The “Hot” Five
1. The “Thinking Through the Inconspicuous but Critical Issues in
Student Leadership” section provides a quick, but comprehensive set of principles to be implemented in student leadership.
* Giving students true authority, clarifying the role of adults,
creating the right environment, going beyond information giving, encouraging gift-based passion-driven ministry, and helping students live out their leadership in practical ways is critical in creating a faithful and effective student leadership team!
2. The overall variety of material makes this a practical resource
to youth workers in almost any context.
* As all curriculum does, this handbook needs plenty of tweaking
and customizing, but it does address a lot of foundational issues and topics to build on in the areas of influence and leadership.
3. The topics included in the “Life of a Leader” create a good
teaching structure for a 3-month leadership series within almost any discipleship oriented program.
* It’s so much more effective to bring a focus and direction to
your teaching. I used the first 14 session topics as the basis of a Sunday School curriculum designed to motivate all of my “regular students” to understand and use their influence as ambassadors for Christ. Our “U of I” series helped create an interest among the students to be involved in a formal student leadership program.
4. There are several good tools that can be adjusted or used “as
is” for a variety of student leadership and youth ministry purposes.
* Some I found most helpful were -Year-End Wrap up Evaluations,
Prayer Retreat Ideas, Student Leader Applications, and Reaching Friends Where They Are. I find it difficult to be creative enough to create this type of stuff from scratch. It’s nice to have the resources to get you started. The key to creativity is how well you expound on other people’s ideas, right?
5. The general lay-out of each session creates a good community
building atmosphere and appeals to a variety of learning styles while meeting training and discipleship objectives.
* Despite the idealistic nature of the time associated to each,
including elements of unity, group sharing & study, and prayer are good key structural ingredients to use. I often felt like “Team Huddle” and “Team Study” could be combined and more “up front” teaching could be provided by the leader.
The “Cold” Five
1. The length of the sessions are too long and idealistic.
* The allotment of 90 minutes per session suggested on page 34
is unrealistic in my opinion. It would take an entire school year meeting once a week for an hour and a half to get student leaders through the entire curriculum. Although the communists may disagree I think that is too much too ask. I want them “out there” doing & impacting just as much if not more than they are “in here” learning how to do it. I suppose four years of 1 ½ hour monthly meetings could get you through the book.
2. Many of the team huddle and team study questions are too
elementary to be the meat of the day.
* Using 30 minutes on these “look up the verses” and “answer
these questions” exercises is too long, simply because the material isn’t that deep. For many sessions I felt like I was reading upper elementary–early middle school level discussion guides, not exactly the material that will challenge high school student leaders.
3. It may seem petty, but I hate/despise/loathe cheesy designs used in 90% of youth ministry curriculum-unfortunately this handbook is no exception.
* It’s nice of the writers to authorize the reproduction of the
suggested handouts, but really, who would want to? In attempts to make stuff look “cool” or “cutting edge” it looks cheesy, and is a design disaster. Okay, so I married a graphic designer and fine artist…but, she’s right!
4. Considering the emphasis placed on teaching & empowering
students to use their gifts in the introduction, I found the two sessions on spiritual gifts to be some of the weakest teaching I’ve seen on the subject.
* Unleashing the potential of students by helping them discover
and serve according to their passion, using their gift and personality mix should be one of the most empowering and exciting things we share with our leaders. These sessions came up short. It felt like they were included because the subject “needed” included.
5. The sheer volume of content is almost a little much to flip
through and find what you’re looking for.
* Although I like the variety, something, maybe the lay out more
than the amount of content, makes its “user-friendly” rating come up a little short.
Leave a Reply