How my student leaders hosted the Christmas Party without me

Our youth ministry had its annual Christmas party last week.

That, by itself, isn’t all that remarkable.

What’s remarkable is the fact that I wasn’t there. Nor were any of our ministry’s other adult leaders. We were at adult leader’s training. Meanwhile, our high school teens were partying.

Who was in charge, you might ask?

Our student leaders.

Our student leaders are not merely decorative. They don’t hold honorary titles. Instead, they have real responsibilities.

All semester long, they’ve led our youth ministry in an assortment of ways, during times my adult leaders and I have been present. We’ve offered encouragement and on occasion, corrections. We know what they’re capable of.

So when we sat down to schedule our Christmas party and quite simply, ran out of potential dates on which to do so, a student leader suggested they run the Christmas party without us.

After swallowing the momentary panic I felt, I thought, “Of course. That makes perfect sense. They’re ready to do that.”

So we moved the Christmas party to someone’s house so that even though there wasn’t an adult leader present in the room, there was still an adult (a parent) in the house. Then we spent the next several weeks planning the Christmas party during our student leadership team meetings.

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