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Leading Well: Leading with Prayer

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Leading your team, whether it be three people or 300 hundred people, is huge. As Christian leaders, we want to serve Christ faithfully and steward the opportunities He has given us well, but how do we do this best?

I’ve learned (and am still learning) that one of the primary ways to lead your team spiritually is through prayer.

Looking at the life of Jesus, consider just a few of the times we see Christ pray to the Father. We see Jesus praying in the solitude of the wilderness (Luke 4 and 5), praying for guidance and help in the garden (Matthew 26), and praying for His disciples as He knows His time is soon drawing to an end (John 17) .

We serve a Father who is faithful to listen to His children. Scripture shows us this —
1 John 5:14 says, “Now this is the confidence we have before Him: whenever we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.” (HCSB)

As we step out in leading others, may we remember our God who never fails and may we, in humility and with boldness, go to our Father in prayer. In leading your team spiritually consider these ways to pray:

PRAY FOR THEM. Before the throne, with genuine devotion, intercede on your team’s behalf. We have a Father who listens to the prayers of His children. Knowing this, create a routine to continually pray with your particular team in mind. No matter the circumstance, you can always remember your tribe in a loving, Christ-honoring way when you go to the Lord.

PRAY WITH THEM. It’s important to be a leader who prays with your team. Your team should be comfortable to pray with you and quick to come to you with their needs. Be mindful to create an atmosphere where authentic prayer is paramount.

PRAY OVER THEM. As the shepherd of your flock — be it an entire congregation or a volunteer group of four — you should regularly pray over them. This means to visibly, boldly, honestly pray over them, standing at their sides. Lead your team in group prayer and ask that the Lord would guide you all to walk together in faithful obedience to Him.

PRAY FOR YOURSELF. Remember that before you can lead anyone else spiritually, you must first be in a place of pursuing Christ. This does not mean you have to be perfect. As a spiritual leader, you do not need to appear as one who has “arrived”, as if you’re pulling others to meet you at your destination, but you have to simply be walking toward a life that looks more like Jesus.
“May you look more like Christ when you lay down tonight than you did when you got up this morning.”

Leading a team spiritually is an important task, but it is not a complex one. Rest in knowing that leading others spiritually is a gift – a simple and genuine gift. Your care and devotion to this gift in which you’ve been entrusted will reap great reward when you humbly and wholly present it before the Father.

Remember God’s Call in your Life

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Psalm 37:4  (HCSB)
Take delight in the Lord, and He will give you your heart’s desires.
This Psalm is titled “Instruction for Wisdom” and in the context surrounding verse 4, it has some warnings about distraction by evildoers.  It also has great guidance for us about seeking to follow the Lord with our heart and actions:
  • “trust in the Lord and do what is good”
  • “commit your way to the Lord, trust in Him and He will act.”
  • “Be silent before the Lord and wait expectantly for Him”
Verse 4 indicates that our greatest delight comes in Him.   So our greatest gift, the place we are most likely to find our passion in ministry is in His calling.  I know that many times I struggle with what I’m supposed to be “doing” for God that sometimes I miss out on what I should “be.”  This chapter includes a lot of “being” words that are not specific actions … words like trust, commit, be silent, wait, and take delight.
From this posture, we are able to take action, but I think our actions must be guided by what we are called to “be” in order for our “doing” to be on the right course.  Never forget God’s call in your life is where we take the greatest delight.
  1.  We are called to live for Christ as a child of God.
  2. We are called to Kingdom work.  This means we work in such a way that honors God and makes the gospel known.
  3. And for many of us, we also serve in a specific ministry calling that uses our vocational labor to daily serve in a church or ministry role.
Today, find an opportunity to reflect on God’s call in your life, and spend a moment thanking God and praising Him for your relationship with Christ, the work of the gospel in your own heart, and the opportunity we have to share Christ with others in word and in our actions.
And whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.  Colossians 3:17 (HCSB)

Staying Focused During the Summer

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Staying focused during the summer in kids ministry can be difficult. With warm weather, no school, sports, camps and everything else crammed into June and July, summer can be crazy and hectic. Your kids ministry attendance might be lower than normal. For the kidmin leaders, it can be a distracting time as well, or might seem like a less important time since less kids are there each week. I encourage you to do two things:

Encourage kids and parents to prioritize Jesus over any sport, practice, or activity. 

