leadership program?

Graduation has always been a bittersweet time for me.  I imagine it’s the same for you, as well.  We look on with pride as student’s we’ve known for years walk across a platform and rotate their tassel, symbolically entering a new stage in their life that will be a reality in just a couple short months.  Without that group, your youth group will never be the same.  No matter what batch of seniors is graduating, that’s true.  Each class of students brings their own energy, their own personality, and their own flavor to the youth group.  When they leave, there’s a hole.

Sometimes we don’t know how the incoming class is going to carry themselves.  In the case of smaller youth groups, you may even have a considerable age gap between the outgoing and incoming students.  Twice during my tenure as a youth worker I watched a class graduate and was left with a youth group of mainly 8th graders.  I’m sure it’s happened to you as well.

One year, after a sizable and committed group of seniors graduated, I had to totally retool the youth program because the students that were left were young and not as committed.

Things can change even more in a leadership team when a group of dedicated seniors leave.  The personality and character traits that develop in a youth group are magnified in a leadership team.  After a group of graduates leaves, things may seem lost, even broke down for a while.

Sometimes we just overlook these things and keep on plowing away with our head down.  Sometimes we can.  But a lot of us, especially those of us with smaller youth groups, can’t just fake a business as usual attitude after we lose a group of Seniors.

Here’s a few things to think about as you ponder what changes you may need to make to your youth group and leadership team as you lose your seniors to graduation, career, and college:

Celebrate those Leaving and those Remaining

Make sure that as you celebrate the graduation of your seniors you also celebrate the students that are left.  Because we’ve spent a lot of time with the seniors and probably have good relationships with them, we will often carry on as if they are the most important aspect of your youth group or leadership team.  Your younger students may feel put out by this.  Help them celebrate graduation and understand that they are stepping up into the leadership that the seniors have left.  Celebrate all of your students.

Know that Things are Changing

We can’t stick our heads in the sand and pretend like everything is going to be the same when we have a group of Seniors graduate.  Things will be different, even if only slightly.   Sometimes we want to put our head down and keep going because of the loss we feel, or the changes we know we need to make but don’t want to.

Step up, acknowledge the changes that are coming, and prayerfully meet them head-on.

Consider Changes Carefully

There’s no need to change just for change’s sake, nor should you rush into changing just because you’ve lost a good amount of seniors.  Ask yourself the following questions:

How will the loss of seniors change the dynamic of the group?

Is the group more or less spiritually mature after you seniors have left?

Is there a marked difference in the average age of your students now that the seniors have left?

Changes could be something basic like new curriculum, or it could be something major like an overhaul of your whole program.

Implement Changes with Maximum Communication and Efficiency

Always, always, always communicate changes you are making in a youth program.  Students, parents, and church leadership are going to want to know why you’re changing things up, and you’d better have good reason.  Changes can also be disruptive to younger students in an already disrupted environment.

Start broadcasting that change is coming as soon as you’ve nailed it down and have a plan.  Involve students, parents, and church leadership in the planning and implementation.  Remember, ownership comes from being in on all phases of change.

When you start to implement changes, make it as painless and seamless as possible for your students, and for you.

Transition Younger Students into Leadership

When Seniors leave you have a gaping hole in your leadership.  You can’t leave it empty, and there’s no time like the present to start identifying and transitioning your younger students into the leadership roles that were vacated by your seniors.  As with all leadership transitions, have a plan for identifying, recruiting, and initiating younger students into your leadership team.  Begin team building exercises immediately and make sure the transition is as smooth for everyone as possible.  Your leadership team will be the same as your youth group as a whole:  Change is coming.

Every year we do this; some years better than others.  Some years graduation has a more significant impact than other years, but one thing is for sure:  Change is coming.  Our youth come and go.  This year, be prepared for the coming changes and prayerfully meet them.

This blog is dedicated to Jake, Brit, Colette, and Lindsey, who four years ago graduated into a bigger world and this year are graduating college:  They are married, getting married, getting into careers, and most importantly, serving their Savior – I’m proud of all of you, and am honored to be a part of your lives.  I can’t wait to see what God will do through you.

