I would like your help.
Personal background: I had several key people pour into me when I became a Christian. The Lord used the intentionality of these people to significantly shape my walk with Christ and also my growth in leadership.
My reality: I think I’m only so-so at doing that for others. It might be that those I look up to set such a high bar that I shouldn’t compare! Nonetheless, I’m always wanting to grow in leadership. One thing I’ve tended to be able to do is to organize things and write them down, so I’m trying to leverage that for this purpose (hence ylhelp).
Here is where I need your help… Will you help me think about the “Leadership Tree”, and “who are your 3?”
Here is the background…
I’ve heard for years from international African Young Life friends how they do great ministry with many people but also focus on three people for a season (about a year). Here is a video about it (with surprisingly only 36 views on YouTube when I re-watched it today! Maybe more on Vimeo, but it doesn’t say.)
The idea is simple and powerful. It is also nothing new, it is virtually the same the observations made in The Master Plan of Evangelism (which is really a book about the strategy of spiritual leadership development: Summary HERE). More importantly, this approach is easily observable in the ministry of Jesus.
For the last year I have been putting a lot of energy into thinking about what this would look like in a local club and in a local YL area. I recently went to a seminar put on by YL Africa friends. I had about a dozen detailed questions (written, of course) I asked them afterward and they graciously shared their wisdom with me for an hour. I see incredible potential and I also see that wisdom is needed.
I would like everyone who reads this to respond to me… especially if you think you are too young/new to YL/a newer Christian/etc. but also if you have some experience doing similar things. I’m mostly thinking on a club level and on a personal level. Here are some questions you could respond to:
1. How many people can you (or most people) realistically “pour your life into”?… Right now (not theoretically).
2. Would you tell these people that they are part of your “3”? Why, or why not?
3. How would you avoid people feeling excluded? Or, is that OK?
4. How often would you meet with these people? Individually? Together?
5. At what point should “you” initiate? When would you expect “them” to initiate?
6. When would you expect them to continue this forward, i.e. they would get their own “3”?
7. What would you do with these people? Or perhaps, what was done for you? Or, what do your currently do?
8. Maybe more importantly: Who are (or would be) your “3” right now?
I have plenty of other questions. I also have plenty of my own answers to these questions, but I’m certain “our” ideas are better than one person’s (my) ideas.
If you received this via email, just hit “reply”. If you see this on the blog, comment. If you see this on social, reply or send a DM. For everyone that replies I’ll email you some great resources for club music, club talks, and campaigners.
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2 thoughts on “Who are your 3? Leadership Tree (plus free stuff)”
Sean, we are talking about discipleship strategy with our leaders and we are going to look at a few of the ideas covered in the leadership tree. I believe that there are some differences in how we use these principles in relationship to teenagers who aren’t really coming to us to become a disciple but wondering if you have any thoughts on challenging your leaders to focus on 3 in the midst of the larger school area and how you may have used the leadership tree / master plan of evan principles in your own club? Love any materials (documents, pdf’s…) that you guys may have used in your area.
Hi Joel, thanks for the comment! I’d give myself about a “C+” on implementing the leadership tree principles in my area and in my specific club. We pray for kids by name and we split up who we contact. As an AD I focus on my senior leaders and then spend a bit of time with a few specific people. Overall, my approach is a bit more organic (which is odd because otherwise, I am such an organized/type-A kinda person).
One thing we’ve done for the last two years is to place an adult mentor with every junior leader. The mentor doesn’t have to be a current YL leader (and often isn’t). This program has helped us a lot. Leaders share the mentoring load with others in the community and junior leaders still receive focused attention (that sometimes gets diluted when we inevitably meet new kids in contact work, club, etc.).
Other ADs have been more structured in their implementation of the Leadership Tree. I’ve had a few hangups with it that have slowed me down (though, overall, it is an awesome concept). But, like I said, I think that my own personality has played into my lack of implementation too.
As a side note, I love Master Plan of Evangelism, but I also think it could be updated. I’m hoping to write a series of posts and/or a book that would build upon some of the concepts in Master Plan.
I would love to hear more of your thoughts. I’ll shoot you an email too.
Sean