In today’s world, sports and extra-curricular activities are highly esteemed. Which means that parents tend to encourage their kids to do every sport, dance class, or program, and end up having some type of practice or game every single day of the week. For many, this means sacrificing time spent at church learning about Jesus, or even time spent at home in personal, or family, Bible study. Encourage parents and kids to seek out Jesus above all things and to make Him the number one priority in their lives. Reach out to parents through social media, phone calls, or even emails with a challenge to finish out the summer with a new priority on having their kid involved in the kids ministry at church.

Encourage yourself to prioritize Jesus and not check-out. 

It can be just as easy for you to take your mind off the throttle during the summer and coast through it. Constantly remind yourself that the summer season is just as important as any other season. With great times for outreach during the summer, it isn’t a time you want to just slide by. Be intentional, plan out the summer, and engage kids in a whole new way to make them want to come back and learn more about having a relationship with Jesus. Summer can be a more carefree time, but the eternal urgency for the kids is still present during the summer as much as it is during the school year.

Stay focused this summer, and keep pointing kids and their parents toward Jesus. What are some tips and tricks you use to keep your parents, kids, kids ministry, and yourself focused during the summer? 

Leading Well: Leading Spiritually

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With hundreds of logistical details to deal with each week, sometimes being sure to lead out spiritually can take a backseat to the things that “have to happen” or the fires that pop up which need to be put out. In order to make sure you are leading your team and the kids spiritually, it is important to remember these three things:

Seek the Lord for yourself
You cannot truly lead a kid or an adult to a place that you are not seeking after yourself. This does not mean you must have all the answers. It simply means that you need to be seeking after the Lord and maintaining that relationship with Him, growing and maturing in your own faith. Hebrews 11:13 tells how some confess that they are temporary residents on earth. In verse 14, it goes on to explain that those who say this “make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.” I encourage you to do the same: “seek a homeland”; seek the kingdom of heaven through a relationship with Jesus.

Be intentional
This means that in any conversation you have with a child or adult that you are leading, point the conversation to Scripture. Why would we not direct everything to the written Word of God? Nothing on earth is more powerful than the words written out for us. When you direct conversations to the Word, all involved will gain more knowledge of Jesus and can build up their own faith through such conversations.

Make a plan
Don’t expect it all to just happen out of thin air as you are playing dodgeball. You need to set out a plan to bring the kids together after dodgeball is over and talk about how it relates to our relationship with Jesus. With whatever curriculum you use, be sure the gospel is being presented and that Scripture is being used. Beyond that, I point back to being intentional about bringing Scripture into other conversations. Make the plan and trust that God will make your efforts fruitful.

 

Guest Blog by Eric Geiger: Idols

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We live in an idol driven culture. Idolatry came with the entrance of sin. In fact, Martin Luther said, “Under every behavioral sin is the sin of idolatry.” If this is true, and I believe it is, this should forever change how we look at sin. Recently, at Lifeway’s Employee Chapel I had the privilege to talk about four root idols.

Christian leaders Tim Keller, David Powlison, and Dick Keyes have written much more extensively and eloquently on the idols beneath the surface, but here is a snapshot of four root idols that drive our behavior:

  • Power: a longing for influence or recognition
  • Control: a longing to have everything go according to my plan
  • Comfort: a longing for pleasure
  • Approval: a longing to be accepted or desired

Which of these idols resonates with you? Mentally walk through a day as a kids minister. Inevitably, you struggle with these four idols yourself, and you will work with kids and volunteers who struggle with these idols too. It is a universal human experience that we must learn to address and for which we need to seek repentance.

I do not repent of my idolatry by looking at myself in the mirror and telling myself I can displace it with my own energy, might, or goodness. I repent by remembering the Great God who is above all gods. We can repent of our longing for:

  • Power by submitting to His greater power within me [Ephesians 5:18]
  • Control by surrendering to His ultimate control [Ecclesiastes 3:12-14]
  • Comfort by remembering He is the greater comfort [II Corinthians 1:3-4]
  • Approval by rejoicing in His gracious approval [Galatians 3:13; Numbers 6:24-26]

I hope this challenges you personally and in your ministry. I encourage you to teach your kids what it means to struggle with these root idols. They too can learn to practice repentance from idols by focusing on the worthiness of God.

About the Guest Blogger:

Eric Geiger received his doctorate in leadership and church ministry from Southern Seminary. He is also a teaching pastor and a frequent speaker and consultant on church mission and strategy. Eric has authored or co-authored several books including the best selling church leadership book, Simple Church.

Eric is married to Kaye, and they have two daughters: Eden and Evie. During his free time, Eric enjoys dating his wife, playing with his daughters, and shooting basketball.