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Friends United Meeting |
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January/February 2006
Leadership Development for Youth and Young Adults
By Darrin Allen
Equipping and encouraging youth and young adults to find their unique place and identity in God’s plan is both hard and exciting work. Although North Carolina Yearly Meeting has many programs for youth and young adults, the key to developing leaders is not in any program. Rather, the key is in the mindset upon which the programs are structured and developed. Leadership development is much more a way of thinking than a particular kind of program. Any program can be used as an opportunity to develop leaders if the ones who are leading it are seeking to do so.
But there is an even more fundamental assumption guiding us—namely that youth and young adults are just as capable of truly worshipping and experiencing God in worship as are adults. They are also just as capable of truly ministering to each other and those beyond their age range. We view them not only as the church of tomorrow, but just as much the church of today. We’re not investing our lives in a group of individuals who we hope will one day step up to make a difference; we are investing in an amazing group of people who we fully expect will make a difference today!
Leadership development as a way of thinking
The following key ideas form the basis of our philosophy of developing
leaders:
Equipping is more important than doing
You’ve heard and, at some point, probably repeated the phrase, “Sometimes
it’s just easier to do things yourself.” While this statement may be true
at times, it is also true there are few things that will handicap meeting,
committee or other ministry more in the long term. Doing everything yourself
may be faster, but it makes the ministry or organization dependent on
particular individuals who may not always be around. This is why we encourage
our more experienced leaders to always be equipping while they are doing
so that the particular skill or understanding of how something works will
not be lost. As one of our Yearly Meeting staff members likes to say,
we should always be “working ourselves out of a job.”
See the potential in those around you
An obvious principle of leadership development is to keep an eye open
for people around you who show signs of potential. But while attending
to the daily tasks of life, it is easy to overlook people who may not
seem the most natural candidates for leadership roles. It is important
to see the potential within every person. Some people have tremendous
potential but have never been given an opportunity to use their gifts.
Our annual young Friends leadership retreat provides us the opportunity
to discover new potential in our youth by challenging them in a weekend
of intense study focused on a particular topic.
Play chess, not checkers
This analogy comes from Dr. Tim Elmore, an emerging leadership guru. The
games of chess and checkers are both played on the same board. The primary
difference in the games is in the way the pieces move. In checkers, each
piece moves in the same manner and has the same abilities. Chess pieces,
on the other hand, move according to their type—pawns, knights, queens
and bishops all have different capabilities, strengths and weaknesses.
The same is true of people with whom we serve and minister. Each youth
and young adult who participates in the life of our Yearly Meeting has
different abilities, strengths and weaknesses that need to be taken into
account as they are encouraged and invited into roles of leadership. They
must also be shown how to work together as a team. Just like no individual
chess piece can win the game alone, no one person can accomplish all that
needs to be done in a particular ministry setting.
Growth comes when theory and hands-on experience meet
Teaching and training our new, upcoming and current leaders is a wonderful
thing and, personally speaking, is one of my favorite parts of my job.
But it is not enough to simply teach methods, principles and what to do
if certain situations arise. To grow, new leaders need to actually experience
challenging situations and put the principles into practice. Yet, it is
just as risky to put people into a leadership roles without equipping
them to deal with the situations they will face. This is why we train
counselors and interns before sending them out.
Just as important as the training beforehand is the training happening in the midst of an event or ministry. At our youth retreats, the daily counselor meetings give them opportunities to share issues they are facing. Often these real-life situations speed their leadership development faster than any hypotheti- Leadership Development for Youth and Young Adults Quaker Life January/February 2006 13 cal training situation. This type of development and support is offered to our full-time youth pastors by inviting them to a monthly prayer breakfast where they are free to share the joys and struggles of their ministries openly and in an environment of mentoring and spiritual support.
Set people up to succeed, but be there to catch them if they fall
Every youth and young adult who becomes involved in our community has
great potential. However, they are not all at the same point of maturity
in reaching that potential. It is vital that opportunities we provide
for them to grow and be challenged are ones in which they are likely to
succeed; this means paying close attention to the skills and abilities
of each individual. It only takes one bad experience to lose a potential
leader. Therefore, it is important to support new leaders when things
do not go as planned. Bad experiences can be a blessing in disguise if
we help people learn and grow from them.
Leadership development programs
Several of our key leadership development programs such as the youth leadership
retreat, youth pastor’s prayer breakfast and counselor training have already
been mentioned. Two other important programs are our Young Friends Activities
Committee (YFAC) and our Intern Program.
YFAC is not really a program, but an environment in which that committee operates. The committee consists of individuals appointed by North Carolina Yearly Meeting Nominating Committee and representatives from each of our Quarters. Although they may not be official members of the committee, many others include: youth pastors, volunteer leaders and our present and past young Friends clerks. The ministry of the committee consists of planning and carrying out all events of our youth program, with the exception of our summer camping program. Committee attendance ranges anywhere from 20-40 and meetings are usually characterized by copious amounts of laughter. Two Yearly Meeting staff members work with the committee, but at least 75% of the work for the 10 or more annual events is planned and carried out by YFAC. Volunteers serve on subcommittees for various events and it is in this setting leadership development takes place as our youth give input and work with youth pastors and other youth leaders to plan and lead each event. Mentoring takes place as a natural part of accomplishing the tasks.
A second key program in developing leaders is our Intern Program. Since 1997 this program has provided people of any age who are interested in vocational ministry the opportunity to learn more about who God has made them to be (their passions, spiritual gifts and personality) and how they might be called into service. Interested individuals who are seniors in high school or older may apply to serve as an intern in youth, children’s, pastoral or mission ministry. Meetings who are interested in having an intern serve also apply. One of the most difficult aspects of the program is matching the two, intern and meeting. This is one key area in which the last point of the mindset outlined above comes into play as we seek to set interns up in a situation where they can best grow and have a positive experience. The role of the program is to equip and provide a positive hands-on ministry experience for the intern, trusting that if the intern’s experience is positive, the meeting’s experience will be as well. Throughout the span of the intern’s experience, consistent mentoring and support are provided through regular meetings with other interns and myself.
Developing leaders among youth and young adults is a continual process of which we have only begun to scratch the surface. Looking forward, we are beginning to examine the concept of a culture of leadership development, not just among our youth but within the entire Yearly Meeting. In Matthew 25:14-30, Jesus exhorts us to make the best use of the abilities and resources with which God has blessed us, and it is our desire to do so by encouraging, equipping and releasing the next generation to do the same.
Darrin Allen is currently serving as Director of Youth and Young Adult Program Ministries for North Carolina Yearly Meeting.