Yesterday I shared the joy of missing part of a youth event and allowing my leaders, students and adults, to lead. In effect I am decentralizing leadership and working myself out of jobs I no longer want to do to focus on my new job description of creating and dreaming for the future.
Does the latter job description sound like a job you want? The only way I am achieving this is my developing leaders over the past six years. With my extra time I want to work on
Creating a business/restaurant to employ students.
Develop a satellite youth ministry using current leaders.
Start a bus route in our neighborhood to get more kids to come to youth.
“Youth workers never achieve the dreams and goals God’s given them because they’re still doing the work others can do.”
In part one of this post I shared three areas we must up our game in if we want to work on our dream and not work on our job.
First, we must start with what we believe about youth ministry and work.
I just read a post this morning from Seth Godin. He asks the perfect question: Is our job getting in the way of our work? I echo this same sentiment in the Youth Ministry in Motion podcast episode: Your Job Description Is Not Your Calling. Do we believe it is our job to do everything, be at everything, take the blame and the praise for everything or do we believe what the Apostle Paul said in Ephesians 4?
“And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ,”
If we believe the latter we have to let go and trust others.
Second we must decide who the best person is for the job and trust them to do it.
Trust is a big issue for some. It is for me. I like things done a certain way but, if I want to focus on my work and not my job, I have to learn to trust others. I have to trust others
- to share my values when they plan
- to be gospel-centric and in mindset and life style (they will be who they say they will be)
- that their idea or method might be better than mine. (I’m a control freak)
- to have a quality control mindset and not put anything out there that will set us back from our goals.
Trust means I have to give up control and commit the results to the Lord. Our trust level will increase when we believe the work we must focus on is more important than having control over everything.
Third, we must impart our DNA through relationships.
If we want to increase the trust we have to spend time with those whom we need to trust. For me this looks like a lot of talking over meals, monthly training meetings and then trial and error. I have to let leaders lead and make corrections as we go.
No one loves the work more than me. No one has the dream like I do. No one cares like I care but I can impart my passion at every turn. I have to care about the work but more so, I must care about the people because it’s people who will get the work done.
If you want to work yourself out of job and get started on more important work, you have to work on what you believe about your role as a youth pastors/leaders and about youth ministry.
We have to trust that we recruited trust worthy people who fulfill the vision God has given us, and we have to equip these same leaders to do the work even if their ideas and methods are different than ours but achieve the same quality of results or better.
if I can help you be a better facilitator, leader, coach and pastor, I’d like to invite you to try my new Ministry Mind coaching group. Here you’ll receive not just tips and tricks but real strategies to accomplish whatever God has put on your heart.