I never thought that I was going to work with middle school students. All throughout college, I fully expected that I would spend my years in ministry with ninth through twelfth graders. But the Lord had other plans, and post-college I found myself tasked with building a new middle school youth ministry program. I was young, I was inexperienced, and I had no idea what I was doing. So, I did what any typical type-A, nerdy, recent college graduate would do in the midst of feeling overwhelmed; I reread my notes, where I found this:
“Step One: build a team of adult volunteers.”
Thus, I began. Now, after four years of practice in forming adult leaders, I can honestly say that it has become the most life-giving aspect of my job. There is truly nothing I enjoy more than working alongside the amazing team of adult volunteers I get to serve with, but it didn’t start out that way. It took years of combating and conquering my belief in a number of myths about how to build a healthy leadership team.
And so, in the spirit of learning from the many mistakes I made along the way, I present to you, “Five Myths of Finding and Forming Leaders.”
The rest of this online article is available for current Guild members.
This article is from The Catechetical Review (Online Edition ISSN 2379-6324) and may be copied for catechetical purposes only. It may not be reprinted in another published work without the permission of The Catechetical Review by contacting [email protected]