Check out articles here and here about creating and sharing vision.
5. Pursue Leaders, Not Followers
Do you want things done better? Do you want to lighten your load? Do you want greater enthusiasm and engagement in children’s ministry? Do you want more volunteers?
Pursue leaders.
And don’t try and do so by “recruiting” volunteers…volunteers fill spots to complete a task they’ve been asked to complete. Instead, pursue leaders with an invitation to invest in that grand, clear and compelling vision.
6. People, People, People
If you are a leader in children’s and/or family ministry, your job is about people. And the deeper in the weeds you get, the less you are able to lead those people.
Can I be direct? Almost always, someone else can and should be:
- Getting the crafts ready
- Distributing curriculum
- Setting up chairs
- Processing paperwork
- Scheduling volunteers
And I could go on and on with the “tasks” that I so often see children’s ministry leaders giving themselves to rather than investing in people. Now don’t misunderstand me…I’m NOT saying the leader should be “above” doing those things. And of course we all have to do these types of things sometimes. But if you are the one primarily responsible for tasks such as these, or if you regularly have to do these types of tasks, then you are limiting your ministry and leadership potential.
I’ve had the privilege of being a children’s and/or family pastor in a churches of 250, 2,500, 4,500 and 7,500. Guess what? It was the same in all of them. My job as a leader is to invest in people…to equip and develop people to pursue the ministry vision…period.
Check out articles here, here and here on creating team and developing leaders.
Practice these six leadership habits and see what happens in your ministry over the next year or two. But be ready! It will likely ignite your ministry far beyond where it is now.
What leadership habits have you learned as you have led in ministry?
This article about leadership habits originally appeared here.
