4 Probing Questions Every YTH Leader Should Ask
Tough questions are the building blocks of a healthy leader
*There is also another post on dangerous questions YTH Leaders should ask that can be found on this blog. Please search ‘5 Dangerous Questions’ and you will see another series of leadership probes.
In order to be a healthy YTH Leader, we must be wiling to ask ourselves some probing questions. Let me pose a few tough questions for you to personally ask yourself. These questions will help you install a strong foundation in your life as a leader to this generation. Of course, the questions will only work if you are willing to be honest with yourself when you answer these.
Here are the 4 probing questions every YTH Leader should ask.
Are you praying in the Spirit?
I believe this is one of the most important disciplines we can have in our spiritual life. And, this is not just for the Pentecostal crowd. This is a biblical truth. In 1 Corinthians 12-14 and in Romans 8, Paul lays out the importance of praying in the Spirit. In the Romans text he called this gift ‘groanings too deep for words.’ Literally assuring us that when we do not know how or what to pray, the Spirit fills in the blanks.
It is a spiritual gift that accompanies the baptism of the Spirit upon our life. An initial gift that is given to signal our courage and power to be a witness for God. It is our personal language relationship with God when we don’t know how to pray. Isn’t that a great thing? That if we don’t know how to pray, all we need to do is groan. A communication level of the soul that only the Holy Spirit can translate through our faith.
This is a discipline of mine for many years - praying in the Spirit the first thing in the morning and the last moments of my day. And so many times after I am finished praying this way, I have been totally fulfilled. It is actually a spiritual miracle.
Get over the whole groaning issue. Or the verbal sound of groaning. All of us do it at sometime in our life. At a ball game as we shout in exhilaration. When we get cut off in traffic and scream unintelligibly. If we stub our toe in the middle of the night and muffle our response so that we do not wake anyone up. Or if we are frustrated and have no words.
So trust the Spirit of God and respond to His presence in your life by releasing your vocabulary to Him.
How are your spiritual disciplines?
Spiritual discipline is the key to spiritual authority and maturity. They are the evidence of our commitment to Christ. Let me list a few of these for you.
Spending time in prayer
Spending time in the Word
Fasting on a regular basis
Spending time in silence
Giving
Simplicity
Evangelism/sharing your faith
These are the measurements and the assessment of our spiritual life. Not that these are works unto salvation. But they are the fruit of our salvation. The works of our response to His grace in our life. And these are the signs of a healthy spiritual leader. AND HEALTHY YTH LEADERS BUILD HEALTHY YTH MINISTRY.
Are you developing your leaders?
We could all positively support ourselves with a generous review of our own efforts in YTH Leadership development. We could tell ourselves that our meetings are informative and challenging. We could say that we are sending our leaders articles or books on team development. But these things do not assure development.
Maybe it is better that we ask our leaders. How do they feel they are equipped to execute their roles or place on the team? Are they confident in their ability to be successful? Make sure they feel clearly and adequately equipped by not just having them attend the leadership meeting or reading articles and books.
We should be confident that our leaders are not just attending meetings or seated at the table. But we should be making sure that we are listening to them and giving them a voice at the leadership meetings or table. And that we have given them a place to use their gift successfully. That is one of our most important roles. Not only development of their gifts. But the delegation of their gifts.
The answer to many of your problems in YTH Ministry is the development and the delegation of your leaders. This places as much emphasis on retention as we place on recruiting.
How are you balancing family and ministry?
This isn’t easy. But it is important.
But let me change the question a little. Let’s take a word out of that question. The word balance! Can we really have balance in a culture that is so extreme? For example, most leaders in the Church work with an 8-4 or a 9-5 mentality. But, people have problems before 8 am and after 5 pm on Tuesday. And so, if we choose to balance our time management by not being available to people after we leave the office, that is an unrealistic ‘balance’.
Maybe what we need to see is a wholistic approach to ministry.
What I mean by this is a mentality that doesn’t seek balance in an extreme culture, but, seeks boundaries. A mentality that says I can be flexible enough to move the boundaries if needed. A give-and-take for both the Church and our personal lives and the family.
How do we do wholistic family ministry?
That we are all in for every sector of our lives (our personal lives the family and the Church). It is very difficult to compartmentalize a vocation that requires all of us at any moment. As we have said earlier, students have problems at the most uncomfortable times for our personal lives or our families. So we are going to need to discern the difference between balance and boundaries.
Let me say finally in this area; our students must see us model family and ministry. Everything is falling around them. The Church and its leadership cannot fail around them. We must define to this generation a selfless service as spiritual leaders that is willing to move the boundaries to minister to them at the point of need. Because of this brokenness of the family in society, one of the most effective ways we can impact teenagers is by modeling wholistic family and ministry.
Closing
A YTH Leaders spiritual discipline is the center of their life and the measurement and assessment of their health. If we are willing to look deep into ourselves and be honest with our answers to these probing questions, we will be able to model to a teen world what is desperately missing in front of them. These questions can help create a foundation of healthy YTH Ministers who lead healthy YTH Ministry to success.