Matt Bodenham shares: Equipping Teenagers to Lead

Categories: Church, Disciplemaking Ministries, Updates, Youth ministry articles

Thursday nights our Gospel Community gathers as a family to share a meal together, and engage in a teaching or discussion time.  Recently we decided that we wanted to empower our core group of teenagers to be leaders within our drop-in ministry at Costa Coffee.  To achieve this we decided on four main things that need to happen for Costa to happen on a Tuesday evening.  The teens chose to belong to the “Clean-up Team”, the “Costivities Team”, the “Welcoming Team” or the “Bless Team”.  Then one evening we had a “knighting” where they were each dubbed as leaders and commissioned for their ministries.

Since then we have really seen the teenagers step up and take charge of the areas we have given them.  Jay and the Bless Team made cookies for another Gospel Community.  Sam put together a great activity that got the teens mixing with those they hadn’t yet met and even asking each other questions!  Each night as the drop-in finished Tom and Bob made sure Costa was “cleaner than we found it”.   This week four of our teens have planned and will lead our Christmas party.   There are many stories of how we see teenagers leading in the roles we have given them.  It has been incredible to see this change and the movement we have experienced as a result of having them lead.

It takes more work for a youth minister to equip teenagers to do the work of the ministry.  Sometimes it just seems easier to do it yourself.  However, our job as youth ministers is to equip God’s people.  We find it’s exciting when we create opportunities for teens to serve.  The work God does in and through them always seems to surpass our expectations!