Youth Ministry Leaders
What Makes a Great Leader - 4 Qualities
During coffee hour, pay attention to which adults lean down to listen to children speak. Discover which adult finds the 6th grader interesting. Which adults are having conversations with high schoolers? These are future youth or children’s ministry leaders.
As a veteran youth pastor, seeking out new youth ministry leaders is important. We call them the Mids or High School Leader Team, Confirmation Leader Team, and Sunday School Teachers - always with the Capital First Letter signifying Intentionality. We have no accidental - we were desperate for a warm body - leaders.
Colorado Mission Trip 2014. Photo by Kate Monnett. Used by Permission.
What Makes a Good Youth Leader?
Youth Leaders want to spend time with teenagers. They enjoy teenagers:
Listening to them
Having random conversations about everything from video games to horseback riding, to school, sports, Drama Club, stuff they look forward to, college, future roommates, and everything in between.
Doing youth group meetings
Teaching youth lessons now and then
Engaging in conversations about faith
Answering questions with “I don’t know, what do you think?” and “Wow, I need more time to think about that.”
Then following up with that teen after we’ve thought about it.
Playing wacky YM games.
Eating lots of unhealthy food with them.
The Leader Teams come in Every Shape and Size
Churches often typecast who they want in a Youth Leader (or Pastor). The prototypical is a 24-year-old, single, woman who plays the guitar, is uber-organized, and makes everyone thankful to know her. Youth Leaders come in every age and background. See people passionate for Jesus, youth and learning.1
4 Great Youth Leaders, I have been Lucky to Know
Marc
For a decade Marc served on the High School Leader Team and as a mission trip Leader. He was a single guy in his 30s-40s who worked in marketing. Marc was always on time, engaged, caught up on the Lesson Plan, and ready to spend time with teenagers. His passion for caring for people made him a powerful witness. Marc was particularly a good leader with the jocks who came which was the power of opposites.
Often Marc would head over to a sporting event or school play he was hoping to go to see one of our youth. Marc paid attention and knew the youth well. His love for teenagers would powerful.
Ann
I first me Ann when she was kneeling down listening to a 5-year-old, not her own, tell her something during coffee hour. When asked to be a Mids or High School Leader she chose High School as her 3 kids would soon be in middle school and she was sure they would appreciate someone else (Wisdom!).
Prototypically, Ann was uber-organized. Her cheerfulness lifted people up. she was always ready to help out, meet a new teen, and try something new. Her strength was her faith was an important part of her life. She lived it.
Blake
In his first 2 years in high school, Blake rarely came to youth group but had done the Costa Rica and Atlanta mission trips before I left his church to move to Ann Arbor. Two years later after worship, he called my name at coffee hour - 2 feet taller and a freshman at the University of Michigan.
For the next four years, Blake was a terrific High School Leader. He was all in at laser tag, youth group, helping to design our crazy photo scavenger hunts on campus, and so much more. On Mission Trips as a Leader, his joy and easygoing manner gave confidence to the youth when the Fort Lauderdale Airport had only 1 rental van available or when the Methodist church forgot they were hosting our team for dinner one night. Blake was always chill.2
Deb
Deb had college-age children when she joined our Big Church. We met through a mission project and she came on the High School Leader Team. Deb was in her mid-50 and a clinical psychologist. She brought energy, an active faith, and a passion to see teenager find their place in the world. One of her (and Marc’s) greater strengths were pressing on my bad ideas until WE found a good idea instead, as well as encouraging the rest of the leader team (and me).
Blake & Marc on the near book ends with Keystones (high school) May 2014. Photo by J.Monnett. Used by Permission.
4 Qualifications for Youth Leader
Every time we announce a new summer mission trip, parents come forward to tell me why they need to go on the trip too. I direct people to the YM Leader or Teacher qualifications that we use. For the parents who qualify we try to aim them toward the best possible trip for their youth: some youth thrive with their parent(s) on the trip - many (most) do not.
The 4 Qualifications are:
Love Teenagers
Love Jesus
Worship 2+ a month
Teachable Spirit
1. Love Teenagers
Most parents love their own teenagers but don’t necessarily love teenagers in general. A great Youth Leader enjoys and appreciates teenagers Period. To be a good Youth Leader, adults must already love the idea of spending time with teenagers.
2. Love Jesus
The church is full of people seeking to know and love Jesus better. To be an effective Youth Leader, we must already have an active Christian faith. YM is full of teaching times about Jesus, God, the Holy Spirit, the Church, this particular church, and how to live a Christian Life - Follow Jesus.
Youth Ministry is not the place for adults who are exploring the idea of maybe following Jesus.3 YM is where we model our messy Christian walk. Teenagers will see us in all of our walks - the good, the bad, and the ugly. It’s how we confess, receives forgiveness, and move forward that shows how we know Jesus.
3. Worship 2+ Times a Month
One of the untenable job requirements of a youth pastor is to increase the presence of teenagers in worship.4 For youth to be in worship they need to see their Youth Leaders actively worshipping. Worship has to be modeled.
Also, few people ever tell me (a pastor) that they don’t believe in Jesus. Worship is one tangible way of seeing people live out their Christian walk.
Worship is the center of the church life. Youth Leaders need to be active in the center of church life. Every Youth Leader and Sunday School teacher can name three parents who drop their child/youth off and head to Sweetwaters for a coffee during class and worship.
High Schoolers hanging kitchen cabinets in Houston, 2018. Photo by J.Monnett.
4. Teachable Spirit
This last qualification may not be the most important one (See Jesus), but it can be the difference between a fun engaging youth group meeting and frustrated teens. Mission trips can be broken by the adult leader who refuses to learn from the Trip Leader or from the Junior girl on her 4th mission trip who knows how the work day should go to be effective and safe.
People with a Teachable Spirit learn from each other. Youth learn leadership skills when adult leaders let the youth lead them.
In Utah, on the Navajo Reservation, I and a college woman (only 2 Leaders with six youths) had no idea how to build the required wooden stoop. Neither of us had ever done anything like it. The other leader got more and more upset. I asked the whole group if anyone had done something like this.
We waited. I encouraged the wait. Finally, a Junior boy who had yet to speak at all softly said, that he spent last summer building decks for his dad’s construction business. He knew how to do the stoop. It would be “easy.” He taught us to build that small wooden stoop. Six years later in Las Cruces, New Mexico, I led a group of high schoolers in building a wooden handicapped ramp (it was not easy, but I had learned).
In Conclusion
Once you find the right people for youth ministry don’t forget to train them.5 Have clear expectations for what a Youth Leader does. Encourage each other. Each youth group meeting has a clear plan with the lesson block, and the games so that you and your leaders can focus on engaging with teenagers.
I have picked 4 Youth Leaders out of nearly 50 to highlight. I could start listing them all but I would forget someone. These 4 show the breadth and depth of people that God calls to Youth Ministry.
He is Dr. Blake now!
Our churches are a great place to explore what it means to be a Christian, but in the leadership of YM or church leadership, we need to already be practicing Christians following Jesus.
A whole blog post could be done on how fair/unfair this requirement is.
If you need training ideas, reach out. I’ve got an entire training curriculum for Adult Lay Leaders on Youth Mission Trips.