Youth ministry leaders, hear me out. Recruiting, training, developing, equipping, and retaining volunteer leaders is critical to the success of your ministry. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that your level of success or failure in the areas of building and developing your volunteer leaders will be directly proportional to the success or failure of your ministry's growth and impact. Yes, volunteer leaders matter that much! You may think that you are Superman or that you can be a one-man band, but a reality check says you are not, and you can’t. No matter how great and charismatic of a leader you are, without great, bought-in, equipped, passionate volunteer leaders, you and your ministry are going to struggle and wither in effectiveness. But if you can surround yourself with a team of great volunteer leaders, the sky is the limit because those leaders have the potential to have an even greater impact on how your ministry runs and the effectiveness that it has in ministering to students. With that in mind, here are 12 tips on developing your volunteer leader team.

So, you’ve got a volunteer team- that’s awesome! Have you ever considered structuring that team to provide clarity, fruitfulness, and fulfillment for those who serve with you? The idea of structure can feel intimidating or unnecessary, but a few key considerations could unlock the potential in the team of motivated volunteers you’ve already got. In this single-session Masterclass, we will look at what you can do to structure your volunteer team to ensure that they thrive in their key serving roles.

No matter how good your youth ministry is, people will be more prone to come on board, stay, serve selflessly, and recruit others to join when they feel like they belong to a group of people; rather than feeling like just someone who is accomplishing some random mission and vision. So how do you build clear expectations, space, relationships, and community when it comes to recruiting and maintaining volunteers? Join me in this one-session Masterclass on-demand to find out.

As a youth ministry leader, we are called to make disciples. Part of that disciple-making process involves pouring ourselves into students, identifying and activating them to live out their faith by living and leading in a God-honoring way. So, how do we do that? In this one-session Masterclass video, we will discuss how to clarify what we want a student leadership team to accomplish, identify student leaders, invite them to lead, acquire parent buy-in, and activate our students to lead out in a life of service to Jesus through their unique giftings.

As a growing and thriving youth ministry leader, you know that the health of your ministry is directly connected to the health of your volunteers. But January is a natural time for your volunteers to start slumping slightly. How can you, as a ministry leader, encourage them to remain committed to the mission of Jesus? How can you, yourself, go from surviving the winter/spring semester to thriving? In this two-session Masterclass video, we will look at three key shifts leaders should take this January to remain hope-filled, give you three tips to help your volunteers stay motivated, offer three offbeat ideas to ensure that you remain healthy/motivated, learn three things that every volunteer needs from you, and discover how you can prepare yourself to be ready to ride the natural wave of momentum that is available to almost all of us in the summer and fall.

Working with teenagers, especially post-pandemic, you are most likely fully aware that adolescent mental health issues are as significant and debilitating as they are widespread (and growing). In fact, according to the Director of the American Institute for Cognitive Therapy, “The average high school student today has the same level of anxiety as the average psychiatric patient in the early 1950s.” So what can we do, as youth ministry leaders, to lean in and help our students who are coping with or struggling to navigate mental health issues? In this single-session Masterclass, Jon provides seven thoughts to help you get started.