One thing I’ve been working on personally as a leader, is trying to plan ahead for events, and enlist youth to run as much each event as possible. I’m trying to learn to look at people’s gifts and match them with places of ministry and service where they can be fulfilled. This weekend we did the 30 hour famine, and I handed off pretty much everything to teens . . . and it went amazingly well. So today, I emailed a bunch of them and wrote them encouraging notes about how well they did, and tried to “speak into their lives” about continuing to use their gifts. Then I got a response . . . One of my leaders wrote me back and blew my mind. She spent a paragraph thanking me for the opportunity to use her gifts at youth group. She specifically thanked me for seeing the potential in her and others before they could even see it, and then challenging them to live up to it.
Wow. If that doesn’t describe what I am shooting for as a leader, I don’t know what does! And so I wanted to just share this with all of you. Like most of you, I come away from many youth meetings feeling discouraged for one reason or another (if only this thing would change…). But this encouragement really focused things for me. I need to keep this as a priority, a goal, for me.
I need to actively look for the future in others. See their gifts and call them out. Give them opportunities to fail and succeed. Coach them. Encourage them. Push them. It was a good reminder for me, and hopefully for you.
In what practical ways can we do this more intentionally? Ideas?