Student leadership teams are awesome!
Tons of student ministries have student leadership teams, but few are utilizing the students’ gifts, talents, and abilities fully. Many ministries don’t encourage students to serve outside of the greeting time at midweek services. As a result, students don’t take ownership, get excited, or invite their friends like the student pastor wants them to.Â
Our student ministry has a student leadership team of seven students who are upperclassmen in high school.
I believe your student leadership team is one of the keys to building an effective student ministry. When you get students invested in serving, your student ministry will see incredible spiritual growth.Â
Here are 10 ideas that actually give students ownership in your ministry:
Plan Services
You aren’t 16 anymore. Your idea of awesome is different from the average middle and high school student. This is one area your student leadership team can help keep your student ministry engaged in youth culture. Give them the sermon outline and let them help the worship team create (with their guidance) engaging and creative midweek experiences.
Follow Up With Guests
Most student ministries gather contact information on visitors (if not, you need to start) and have adults send a card to visiting students. While students love getting mail, imagine the impact if an upperclassman sent a card! You can have the student write the card and you address them so there are no confidentiality breaches (students will be students).
Lead Games
I try to get our leadership team upfront as much as possible. Students need to see their peers on stage reading scripture, praying, and acting like fools. Give them some game resources, let them learn the rules, and schedule them in the worship set. For great game ideas check out FunNinja.org and DownloadYouthMinistry.com.Â
Lead Kids Worship
The high school leadership team is perfect to help with Kids Worship on Sunday mornings. We have two services, so I expect our student leaders to worship one and then help serve in Kids Worship. They lead songs, participate in skits, give devotions, and facilitate games. The kids love having high school students lead them (and our adults love that the high school students have as much energy as the kids)!
Plan Trips and Events
There have been times that I thought an event would be a sure-fire hit and found out that it was a flop. Pass event ideas by your leadership team (I use group texting for this) so you can get their honest feedback. They have awesome ideas! Remind them that you still have the final say on budget, safety, and logistics.
Create Theme Nights For Student Worship
Once a month we have theme nights for our student ministry. On that Wednesday our middle school and high school students are combined for one large group worship session. We use this to bring in new students and focus heavily on sharing the Gospel. (Blog post to come on how to utilize theme nights in your student and kid ministry.) Our least involved theme night is Flannel Night. The high school students came up with the idea and it amazes me how excited they get about flannel shirts.
Announcement Videos
This is an area I want to implement in our student ministry. Announcements can be boring and dry. Give your student leaders a list of announcements, a time limit (1 minute or so) and a GoPro camera and let them create something awesome!
T-Shirt Designs
Student pastors spend too much time trying to create T-shirt designs. You rarely know what is cool and are probably not a graphic designer. Let your team know the theme of your event and see what they can find or create. Send them links to CustomInk.com and FundTheNations.com, let them pick out a shirt, then order it. You will thank me later for saving you hours of design time.Â
Stage Designs
Each quarter we update our student ministry’s stage design. These updates are not expensive, but they are key to building ownership in the student center. Send a group text to your student leadership team with a link to ChurchStageDesignIdeas.com and let them help you create an awesome look for your space!
Ask Them Where They Want To Serve
Remember, your students are creative and intelligent. They will come up with ideas and ways to serve that you haven’t even thought about! Get their input. I can’t state that enough. Get their input. If you fail to get student’s input, they will not be invested.
Do you have any other ideas for getting your student leadership team mobilized for ministry?
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