Billy Gillespie was fired back in April as the head basketball coach at the University of Kentucky. There has never been a doubt about his ability to coach basketball. The X’s and O’s of the game are his bread and butter. Where he ran into trouble was managing the other demands of his job. According to the people in Lexington he never endeared himself to the fans, he never connected with the boosters/donors, and he alienated the local media. So when times got tough, or things didn’t turn around as fast as some thought it should, the reporters wrote unflattering articles about him, the boosters/donors quit giving money, and the fans starting screaming for his dismissal. Eventually he was gone.
I’ve now been in my job as Director of Student Ministries at Mt. Paran North for 30 months. There are so many layers to my job that it can become overwhelming if I’m not careful.
First and foremost there are the students. This is why I got into student ministry in the first place. It’s the X’s and O’s of my job. I don’t claim to have all the answers or even excel in every area of ministry to students but I sure do love it.
I also have to recruit, train, equip, and oversee an awesome team of volunteer leaders. As our ministry grows, I can’t possibly be to each student what they need me to be, so I have to duplicate myself in the leaders we have, so that they can provide the love, support, encouragement, accountability, and mentoring our students need.
Then there are parents. Each of the students in our ministry come with some type of parental figure. Some have very involved moms and dads. Others have one or the other after a divorce at some point their past, or some other type of broken home scenario. No matter the circumstances, I have to be aware of, build relationships with, and communicate to these individuals.
As a pastor at our church, I am also involved in the other areas of ministry, outside the bounds of student ministry. From time to time I am involved in leading worship on Sundays. Sometimes my Pastor has me speak on Sundays. I have served on search teams for staff vacancies at the highest level of our church. I serve on our Executive Ministry Team and assist in setting the ministry vision and initiatives of our church. I serve on teams and committees for other areas of ministry, offering my voice to issues that help raise the effectiveness of our overall ministry as a church.
I am a department head with 4 people who directly report to me. I have to approve vacation time, sick days, help resolve office tension, help our staff navigate the working relationships within our office, and invest in them as individuals.
I have the incredible honor of serving on several state and national youth ministry boards, and I get to speak at and participate in different events throughout the year.
These are just my responsibilities outside of my home, where I’m a husband and father of 3 little boys.
What am I saying?
Even if I’m good at the X’s and O’s of dealing with students, my leadership can easily fall apart because I’ve neglected these other areas. I’ve heard horror stories of youth pastors who are having success, great results, and growing attendance numbers but have been let go because of poor staff relationships or a couple bad run-ins with parents.
I don’t want to be a good juggler. I don’t want to just throw all the balls into the air and hope none of them fall. I want to be intentional in every layer of leadership. It is my hope that I am becoming a more capable leader, but I must always be aware of the many different arms of leadership that pull at me. I’m looking at ways to get consistent feedback from each of these areas so that I can realize potential problems before they become huge.
Andy Stanley stated at this past year’s Catalyst conference (paraphrase) “if they replaced you tomorrow, and brought in a new guy/girl to do your job. What would they do? Why not walk out the door, walk back in, and do that?”
His point was, if someone new sat down in your chair what would they immediately question? What would they ask:
- Why do they do that?
- What is this for?
- Why are they still doing this?
Then if we know the answer to these questions and detach emotionally from the programs or people involved to make rationale decisions, why not just do those things now before “they” have to replace us and bring in someone else to do them? There are some obvious reasons why we don’t. 2 being, programs and people. So let’s just start with the first portion of this scenario…
If “they” replaced you tomorrow and someone new came in, what are some of the first things you think the new person would do?
Some of you may have seen the “on a boat” sketch from SNL with Adam Sandberg. It’s been around a while and contains some extreme language if viewed uncensored.
One of our leaders, Allon Sparks cleaned up the language and made it more applicable to our summer camp experience. He then recruited Billy Langley and me to fulfill what he described as a “bucket list” of recording a rap song. I played a very small part in all this. Props to Allon who wrote the lyrics and Billy who laid down all the tracks.
Brian and Emily Downing come to us from Baton Rouge, LA where they have been serving the Church of God as State Youth and Christian Education Directors. This position has allowed them to minister to students from all over the state of Louisiana. They’ve run summer camps, girls sleep overs, Teen Talent, and a number of other programs while traveling the state speaking to various churches and youth groups. Before moving to Louisiana, they served as Middle School pastors at Tanglewood COG in Kinston, NC for 5 years. They were very successful in ministry there and saw great growth in the program. Brian also founded AmplifyJV which is a Winterfest style weekend retreat for middle school students from all over the southeast. They have had hundreds of students attend this event over the last several years, and have expanded to 2 locations for 2009.
I am so excited about Brian, Emily and their 6 month old daughter Kyla joining our team. They bring so much experience to the table, and have more passion for middle schoolers than anyone I’ve ever met. Beyond all that, they just “get” middle schoolers, which is not something that’s easy to do. They understand student culture, and are always looking for ways to create relevant, engaging ministry for middle school aged students.
As they finish up their duties in Louisiana, we look forward to them arriving in Atlanta around August 1.
I haven’t blogged since May 19 (which coincided with the birth of Tucker)…oops!
Obviously things have been moving at a faster pace than we were accustomed to with the addition of Tucker Jonathan to the fold. He is a cool little kid already. Cooper and Branson are good big brothers too.
We hired a new Middle School Pastor which you’ll hear about tomorrow. We are revisioning the church and pitching it to the congregation in just a few weeks. I went on our Senior Trip to Florida, preached a youth camp and spoke at a camp meeting, and we had our MS and HS summer camps.
Book sales are going pretty well. We are working now to make another big push toward the end of this month heading back into the fall and the start of school. I’m back though.
This is my personal blog. Most of what is written is my opinion, observation, original thought, or things I find interesting somewhere else. While I am employed by Mt. Paran North, the things expressed here are not endorsed or necessarily accepted by Mt. Paran North or it's leadership. So don't go sue the church because you don't agree with something I write. Just post a comment and tell me I'm an idiot. It'll just be better for all of us.
