Training — Ministry Leaders

Children often make things when they come to church. But what kind of making is happening in your ministry? Are you more interested in what things the children make, or in what they are experiencing as they make those things? Focusing on the products of making may yield Instagram-worthy photos, but focusing on the process of making facilitates discipleship. If children are thinking about what they have heard or read in Scripture as they make things, questions and conversations will naturally accompany the activity. If children realize that their results do not need to look a certain way, they will...

Teachers can expect much of the middle elementary child. He is able to work with diligence and should be challenged with more in-depth projects and questions. He is able to work steadily on research projects or crafts that would have lost his interest just a few years earlier. And he can even start assuming responsibility for cleaning up after himself! If your students do not match that description, remember that almost 10 years of training have gone into this child’s makeup. What he can do and what he has been trained to do are different things. Know that your students...

Previously in Entre Ninos, we looked at excuses people use to not assertively multiply their efforts in a ministry context. Then we considered starting points for handing off responsibilities. Today we will walk through the steps to training others to take over those responsibilities. Multiplying yourself in ministry is the biggest win. But it doesn’t come easy. Step 1 - Watch me. Invite someone to observe you doing the very task you would like them to do in the future. Before they come to observe, be sure they know the endgame of this observation. You want them to step up...

I often tell my students, “If you cite or quote an author, to avoid the dreadful academic identification of being a plagiarizer, be sure you give credit where credit is due.” So, as I was searching for a title for this article, “Legacy Leadership” seemed to fit perfectly. But, to be honest with you, it’s not my title. The title comes from a father and son, Kent and Aaron Stroman. These gentlemen co-authored a book by the title, “Legacy Leadership.” We hear a lot about the different types of leadership styles these days. There is the servant leader, the transactional,...

I sometimes joke that I’m one of a dozen people in the whole world who would pick young teens as my favorite age group to teach. They are always in flux and always challenging. They are never dull and rarely docile. They are going through physical, mental, emotional and spiritual changes, perhaps at a pace they will never achieve again. I don’t understand why this isn’t everyone’s favorite age group! NEW START YOUNG TEENS are entering a new stage of development. Like newborn babies, they are constructing who they can become and what their lives will be like in the...