Call Your Student Leaders Now!

As we gear up for the fall semester, your to-do list is probably growing by the second.

But here’s one item you can’t afford to sleep on right now: call your student leaders today and get them involved in fall ministry planning.

What’s the rush?

Touching base with your student leaders needs to bump up to priority number one, within the hour.

Here’s why: your ministry will only ever grow as big as your staff team’s relational capacity unless you develop students into leaders who will multiply your impact.

The best way to do that is to create ownership, involvement, experience, and skills by delegating responsibility, not tasks.

Craig Groeschel says,

“Most leaders delegate tasks instead of authority. If you delegate tasks, you create followers. If you delegate authority, you create leaders.”

Want your ministry to multiply this year? Delegate responsibility to your student leaders, starting today.

Wait, wait, I know. You think they will buy the wrong beef patties for the fall kick-off cookout.

I get it. And they very well might forget to print the flyers to pass out on campus the first week of school.

You might take a few losses, but it’s still worth it.

The win is not the perfect execution of the task at hand. The win is developing a leader.

Groeschel says it this way: “You can have control or you can have growth, but you can’t have both.”

Delegation can take a lot of time on the front end, but its long term payoff is exponential. Check out The Master Plan of Evangelism to see how Jesus’ training of the twelve disciples led to the expansion of Christianity.

Your “end of the fall semester self” will thank you.

Great I’ll shoot them a text right now!

Nope, you gotta call them.

Actually, you should FaceTime them. Even better? Houseparty with a few of them.

Your text or GroupMe message will likely become one of 28 (and counting) notifications on their phone. A call or FaceTime lets them know it’s important.

They will feel valued, and they will feel connected with you. They will hear and sense your excitement for the fall semester.

What do I say?

• Reconnect and ask them about their summer!
• Tell them you consider them a partner in ministry and value their perspective as a student leader.
• Ask them if they would be willing to meet up with you and some other student leaders for a short planning session before the freshmen move onto campus. Tell them the date, time, and location.
• Ask them to come to that meeting with some ideas:
  • What do you want to see God do in your social sphere this year? On our campus?
  • What things could we do to work toward that goal?

Why should we meet before freshmen move onto campus?

The day freshmen move onto campus is all systems go, and you want your student leaders to be there. It will set the tone for the year and increase their buy-in.

I’d recommend all staff and student leaders be there to help students move into campus housing.

That’s a layup as far as building memorable relationships with dozens or hundreds of freshmen.

Bonus: you can teach your leaders how to meet a freshman and get their contact information.

Ta-da! You’ve just multiplied your efforts!

Another reason to have the meeting before freshmen move onto campus is to pray together.

Your students need to understand that ministry is primarily a work of God moving in people’s hearts.

This meeting will give you a chance to communicate well and create an empowering community within your ministry.

Have the students share their dreams, hopes, prayers and ideas.

Some of their ideas will be better than yours. Some of them may overlap with your own. (Let them think it was their idea though)! And yep, some ideas will be awful.

If you let them run with their good ideas that fall in line with your purpose statement (even their “just ok” ideas), then you will create leaders who will multiply the efforts of your ministry.

Do everything you can to coach them toward executing their plans. When they feel like you are completely on their team, they will feel empowered, trusted, and confident in leading out.

If you want a few students to help out with some events this year, send a GroupMe message in a few weeks.

But if you want to develop leaders who will multiply the impact of the gospel, call them now.