And to Kailyn and Taylor, who are graduating High School this year:  May God continue to guide you as you go to college, our prayers and best wishes are with both of you.

Today all we want to do is offer you a question that will help your students grow closer to Jesus, learn more about themselves, and develop the gift and calling of leadership that God has given them.

Use this question as a prompt for a devotion, an introduction to a lesson, or as a discussion topic whenever you meet with your students collectively or individually.  These questions make great mentoring prompts.

Make sure you ask yourself this question as well.  You never know what God is looking to do in your heart today.

Today’s Question Is:

Do you share the love of Jesus with other people?

We are called, every one of us, to share the love of Jesus with other people.  We all have our way of doing that, from living the gospel and answering questions that arise from our lifestyle, to out and out cold-call evangelism.  Whatever our method, what’s for sure is that if you value something or think it’s important and life-changing, you’ll share it.

And God spoke to Israel in visions of the night and said, “Jacob, Jacob.” And he said, “Here I am.” Then he said, “I am God, the God of your father. Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for there I will make you into a great nation. I myself will go down with you to Egypt, and I will also bring you up again, and Joseph’s hand shall close your eyes.”  (Genesis 46:2-4 ESV)

The Point: 

God uses all sorts of different people in different ways to pull off the big picture.

Your Students will learn that they aren’t the only player in God’s plan.  Even when we’re not working with someone side-by-side, God is moving other people in the same direction He’s moving you.  It’s teamwork on a cosmic level.

Teach It:

If you think about it, God had to move all sorts of people in many different directions to get the children of Israel into Egypt.  He had to move Joseph’s brothers to jealousy, Joseph into prison, Pharaoh to dream, the servant to remember Joseph, the famine, and Joseph’s brothers again to go to Egypt to look for food.

When we feel God moving in us toward a goal, we are vain and puffed up with pride to think that we are the only ones involved.

We are never the only player in any of God’s story.  If we are, it isn’t God’s story.

This is a good time to remember that it is God that orchestrates and moves, and we are only faithful.  If we think anything else, or put us in the “he who moves and does” category, then we have made ourselves to be God.

The verses above are the capstone of God’s actions to bring the children of Israel into Egypt, where, in 400 years, He will once again bring things to a head and bring Israel out of Egypt and make them a nation.

God is always cosmically at work.  Our parts may seem significant or insignificant, but they are always part of God’s plan to bring glory to His name and expand the Kingdom of God.  We need to play our parts well.

Discussion Questions:

Has God ever given you a glimpse of something so much bigger than yourself that you can’t help but feel very small?

What are important things to remember about your faithfulness when God moves you toward a goal?

Answer:  you are looking for something about “we’re part of something bigger, and we need to play our part well.”  or “God is moving in all sorts of different people to pull this off and I need to be faithful.”  Also, along the lines of “we don’t know just what God is up to and how important our part may be to people who need to know Jesus.”

What is the ultimate goal of God’s work?  Why does He use so many people?

Why is it important for leaders to know that they aren’t the only ones with a part to play in God’s work?

Possible Answers:  We shouldn’t think that we are too important in God’s plan, or we need to realize that there are many other parts of the puzzle that God is putting together, and that our brothers and sisters all over the world are also playing their role in God’s plan.  You may also hear things like, “to keep us from being prideful,” or “so we know it isn’t just about what we’re doing.”

Activity:

Have your students read about the day of Pentecost in Acts Chapter 2.

Talk about all the pieces God moved into place to make the day of Pentecost so important and again how that day was important in the spread of the gospel into the world.

Make sure you mention the following elements and the parts they played:

Peter

the other Apostles

The coming of the Holy Spirit

The day it was on (significant because many Jews from around the world were present in Jerusalem)

The miracle that all heard the message in their own language

Talk about how many people God had to move into that place to make the Day of Pentecost one of the most important days in the early church.

Today all we want to do is offer you a question that will help your students grow closer to Jesus, learn more about themselves, and develop the gift and calling of leadership that God has given them.

Use this question as a prompt for a devotion, an introduction to a lesson, or as a discussion topic whenever you meet with your students collectively or individually.  These questions make great mentoring prompts.

