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How to Develop Young Leaders
KidLead's Alan Nelson believes the most important and overlooked ministry of the church is the identification and development of leaders before the age of 14.
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After half a century of attending church and half of that leading, I've concluded that the most important and overlooked ministry is the identification and development of leaders before the age of 14. God has strategically placed people who work with children and middle schoolers as catalysts for changing history. The problem is that we're consumed with broader tasks and have little vision or training for this specific opportunity. A major reason for this is that our culture perceives leading as an adult activity. We thereby miss a critical window for leadership training. In the following do's and don'ts, you'll learn how to avoid thwarting young leaders, and you'll also discover practical ways to develop them in a local congregation, regardless of size. (For the purpose of this article, I've defined leadership as the way God organizes his people to use their individual gifts for common goals. Leaders provide a uniting vision and a motivating cause that's bigger than themselves.) Don'tsHere are three things you need to avoid when developing young leaders: 1. Don't confuse leadership with discipleship or service. If you do, you'll think you're creating leaders when you really aren't. Having analyzed dozens of youth-oriented church programs deemed "leadership," I discovered nearly all dealt with other matters such as Bible study, serving (like handing out bulletins), singing on a children's church worship team, or turning knobs on a sound system. 2. Don't treat all kids the same because they're not. If the primary role of leading is establishing direction and helping the rest use their gifts, then stewardship suggests we're best off identifying those kids with leadership aptitude and then intentionally developing them. These are what we call "habitual" leaders, kids who'll constantly gravitate toward roles of influence because that's how God has wired them (, , , ). 3. Don't wait too long to develop young leaders. Moral psychologists agree that character is pretty much set by 14. And since leaders must handle power and influence many, it's paramount to reach young leaders with character training before they turn 13. Do'sHere are four steps that will help you identify and develop young leaders: 1. Look for kids with strong leadership aptitude. Savvy children's ministry staff can indentify kids with aptitude. (I define aptitude here as the ability to learn leadership faster and easier than the rest.) Create a list of your 10 to 20 percent most influential kids, from ages 3 to 13. (Indicators of leadership aptitude emerge in social settings as early as preschool and even before.) Get your teachers and staff together and determine the "catalysts kids"—those kids who turn heads of peers, behave a bit bossy, and function as pied pipers (for good or bad). Once you've indentified these kids, you can intentionally invite them into leader roles. If you need help indentifying young leaders, we've created a leadership aptitude assessment on the KidLead website. |        
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