You are a youth coach, not just a youth leader: discipling young people to mature in leadership
Coaching not just leadership leads to long term flourishing discipleship.
As a kid, I hated it when adults wouldn’t let me do things myself. Making a wooden box, I would ask “How should I attach the lid?”. Instead of answering the question, or even showing me how, I’m sitting on the floor while my dad is attaching the lid himself.
Doing it ourselves or taking over is easy because it puts the focus on immediate things and controllable things. The task of attaching the lid is immediate. The process of someone learning how to attach a lid is less so. My ability to attach a lid is controllable but helping someone else attach a lid requires me to let go of control. If I loosen my grip on the immediate and the controllable and help someone else do it, they now have a skill for life.
It’s easy to do all the youth ministry ourselves. But if we loosen our grip and help a young person get involved, we equip them for a lifetime of ministry.
And the way to loosen our grip is to re-imagine our role. You are not just a youth leader. You are a youth coach.
Chap Clark says in his book, Adoptive Church, that the goal of youth ministry is to help young people “live into” their calling as disciples[1]. This includes, helping them play an active role in their faith, expressing faith in action, not just receive it passively and to coach young people to be active disciples of Jesus Christ.
So what does a coaching mentality look like?
A coach focuses more on development than tasks
The point of training isn’t doing drills. Sure, every sports training you’ve ever been to is full of them. But a coach doesn’t coach because they love drills. They coach because they love to see their players develop important skills for playing the game.
It can be easy to focus on the tasks of youth ministry. Running a game, answering a question, delivering a talk or teaching young people about Jesus. But a coaching mentality is always looking for opportunities to use these tasks to develop young people in discipleship. This includes actually teaching them to run a game, guiding them to answer questions for themselves, equipping them to understand the Bible deeply and substantially and empowering them to articulate the Gospel clearly.
A coach focuses less on self and more on players
I remember watching Duncan Armstrong win a gold medal in the 200m freestyle at the Seoul Olympics in 1988. But what I remember more was his coach’s reaction. Laurie Lawrence became a household name because of his over the top joy at seeing one of his swimmers win gold. In my role as a Youth Ministry Advisor I love to see youth leaders who really enjoy youth ministry and those who take very seriously their responsibility for ministry. This enjoyment and responsibility can sometimes make it a wrench for leaders to let go of doing the things they love doing or feel responsible for. It can be hard to encourage youth into these things. Taking on a coaching mentality will mean finding joy and responsibility not just in the ministry activities you do, but all the more joy and responsibility in seeing young people develop in these things in the same way that Laurie Lawrence found so much joy in the success of Duncan Armstrong.
A coach keeps the goal in mind
The goal of soccer is to… well… score goals – more goals than the other team. The goal of youth ministry is to see long lasting, active disciples of Jesus Christ. A soccer coach will focus on both offense and defence, individuals and teamwork, fitness and skills. But they will do all of this with the ultimate aim in mind.
If the goal of youth ministry is long lasting, active disciples, then all that we do in youth ministry, including all the tasks, the relationships, the planning, the preparation and the thinking will be geared towards that goal. We’ll teach them and train them towards that goal, we’ll pastor them towards that goal, we’ll serve them with that goal in mind and we’ll give them opportunities to embody that goal - we’ll coach them towards that goal.
What will re-imagining youth leadership as coaching look like for you?
[1] Chap Clark, Adoptive Church, p63