Encouraging Our Adult Leaders

One of the most important things we can do in youth ministry is to equip others to work along side of us in ministry. Oftentimes our first thought is that we have been trained to minister to students and teach and a lot of other adults haven't so we must do it all ourselves. Unfortunately this actually hurts our ministry more than we realize. In order for us to become more effective in reaching students it is imperative that we spend the time it takes in training our adults and student leaders.

If you are anything like me you have had times in the past when you set up great training seminars, conferences, or meetings that you know will blow the socks off your adults - if they will just come. The problem is oftentimes we are struggling to get our adults to show up. Here is some help on how to get adults more interested in being involved in youth ministry.

1. Have Fun with Them. I know this doesn't sound super spiritual but it makes a bigger impact than you can imagine. One of the coolest things I am most excited about is a monthly time that my adults get together with me for no other purpose than just having fun together. The first gathering I had with my adults I had it at my house. There is nothing more you can do to make someone feel accepted than have people at your house. It shows them that you value them so much that you want to welcome them into your home. You may want to know how I structured the gathering. It was simple. People came to my house, we ate lots of awesome food and we played games. That was basically it. Easy to do and fun for my wife and me to actually socialize with adults. The purpose of this goes very deep. If your adult ministry team can have fun together then you will see lives changed as you work together better.

2. Communicate, Communicate, Communicate! This is so important. I highly recommend that you send out emails to all your adults at least 2x a month if not 1x a week. Be sure not to make these emails always just about the next training event, however you do want to include this information in your emails. I encourage you to brag on your adults and to tell stories of students lives being changed in the emails. Every chance you can get a quote or story from a student will encourage them and remind them more of what they do is so very important and it does make a difference. Along with the emails you want to be sure to send postcards to everyone reminding them about events and make sure they know that you want to them to be involved. Also, don't leave out your adults who do not have email. Be sure to mail them a copy of the emails in snail mail form so they can know that you care.

3. Be consistant in your training Time. First you must actually have training. One thing that I have done is to encourage my Small group teachers to come on Wed. nights every week to work with their team of teachers and go over the next weeks lesson. This does several things: 1) It allows them to look at the lesson before Sat. night or Sunday morning, 2) It allows them to talk about the lesson and be much more prepared than trying to prepare by themselves, 3) It gets them in a habit of meeting together. On the 4th Wed. of the month I will go into the meeting and add some training tips and helpful insights, and cover any needs that we have. You don't have to meet on Wed. nights but I found that many of my teachers were not plugged into the adult ministry on Wed. nights and it was a way to get them connected to our church on a deeper level. For you it may be easier to do a Sunday or a Tuesday night. Whatever the time it is very important to show your leaders that you have a desire to enable them to be more effective in reaching their students.

4. Show them you care. Remember, many of your adult leaders do not have strong relationships in your church with other adults. Use your monthly gatherings as a chance to show them you care about them. Make sure you pray with your adults and when they are going through a tough time that you let them know your praying for them. Remember to ask about what is going on in their lives. Call them on the phone just to see how things are going with them and do whatever you can to show them that you appreciate them. You can never do enough to show your leaders that you value them so don't stop trying to find creative ways to do this.

Please let me know if this was helpful to you. If you want to get some more ideas please email me and I would love to talk. I will be adding the next article on Training student leaders.