Make sure you ask yourself this question as well.  You never know what God is looking to do in your heart today.

Today’s Question Is:

What did you do to add value to someone today?

It’s easy to add value to ourselves, that’s what we constantly do, day in and day out.  It’s much, much harder to add value to someone else.  It’s also one of the things Jesus calls us to do in serving others.  From a small encouragement to helping someone bring a dream to life, we need to be a people who are constantly adding value to others.

I didn’t like it.  I didn’t want to hear it.  But it was truth.

Now, my father didn’t mean anything by it; I don’t think he meant it in a bad or negative way, but I sure took it that way, and it stung.  It was like holding a mirror up and seeing something that I didn’t want to see.

That little incident got me to thinking about the nature of leadership and how we have to be open to the truth about us.

A Christian leader has to be constantly ready to hear the truth about themselves.  Far to often we begin to think of ourselves as on the top of our game and we forget that we are fallible, sinful humans that screw up as often as we have opportunity.

If we’re not open to hearing the truth about ourselves, we get stuck in an alternate reality where everything is fine, we’re chugging along okay, and nothing’s wrong.

My suspicion is that many leaders who fall get into these kinds of patterns.  Even though people may be trying to talk into their lives, they aren’t listening.

Here’s a couple of ways that you can more easily hear the truth about yourself:

Have accountability.

Be it a partner, or a group, or whatever, make sure that you invite someone to speak into your life and tell you the hard things.

Humble Yourself.

Romans 12 tells us to not think more highly of ourselves than we should.  By staying humble, we don’t get so full of ourselves that we can’t hear what people are saying to us.

Don’t Surround Yourself With “Yes-Men” (or Women).

It might be tempting to surround yourself with sycophants that will tell you what you want to hear, but in the end all it does it give you an alternate reality that acts like a wall to the truth.

It may be hard to hear, but often the truth is.  Still, we have to listen for it, and even if it comes from the people we love, and hurts a whole bunch, we have to heed it.  God uses other people to speak to us.  Listen, heed it, and act on it.

Today all we want to do is offer you a question that will help your students grow closer to Jesus, learn more about themselves, and develop the gift and calling of leadership that God has given them.

Use this question as a prompt for a devotion, an introduction to a lesson, or as a discussion topic whenever you meet with your students collectively or individually.  These questions make great mentoring prompts.

Make sure you ask yourself this question as well.  You never know what God is looking to do in your heart today.

Today’s Question Is:

What did you read in your Bible today?

Like your prayer life, your devotional life is very important.  Read scripture like Psalm 119 and you get the feeling that David was constantly in his scriptures.  We need to be the same way.  Sometimes, however, I think we focus more on getting our reading for the day done than on learning the lesson that God has for us in the scriptures.  A good way to make sure we’re not just checking our reading for the day off the list is to talk about what we’ve read, what impression it’s had on us, and what God is speaking to us through it.

Joseph answered Pharaoh, “It is not in me; God will give Pharaoh a favorable answer.”

(Genesis 41:16 ESV)

The Point

Humility demands that we know and confess that our abilities and skills are not our own but come from God.

Teach It.

This was Joseph’s big moment.  He could wow Pharaoh and get whatever he wanted.  All the glory could be his; yet he made it a point to confess that whatever he did came from God.

A Christian leader will always confess that all of their skills and successes belong to God and not themselves, and more importantly, they will believe it themselves.

Everything we are comes from God (Psalm 139).  We are made and uniquely gifted to serve Him and others in His name.

When we don’t realize where are gifts come from and why we have them, or worse yet use them for our own glory, we become prideful and aren’t being Christian leaders.

Daniel faced the same situation, and he still glorified God.

We are often tempted to take credit for who we are and the gifts we’ve been given, but that charade can only last so long, and soon God will get the glory He deserves.

Discuss It

Why do you think that Joseph was able to so easily tell Pharaoh that God was responsible for what happened?

What kind of an attitude do you need to have in order to readily tell other people that it’s God that’s important and not you?

Do you know that your skills and gifts come from God?

Do you take credit for things that aren’t yours to take credit for?

We want to look good for our bosses, teachers, parents, and others.  Do you feel that pull so much that you will deny God to impress them?

