Equipping and Empowering Junior Leaders to Serve

2/02/24

While visiting a youth group recently I was encouraged by a group of teenagers who had been serving earlier that afternoon as junior leaders in their church’s kids ministry group. They were excitedly sharing with their youth leaders everything that had happened.

As youth ministers, we long to see the teenagers in our ministries develop into robust Christians who will spend a lifetime of faithfully loving and serving Jesus. Statistics consistently show that young people who are included as equal members and integrated into the wider household of God’s people are the ones who are most likely to retain their faith into adulthood,[1] most particularly when young people are given the opportunity to serve and contribute to the church in meaningful ways.

Equipping and empowering teenagers to serve as junior leaders within your church’s ministry programs is one of the best places for this to happen. It provides a safe environment within which they can meaningfully contribute through active service, further consolidating their identity in Christ.

So how should we be thinking about junior leaders, and how can we best help them to start well?

The Bible affirms the value of young leaders

Those of us who work regularly with teenagers will know that they’re far more capable than they’re often given credit for. The Bible affirms this – young people are a gift from God (Psalm 127:3) who are to be considered as valuable and important members of the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:27). They have the capability to serve God’s people, setting an example for others in the Christian faith (1 Timothy 4:12).

This means that we’re not teaching junior leaders about leadership in the hope that one day, in the future, they might be involved in serving. Rather, junior leaders are capable of serving alongside adults in leadership now, in age-appropriate and responsibility-appropriate ways.

Yet sometimes the process of identifying, training, and working with junior leaders can feel like a significant challenge. Often we don’t know what junior leaders are capable of. We’re not quite sure what they’re allowed to be doing. We don’t know how to effectively train and equip them. And sometimes it’s just easier, and quicker, to let the adults lead.

How to help them start well

So how can we shape our ministry approach to most effectively enable young people to serve within the life of our church? Here’s five suggestions for helping junior leaders start well:

1. Invite early and intentionally

As young people and their parents plan out their commitments for the year it’s helpful to enable them to consider the place of junior leadership amongst the various other commitments they will have. Giving an intentional invitation to serve as a junior leader is best done before other commitments have been locked in for a new term or calendar year. In many cases this will involve speaking about leadership throughout the year, and formally inviting young people to junior leadership in November and December,  ready for the following year. This can be done with a personal letter that outlines the role and responsibilities. It’s good practice to ensure that parents also receive a copy of this information, so that serving can be discussed as a family.

2. Set clear expectations

When inviting a young person to serve as a junior leader, ensure that you have in writing the clear expectations of what you’re asking them to commit to. This should include why your church believes in the value of junior leaders (the philosophy), as well as what you’re expecting from them personally and in ministry (the commitment). It can be helpful to articulate what it looks like to serve well as a junior leader. Additionally, it’s a good idea to outline any key dates for team meetings, training sessions, end of year celebrations, or other important events.

3. Ensure they’re part of the team

Sometimes we raise and train junior leaders well but struggle to help the adult leaders in our teams know how to best work alongside them. Ensuring junior leaders are included in team meetings, key decisions, and ministry communications will go a long way to enabling them to serve as genuine members of the team. This may require some training for your adult leaders on how to work well with the junior leaders on team.

4. Allow them to fail well

Just like adult leaders, at times the junior leaders in our ministries will make mistakes. It’s how we respond to those mistakes that really matters. If we establish a culture of being willing to try new things, respond with grace when something doesn’t work, debrief helpfully, and allow reflection on why something didn’t turn out as expected, then we’ll see our junior leaders learn from those mistakes as well as grow and develop in their sense of responsibility and leadership skills.

5. Provide ongoing training and support

Setting up a regular schedule of training sessions for your junior leaders will help them to learn the skills of ministry while reflecting on their experiences of serving in teams. Your own training sessions can be further strengthened by bringing your junior leaders to the Youthworks Leaders In Training camp where they will be trained alongside hundreds of junior leaders from other churches.

Young Christians don’t want to be treated as a problem or as a cheap resource. They want to play their role within the body of Christ. As you consider the place of junior leaders within your ministry teams, give thanks that they are not simply the ‘next generation’ of leaders, but are genuine leaders who can serve the body of Christ effectively, right now.

 What steps can you take to equip and empower junior leaders in your church?

[1] Dr K. E. Powell and Dr C. Clark: Sticky Faith (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011). p98.