Over the summer I normally try to post a couple things that I learned over the previous school year. If you have anything you learned from last year that you would like to tell me about, send it my way smcgever (at) pv dot younglife dot org
One of the most important pieces of our leadership approach in our area is the use of junior leaders. Junior leaders are juniors or seniors in high school who become “jr leaders” in our Wyldlife or Young Life clubs. They receive 6-8 weeks of training and go through an interview process. Currently about 30% of our adult leaders were once junior leaders in our area. Also, just for reference, 60% of our current adult leaders went through our freshman in college Bible study and leadership training program, FYL.
Over the last two years we have been experimenting with junior junior leaders. These are key 8th graders who go through a short training and play a role in the leadership of the Wyldlife team. They are invited to come to the pre-club dinner and to some of the team meetings, but not all. They are also a visible part of club and campaigners. It has been a great way to expand the campaigner-type experience for our top notch kids. I have seen similar approaches in some of the older Wyldlife training regarding “student boards”, kind of like a student board of directors who have a say in the leadership of club. We are still working out how we are approaching this junior junior leader program, but so far we like where it is going.
What have you done to develop student leadership in Wyldlife clubs?
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2 thoughts on “This Year… Junior Junior Leaders”
Hi Sean,
Did Junior Junior Leading become a standard in your area? I’d love to know how it worked out (good or not so good) and some of the details around that. Thanks!
Hi Bree! Jr Jr Leaders is an intermittent program in our area. Right now we have three WL clubs and we basically monitor when it could be a helpful thing to do based on the dynamics of the club. My gut feeling is that we should do it more often, I think it would foster more discipleship in different ways. I would love to know your thoughts on it!
-Sean