What’s really at stake when we deny that God is the originator of everything we have?

Live It

Have your students List all of their skills and gifts.  Then, talk about how they are given to us by God.  Show, through your list of skills and gifts, how all of your gifts came from God because He either made you that way or gifted you that way during your life.  Discuss why we need to give God the credit for who and what we are.

Pray at the end and ask God to help everyone realize that all things come from God, and for humility to realize and confess that, even when they are tempted to look good in front of others.

Today all we want to do is offer you a question that will help your students grow closer to Jesus, learn more about themselves, and develop the gift and calling of leadership that God has given them.

Use this question as a prompt for a devotion, an introduction to a lesson, or as a discussion topic whenever you meet with your students collectively or individually.  These questions make great mentoring prompts.

Make sure you ask yourself this question as well.  You never know what God is looking to do in your heart today.

Today’s Question is:

How is Your Prayer Life?

I don’t think we can understate just how important a  young leader’s prayer life is.  It’s not just about sitting down and sharing our prayer requests with God.  It’s about the level of intimacy that we share with our Savior, about the time we spend listening to God, and about the discipline of setting aside time in an already pressed schedule because we recognize that it’s not just important but essential.

This is how it should be.  Leadership teams are a place where our students should be able to grow into their calling, or in community, learn their calling and work towards it.

But are you hampering their growth with the way you run your leadership team?  Are some of the things you do counterproductive?

The answer is probably yes.  I think that if we take a hard look at our programs, we’re doing things that can stymie our student’s growth instead of promote it.  Because we are creatures of habit, and because we often take the easy way out (whether we realize it or not) we end up hurting rather than helping our students growth.

This is possible on any level and with any size group, but I’ve noticed that it happens with larger leadership teams more often because people get lost in the shuffle and it’s much harder to individualize the leadership program.

So, what are some of the things that we’re doing that hurt our student’s growth?

Here’s a few of them; by no means exhaustive, but hopefully it will get you thinking about your own group:

Treating Everyone the Same

Although society is trying more everyday to establish the lowest common denominator, those of us in education know that if we treat everyone the same then no one reaches their full potential.  The easy way is to treat everyone the same, because it’s definitely more work to individualize, but in the end the only way for our students to reach their God-given potential is to treat them like the individuals that God made them.

Teaching to One Learning Style

Naturally, the default learning style that we use is our own.  When we’re not being deliberate about using different learning styles in our teaching, we usually default to the one that we’re the most comfortable with.  You’ll lose attention quickly doing this.  If you’re going to speak straight into a student’s life, you’ll need to do so in the language that they speak, not yours.

Having 1 Goal for the Entire Group

If you’ve set one goal for the entire group, you’ve missed an opportunity to individualize your student’s education.  Sometimes we do this because it’s easy, and sometimes we do this because we don’t have time to individualize.

We also tend to do this because we limit our idea of leadership to one realm, such as church leadership, or school leadership.  When we do this we discount those students who have been given a stewardship of leadership in other areas.

Only Working as a Group

Let’s face it, we don’t have a lot of time.  If you’re the typical leader of a student leadership team, you have other duties as well, running a youth group or a church not being the least of them.  When we get busy, we often neglect the most powerful teaching strategy available to us:  One-on-One teaching.

One-on-One teaching takes extra prep and it takes a relationship, both which take a lot of time, but it’s often not the group time where revelation and learning take place, it’s in those times where you’re sitting across the table from a student, sipping a coffee, and getting to the heart of the matter and how it applies to their life.

Picking One Type of Student for Your Team

If we’re honest with ourselves, we prefer a certain kind of student on our leadership team.  We’re more comfortable with a certain personality, certain disposition, even a certain calling.  Usually we’re comfortable with this because it’s a reflection of us.  This route is easy, and it’s easier for you to control, but in the long run, you and your students don’t benefit from being around people that are different from them.  While it may get unruly with different types of people in your group, and it’s harder to teach, we all benefit from diversity; both your students and you.

These are just a couple of ways that we short-change the students in our leadership teams.  I’m sure if you look around you could come up with more.  The important thing is that you recognize them and when in your power, change them.