With envy the youth worker learns of a place where students are extremely successful and excited about doing student ministry. He is rushed to study “How can I have a ministry like that?” Within each ministry it is assumed that student leadership is good and desirable. Student leadership is a commodity that each student ministry leader seems to chase after on some level. Whereas introductory questions between youth workers hover around the question, “How many students come to your program?” It is not too long before one leader shares with another, “I’ve got these three students, who are dedicated to the task and are influencing their friends.” For most this is seen as the ultimate status symbol of a holistic and thriving student ministry.
All over the country students are in positions of leadership. In some places these students in leadership are governed with strict guidelines, job descriptions, interviews, and on-going meetings with regular accountability. Student leadership in these places is defined and maintained within pre-defined boundaries. Measurably the participants contribute to the ministry. In other places the youth worker has put students in charge of task which make his overall ministry easier. While this person hopes that the student will benefit from the experience his primary objective is that the student will help the adult with the ministry task. Still other ministries seek to place students in roles of influencing their peers along the continuum of making a commitment to Christ. These adults invest in and equip students to minister to students. For them, success is tougher to gauge but the target is larger and the boundaries more opaque.
Often left out of this excitement over student leadership is the student leader himself. The danger is that the needs of the students are being overshadowed by the perceived need of the student to lead and serve the church. Adults seem quick to place adolescents in positions of leadership. With a ravenous appetite these students are challenged to commit, trained, and put into action. It doesn’t seems to matter whether the ministry is task-oriented, group-oriented, or evangelism oriented, as each type of leadership philosophy feeds off of one core ingredient, students.
Little time is taken to examine serious issues before these young people are put into positions of leadership and influence. The question is rarely should adolescents be put in leadership so much as is often argued when will they be put into leadership. While it is abundantly clear biblically and practically that students can be effective during adolescence, this is not the specific target of this exercise. This exercise seeks to introduce issues of appropriateness developmentally and psycho-socially that ought to be weighed when considering placing adolescents into student ministry leadership.
Issues Psycho-social appropriateness:
Students have been conditioned by their society to look for specific purpose and goals in their lives. In their educational background and through parental influence, children approach adolescence with in innate desire for direction. Certainly, the body of Christ is wise in standing up and proclaiming to Christian children, “We will provide that goal, direction, and purpose in your life. It is found in Jesus.” Duffy Robbins expands on our role and describes the youth worker as a nurturer. “We have not completed our task of nurture until we have challenged and equipped our students to give up their small ambitions for the sake of the gospel. (The Ministry of Nurturer, p. 217)
Youth ministry practice over the past several decades has proven that it is not only practically effective to place students in all levels of leadership, but it has also shown that it is appropriate sociologically for students to be expected to hold influence over their peers. They are natural communicators of God’s truth to their peers. They are native to the diverse environment of subcultures and each group’s unique mores. They are most apt to handle and thrive in these native cultures and can be extremely effective in ministering to their peers. With the case of adults attempting to do the same functions of leadership, it simple is not as effective culturally. There is a reality that they are overly mature for that social set and will always be looked at suspiciously and as an outsider. “Age may give persons and edge on maturity, but it is no guarantee. [For success] If we focus on adolescent’s spiritual and developmental and psychological maturity when we determine their readiness to assume their roles in the body of Christ, we will be on safe ground.” (Starting Right, p. 173)
It is therefore my contention that student leadership is completely appropriate sociologically for all students.
Issues of Developmental Appropriateness:
While it is clear that it is sociologically appropriate to train student leaders for all sorts of ministry, it is not as clear that it is developmentally appropriate for them. At least, not in the initial observation.
Going back about 90 years we can see that the church struggled to make sense of an emerging adolescence. Church leaders noted with great distress that fewer and fewer men were seeking to enter vocational or lay ministry. While they contemplated the many possible factors for this including economic realities, secular education, lack of faith, and fear it is clear that at that point in history the church was unable to cope with the changing needs of these young people. Instead of adapting their methods they insisted that this troublesome decrease was the result of sin somewhere. The author ends his frustration with, “They [pastors] should constitute all the louder summons to young men of power to give heed to the call of Christ.” (Future Leadership of the Church, p. 101)
Mott’s anguish was answered only a decade later. As serious study of the social sciences began to gain reputability amongst the masses, the church turned their attention to meeting the needs of this newly studied adolescent mind. The church not only took notice, but sought to change its methodology. By the mid-1920s churches realized that if they desired for Christ’s ministry to continue among these emerging adolescents, they would have to provide specialized training and programs to adolescents. “Outgrown religious, social, and educational machinery belongs on the ‘scrap heap’ or in a museum as certainly as antique industrial furnishings.” (Handbook for Workers with Young People, p. 76-77) (This sounds eerily similar to the cries of today’s post modern ministry thinkers!) Recognizing their failure, churches began instructing students in leadership skills. Topics were taught such as program development, choosing objectives, determining methods, and taking steps to deepen their knowledge of the Kingdom and God’s Word. (p. 79)
As the science of developmental study has progressed and uncovered new realities, student leadership has continually readjusted itself to remain appropriate. As adolescence has elongated from 3-4 years to its present 10-12 years, ministry leaders have had to readjust what they deem as appropriate. Currently, it is deemed appropriate to place students in leadership because it is seen as helping them grasp their role as they seek to become and individual unique from mom and dad. As they choose to identify with Christ, this step helps to solidify their unique personality. Identifying themselves with a task to do and a place to serve actually helps further clarify their role in the adult society they seek to enter. Erik Erikson says, “Our democracy must present the adolescent with ideals which can be shared by youths of many backgrounds and which emphasize autonomy in the form of independence and initiative in the form of enterprise. (Identity and the Life Cycle, p. 99) Certainly, a mix of an active growing life with Christ and faith put to action through student leadership more than adequately provides for this independence and initiative that Erikson prescribes.
This exercise merely touches on the two issues at hand. However, it is clear from both this brief study, study of Scripture, and present ministry practice that it is entirely appropriate developmentally and psycho-socially to place students in leadership. While this shouldn’t be done recklessly or without consideration for individual students maturity/immaturity and issues of personal holiness, students should be challenged to take on ministry as soon as possible. Paul writes, “Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.” (I Corinthians 12:7) This implies that all members of Christ’s church hold equal responsibility in the common good of the body. This has no age restriction and no experience restriction. Truly the only qualification for having responsibility is indwelling of the Spirit.
Works Cited
Dean, Kendra Creasy Starting Right Youth Specialties, 2001
Clark, Chap
Rahn, Dave
Erikson, Erik Identity and the Life Cycle Norton Press, 1980
Mott, John Future Leadership of the Church Association Press, 1915
Robbins, Duffy The Ministry of Nurture Youth Specialties, 1990
Thompson, James Handbook for Workers with Young People Abingdon Press, 1922
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