Help for Young Life Leaders NOW

We are now in our fifth year of our FYL program. If you were to ask my committee and long term volunteers to have me do one thing and one thing only as a staff person, I think they would say… keep doing FYL. In fact, some have actually told me that.

The Western Division of Young Life asked me and a few other staff people who have adopted FYL to put together a simple and brief video to highlight on their blog. Check out the link below, and while you are there you might enjoy looking at the other resources for the RWOK initiative. Many of the resources are focused on things YL staff can do, but there are some good ideas in there for volunteers as well.

You can read more about the program here, and shoot me a note s mcgever (at) pv dot younglife dot org if you are looking for more details.

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You may or may not know it, but if you are in the trenches of volunteer leadership in Young Life, you are gaining marketable skills for future jobs. When I came out of college I applied for entry-level jobs and was quickly passed up the line for management positions. In fact, I never had an entry-level position (except when I quit to go on YL staff as an intern!). In one particular company I was the only person in my job without an MBA and I did just fine. I give much of the credit to the leadership I was taught and learned as a Young Life volunteer.

One of our key leaders, Alex Devine, recently graduated and was hired by an incredible company out-of-state. I asked him to write up some of his thoughts about his process. Here is what he had to say…

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At our most recent All Area Leadership meeting, one of our fantastic volunteer team leaders, Alex Devine, did a great lesson on how to balance relationships in YL. He used an approach that has been around for a while but continues to help frame a well-rounded approach to relationships in YL. I first heard of this approach from my friend Rick Wilson as the “circles of three”.

In this model you have three circles and at least three names in each circle. The three circles are 1) Contact Work, or kids who don’t yet go to club, 2) Club, meaning kids who go to club but not much more yet, and 3) Campaigner kids. If you can maintain a focus on at least three people in each circle, you will likely have a good, well-rounded, approach to outreach, gospel proclamation, and intentional discipleship (though all three of those terms have overlap themselves). Read the rest of this entry »

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.

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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

You know how it is easy to miss something once, but then when you hear it twice, three times, then over and over you start to think… there must be something to this! This year in our area we had to two themes that kept coming up.

The first theme was to “pray big”. Many of us are familiar with Ephesians 3:20, “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us…” But I think we often do not put this into our prayers or expectations. Maybe we don’t pray this way because we have prayed this way in the past and it didn’t work out, maybe we don’t pray this way because we feel selfish to ask for something so lofty and great. Listen here… Pray big and don’t stop praying big! Many of us prayed big this year in the lives of students, in the lives of leaders, in our own lives. Go “over-the-top” in your requests, you can’t over-ask God. One of my favorite book titles of is “Your God is Too Small” by JB Phillips. We do not want to be under-praying, you never know what you may be leaving on the table, as James says, “you do not have, because you do not ask” (James 4:2).

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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 things I love about YL is that we use volunteer leaders to do a lot of the speaking and talks in our clubs. On occasion I will meet a youth leader or parent who has a great lead for a “guest speaker” for our YL or WL clubs. If the opportunity is right I will let them know that my philosophy is that I would rather have a relatively inexperienced and possibly not the most gifted speaker do the talk if they know the kids in the audience. Another way to say it is, often the person I want speaking up front is the person who knows the most kids in the audience personally. Kids listen to people who know them personally, and we extend the impact of a simple talk through the ongoing relationship of the leader and student. Our goal isn’t only the “best talk”.

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Young Life develops leadership in people. That is a passive way of saying it, but most of the time our leadership development just happens, somewhat unintentionally. Club needs to happen so people develop the skills to make it happen. Same with campaigners, camps, etc. One way we can be more intentional and active in developing leadership is asking for feedback and self-evaluation.

Sometimes asking for self-evaluation isn’t the right thing to do. If a club and leader have been in the dumps for years then asking for a self-evaluation might feel like asking someone to describe every part of their car that needs to be fixed after they totaled it in a crash. “Thanks for asking, I’d LOVE to talk more about it”. But most of the time self-evaluation can be helpful. By-and-large people like to talk about themselves and appreciate that you want to know what they are thinking. After a semester or year of club our club kids aren’t surprised when we ask them what they think of Jesus, in the same way most leaders are ready to talk about their leadership after a few months of leading.

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I want to put together a checklist for leaders in training. It would be a 1st 30 days new leader checklist. In other words, it would be a list of the most important things a leader could do to get a great start as a YL leader. Here are a couple ideas…

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Over the summer I normally try to post a couple things that I learned over the previous school year. These are a little late, but I really wanted to pass them along anyway. Also 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

In my community there is an often-avoided neighborhood nestled in an otherwise pleasant and upscale part of town. In the past years this area has been one of the most violent square miles in our state and has faced other significant challenges.

In this neighborhood there is a middle school and a team of amazing teachers who love their students. I remember meeting with one of the teachers five years ago. She has an amazing heart for Christ and for her students. Many of her students come back to her classroom after school weekly, even when they are in high school and beyond. She knew that Young Life would be a great bridge to connect these kids to Christ. When we met five years ago we dreamed of opening a Wyldlife club at the school. In fact she had one kid in particular on her heart that needed Wyldlife right away. Over the years we were able to get some of the kids to YL camps and occasionally to club. We kept praying and strategizing to reach these kids. Then a little over a year ago the kid who needed Wyldlife desperately four years earlier was finally convinced to go to Woodleaf. He met Christ in a powerful way and started growing quickly in his faith.

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Over the summer I normally try to post a couple things that I learned over the previous school year. These are a little late, but I really wanted to pass them along anyway. Also 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

I have been a leader for over 15 years now in YL. In the first half of my experience I rarely saw high school students have much of a role in the leadership and execution of the club. I realize this is different across the country and some areas have been doing this for decades. Then about 6 years ago I recognized that the strongest club in our area always had students as a part of their leadership team. I would train them and encourage them but I thought that was nice and kept on doing things the way I was used to doing in my club. Then other clubs in my area started adding junior leaders and they were having stronger campaigners, stronger clubs, camp, everything.

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