This week we received the email below from a Young Life committee member:
Good Morning! I have recently become the “Leader Care” person on our YL committee. I’m looking for and brainstorming fun and meaningful ways to support and encourage our leaders. Do you have some great ideas of how Young Life and Wyldlife leaders can be meaningfully, sincerely and uniquely encouraged?
How Committee Members Can Care For Leaders
Many committees assign members to ‘adopt’ leaders. This is a helpful way to make sure each leader is receiving care. The reality is often there are committee members who are great at this and others who don’t excel. If you’re the ‘leader care’ chairperson on your committee, your role is to help hold all the committee members accountable to caring for their assigned leader.
Here are a few ways to care for your leader:
Know
- Get to know them as your friend.
- Ask intentional questions about their family, ministry, hobbies, etc…
- Do more listening than talking, but don’t be afraid to offer your wisdom and experience. Leaders want to learn from you.
- Understand how difficult it is to be a leader and empathize with their fears and discouragements.
- Follow them on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Even if you’re not into social media, get online even if it’s for the sole purpose of knowing what’s going on with your ‘adopted’ leader. Maybe even ask them to help you get set up with an Instagram account.
- Make a survey asking them their favorites: music, candy bar, hobby, dessert, restaurant, sports team, place to shop, etc… Learn about them, it will help you care for them better.
- Know important dates. Their birthday, dates they lost a loved one, etc…
Pray
- Learn the names of their YL kids and pray specifically for them.
- Ask them weekly how you can pray for them.
- Put their picture in your car dash or on your mirror to remind you to pray.
- Send them notes or text messages at times when you do pray, to let them know they’re not in this alone.
Encourage
- When kids show up at Campaigners, when there’s a great night at club, when the bus pulls in after a week at camp, be there to celebrate with them.
- Mail them packages at summer camp for them and the kids in their cabin.
- Send them some snail mail with a gas card inside.
- Drop off homemade bread or flowers to their wife while their at camp.
- Pay for a college leader to take a YL kid out to eat a fancy meal.
- Tell them ‘Thank You for being on the frontlines on ministry.’ They need to hear it.
- Go by their house and steal their car keys. Take their car and get a wash and oil change. They’ll never forget it, and years from now, they’ll do the same thing for another leader.
- Invite the college students to do their laundry at your house.
- Invite leaders over to your house between going to the school and events at night if they do not live close to the high school.
- Babysit for leaders who have kids. Keep the kids and give the spouse a chance to join you at club one night.
- Pet-sit for them.
- Give them tickets to the big game.
- Drop off Exam Survival Kits during college exam week.
Model
- Share with them what the Lord is doing in your own life.
- Send them a screenshot or a photocopy of the scripture or devotional you read this morning.
- Invite them into your home, let them watch you in action as a spouse and parent. Let them learn from you.
- Invite them to do what you do. Going to work out, have them come run with you.
- Teach them how to do what you know how to do. Play golf, change a tire, budget $, etc…
You can download the list above here. Feel free to distribute it to committee folks in your area.
Here are another 35 ways to care for leaders from Chris Theule-VanDam, Western Great Lakes Regional Director.
Would you help us respond to this committee member by adding to this list? What meaningful ways has your area cared for you as a leader? Please comment below or email us here.We’ll take your comments and emails and add them to this post as they come in. Thanks!
Posted by Drew Hill
