Linked Post: The Intervention Leadership Principle

At ym360, everything we do falls into one of four categories: Bible Study Resources, Training, Community, or Networking. For us, networking means highlighting great content, great people, and great ministries. When we find something valuable, we share it. This happens most frequently on our Flashback Friday posts. But it happens in other ways, as well.

One of the ways we focus on Networking is by linking to solid content we encounter on blogs or websites.

Doug Franklin is the founder and leader of LeaderTreks. We're priviliged to call the awesome people at LT friends and ministry partners. They're hands down one of the best voices in student leadership.

This post from Doug's blog caught my attention. I think it's dead-on, and a really creative way of looking at what we do as youth workers. 

Below we've posted an excerpt of Doug's post "The Intervention Leadership Principle." Read the excerpt, then head over to Doug's blog to read the rest.

The Intervention Leadership Principle, by Doug Franklin

As youth workers we face many leadership challenges. I think one of the greatest challenges is being a person of intervention. As youth workers we intervene in the lives of students. Pushing them to change their behavior, focus and faith. We often challenge students to rethink their value system, how they think about sex, drugs, materialism, relationships and family. We stand-up against the world’s thinking and ask students to commit to sacrificing for the glory of God. We take the message of Jesus, and beg students to pick up a cross and follow him. You can’t be a person of intervention if you don’t have deep convictions. If you got into youth ministry because you wanted students to “like” you intervention won’t be in your playbook. You will have to have hard conversations with students and you will have to be OK if they mock you and reject your message. But that is not all the intervention you will have to do if your in youth ministry.

You will also need to intervene in families. Partnering with parents means you may need to challenge them with hard truth. When I was a youth pastor, I had a dad once ask me to speak to his student who had left the house late at night to be with his girlfriend. The student had disobeyed his parents and was in the wrong but the dad had laid out some rules that were way overboard and were pushing the son in the wrong direction. After confronting the student and getting him to apologize to his parents, I asked the dad if we could talk and I gently discussed with him other ways to deal with his son that might not drive the son away. Thankfully, the dad listened and really good things came of the father and son’s relationship. To be honest, when I talked with the dad I was scared. I was also sure if I didn’t raise my voice the dad was in for more heartache. Intervention with people who are older than us can be really hard but just because it’s hard doesn’t mean you should back away.

Here as some tips on being a leader who intervenes:

Click here to head over to Doug's blog and read the rest of "The Intervention Leadership Principle."