How The Church Can Keep Young Leaders

2009 July 21

by Tyler

After posting about the church losing young leaders, I started thinking about how negative my outlook was, mostly because I didn’t talk about ways the church is and can keep young leaders.

Churches today are having the hardest time in reaching and then keeping young leaders. Sure the reasons are almost endless, but the fact remains that churches need to be a better job of not only reaching young leaders, but keeping them as well.

Give them a piece of the pie…and let them eat that piece. Many churches let young leaders run a key part of the church, few churches let them run with it without handcuffs on.
Mentor down. What is mentoring down? Typically it is when an older and more mature person is meeting with a younger and less mature person in order to learn from them, not just to speak into the life of the younger person. Every church in the world is trying to figure out a way to “reach the next generation” and yet this idea of mentoring down is mostly unknown. It may just be why churches are failing at reaching the next generation (the statistics are scary). Churches aren’t reaching young people in large part because they aren’t doing enough to know them and learn FROM them.
Let them be a part of the process. When I say a part of the process I don’t mean “let them run the youth ministry.” That would be a part of the process of a youth ministry, not the church at large. Let them be a part of the process by valuing their input into the process in a relational way.
Provide wisdom and support. If you’re a pastor and you have young leaders around you at your church it is a safe bet they are looking to you to gain wisdom and insight into being a pastor for the long term. You have that wisdom and you can offer that support. Don’t shy away from that chance or it will be taken as a “you don’t care” type of thing.

What would you add to the list?

(Photo: Will Gortoa)

Filed under: church Tags: church

http://ryanbrymer.com Ryan

Mentoring… Bring it on. There is a huge lack of this in the church, especially in the vein of leadership mentoring.
This is a great way to help people feel valued and affirmed as well as challenged.
http://godsidekurt.com Kurt

Amen.

I would offer two more;

Repent of your PRIDE and get out of the way of the new thing that God wants to do. I think Pastors will have alot to answer for in the way they handled their churches in the twilight of their ministry years. One of the most Godly things a leader can do is take his hands off the wheel long enough to let someone else take the helm.

Slow down enough to notice who God is raising up. I think alot of times good men dont mentor young leaders simply because they are so busy running at a breakneck pace…not because they are prideful. THE WORST type of leader in my opinion for a young leader to work under is a prideful busy senior pastor.
Johnny

“THE WORST type of leader in my opinion for a young leader to work under is a prideful busy senior pastor.”

Right on.

I serve in a small church where the pastor still has a heavy hand in every aspect of what’s going on. He asks for help and for people to rise up and lead where they feel called, but has a hard time allowing people to do just that. Most criticism or input directed towards “progressive change” is knocked down with some response along the lines of “I’ve been doing this for [so many] years” or “I’ve got [such and such a] qualification, so I know how [this or that] should be done.”

I don’t even want to try anymore.
http://hostwell.cc Bob Potter

I second the mentoring aspect. When adults reach out to the younger generation in a way that shows they care, good things start to happen.