How to Develop and Encourage Young Leaders

Top 10 ideas to develop and encourage young leaders.

1. Identify young people who want to engage. They don’t need to be extrovert or display huge leadership potential. They only need to show some wish to serve.

How to: Invite a group of young people for a cuppa at a coffee shop or even better invite them to your house for dinner. This has the dual purpose of helping the young people see that you want to build relationships and you get to see them interact with peers. Ask questions about how they are involved and how they would like to be involved.

2. As part of the ‘identifying young leaders’ process invite them in to see important meetings, to consult and give you their take and ask them questions. See what they want it to be like.

How to: This is after you have identified some young people who are interested in investing in your church family. Make it clear that they don’t need to sign their life over but that you would like to get them more involved. Start them off slowly. Young people can get over-excited and sometimes volunteer for everything but keep it to one or two smaller things at first. Help them see that it is not because you don’t trust them but because you want to care for them and help them. Build loving care into your processes from the start and communicate it through your encouragements.

3. Plan social time and be intentional about building relationships with a small group (think safeguarding). This could be BBQs, board games, a cuppa, a meal, time watching sports or a movie. Build relationships with them and an integrated community where they feel valued. Don’t be shy about engaging individuals but protect yourself, e.g. Meet in a public place with permission from the parents and ideally don’t meet with them alone.

How to: This is arguably the most important part of developing young leaders. They are looking for deep connections and it is very likely that the young leaders will stick around much longer, and be much more involved, if you manage to build them into your church family. Allow the social things to be part of your leadership development by getting young people to organise the events, host them and by giving useful and encouraging feedback (e.g. “That board games night was great. I loved how you had a few different games to engage different interests. Maybe we can think about locating it a bit closer next time so Joe Bloggs can get there easier.”) Make these events different and more exclusive than general youth social nights. Regularly identify new people to invite though. This builds anticipation and desire to be involved. Remember to build a safeguarding system in and keep parents informed throughout.

4. Invest in them, money for little treats and training, as well as time. They will take up  lots of your time, especially at the outset. Plan for this and give it freely.

How to: Too often a church’s youth budget is nearly non-existent. This already tells the young people that they are not valued. Arrange for a few different pots of money for basics such as the occasional leaders’ activity trip (e.g. bowling, pizza out etc.) and training. Send them or even better accompany them to training by the diocese and others where they get to know other leaders and get a bigger vision and picture. They will also mess up sometimes and need more one-to-one time and intense discipleship. Identify key people that can share this time commitment and also give different perspectives. Ideally each young leader will have two main, mature Christians accompanying them with a few others regularly feeding into their development and life. Plan ahead and never make the young leaders feel like it is a burden to resource them, either with time or with money.

5. Give them precise instructions and clear tasks but don’t limit them because of your needs.

How to: Think about your language. Is it technical, ‘too holy’ i.e. Christian words they might not know the meaning of (explain them)? Is it encouraging, and do you break actions and tasks down into easy, manageable chunks? Do you explain all that each task entails?

It is also easy to use young leaders just to do the bits we don’t like to do so much. Don’t. Along the same lines make sure that you don’t only push them into areas you need people in. It might be a great learning experience for them so give them challenges and use them wisely.

6. Help them to identify and develop in the areas God has gifted them in, calling and passion. Give them freedom to try new things in these areas.

How to: Ask the young leaders questions about their passions and interests as part of your continuous evaluation and encouragement process. This is where they might be most effective and where God probably calls them. Help them to think creatively and maybe encourage them to go to different churches and ministries to see other things that are going on as well. This could open their eyes to completely new ways of doing things.

7. Continuously evaluate and let them evaluate themselves. Be lavish with praise and encouragement in this. It helps them focus on good things and be inspired.

How to: Put some systems in place from the outset that encourage the young leaders to evaluate themselves and to continuously improve. Encourage them also to seek feedback from other leaders and peers as well as doing some monthly/bi-monthly meetings over coffee to feedback and encourage. Negativity isn’t needed but constructive criticism should be part of this regularly. Feel free to use a concept used in schools called WWW/EBI – What went well?/ Even better if (what could make this thing better).

8. Let them evaluate you and ask you questions and challenge you one-to-one. This will help their understanding and might even give you valuable insights.

How to: Encourage the young leaders by showing them that they are significant and their opinion is important. Make sure you don’t take offence if they don’t agree with you and let them know if you have benefited from their insights. Encourage them to use clear and constructive language.

9. Help others see the young leaders’ potential. Speak highly of them and challenge unhelpful and critical words and behaviour. Become their advocate and champion.

How to: Whenever you have a staff or leadership meeting mention the achievements of the young leaders. Use their opinions alongside those of other leaders and show that they are of similar importance. It is good practice and very encouraging to also honour their achievements and contributions before the whole church if they finish a big project or leave to go to university or similar.

10. Keep starting over and identifying new people. Invite the last batch of young leaders to help with this and involve them in the leadership-building process.

How to: Always keep an eye out for others who want to be involved and encourage younger years by setting good young leaders up as examples. Let those young leaders regularly give their testimony and talk about what they are doing.

If you have questions regarding any of these points or how to best implement these ideas please do not hesitate to contact the Youth Team at youth@blackburn.anglican.org or 01254 503419.