Student Leadership Team Basics: What to do at your regular meetings

Since student leadership is really about discipleship, it's important to meet with your student leadership team regularly.

In my context, I meet with my student leadership team 4-6 times over the summer (plus an overnight leadership team retreat). Once the programming year begins in September, I meet with this team weekly for an hour. Although each team chooses the day and time for it's regular meetings, we've typically found it helpful to hold such meetings before or after one of our weekly youth ministry programs so as to save families a trip to and from the church.

At each of your student leadership team meetings, do a combination of things.

Always begin your meeting with prayer. This centers the team, focuses it on God, and helps differentiate it from other leadership groups teens might be a part of.

Then, take time to do a short evaluation of your ministry's programs in order to hold teens accountable to establishing a culture of welcome and give them continued ownership of your youth ministry.

Next, do some kind of brief (10-20 minute) leadership training with your team. Gear this specifically to the teens on your team to make it relevant to where they currently are in their leadership journey. Feel free to integrate Scripture into this time. Some things you might want to address during these leadership moments include beginning and ending well as a leader, setting spiritual and leadership goals, and living like a Godly leader both inside and outside the walls of your church.

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Jen Bradbury on Youth Ministry

Jen serves as the Minister of Youth and Family at Atonement Lutheran Church in Barrington, Illinois. A veteran youth worker, Jen holds an MA in Youth Ministry Leadership from Huntington University. Jen is the author of The Jesus Gap: What Teens Actually Believe about Jesus (The Youth Cartel), The Real Jesus (The Youth Cartel), Unleashing the Hidden Potential of Your Student Leaders (Abingdon), and A Mission That Matters (Abingdon). Her writing has also appeared in YouthWorker Journal, Immerse, and The Christian Century. Jen is also the Assistant Director of Arbor Research Group where she has led many national studies. When not doing ministry or research, she and her husband, Doug, and daughter, Hope, can be found traveling and enjoying life together.

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A Mission That Matters: How To Do Short-Term Missions Without Long-Term Harm

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Unleashing the Hidden Potential of your Student Leaders

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The Real Jesus

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The Jesus Gap

What Teens Actually Believe About Jesus

Based on National Research

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