Using
Children & Teens in Ministry
is a
great way to get young people involved while providing you
with the extra help that you may need. It also creates
accountability and helps to build personal relationships
while you spend time with your young leaders. Children and
teens alike can serve as door greeters, praise and worship
leaders, puppeteers, drama teams, and more.
Don't try to do
everything at once. Pray and choose one area of leadership
at a time to open up for your young people. Once your leaders are established and able to work more
independently in one area, move on to another area of
leadership that you can open up to another group of
children.
Interview prospective leaders and set clear goals. You will
find that most all of your children will want to be involved
in leadership in some way, and hopefully you can get all of
your teens excited about leadership too. It should be your
goal to see every young person involved in leadership.
However, leaders need to be taught to lead by example.
Leaders are held to a higher standard. You can not just
thrust anyone into leadership.
Have a few things that you require of each leader before they can start in leadership. These should be spiritual goals that will help them with their personal relationship with God. Some of the goals can be as
follows:
-
Bringing their Bible
to church
-
Obeying rules and
following directions in each service
-
Remembering Bible
Verses
-
Completing daily
devotions
-
Completing a
discipleship course (works well as a summer program)
Let
the children know that you will soon be interviewing leaders and exactly what will be expected of them. Provide them
with what they need to meet their goals. You want them to
succeed. After 3-6 weeks you can start taking interviews.
If the positions for particular jobs are limited, pray and give the
positions to the children that you feel best fit in that area of service.
Allow leaders to rotate through different areas of service.
This will give them the opportunity to experience different
areas of service and discover their gifts and talents.
Don't force them
into unwanted areas of service, only encourage
them to try other things. Allow them to make their own leadership choice while guiding them and directing them. If they are forced into an area where they absolutely have no desire to serve
in they could become resentful, and the program will not be
serve it's purpose which is to inspire a love for
discipleship and ministry. Encourage them and guide them in
love while allowing the decision to be theirs.
Once serving in a particular area, they should have to
remain in that position for a set period of time (4-10
weeks), before trying their hand at another area of service.
Remind
them that not one area is more important than the other &
hire within. Each ministry is just as important as the
next. It takes each part of the body for it to be able to
operate. However, some areas of ministry require more
experience and commitment than others. You will find that you will have a large majority that will want to serve in puppetry or praise and worship.
This is great, but first they must serve faithfully in "entry level"
positions while completing the responsibilities and spiritual goals laid out for them.
Remember
that these are just suggestions. Take what you can use, and
change it to best fit the needs of the young people that you
are working with. Identify their spiritual needs and do what
it takes to meet them. And don't forget to have lots of fun
while you are doing it!
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