When are we going to start cultivating leadership in our youth?
I want to pose a very important question to all of the Christian leaders out there. I am not asking when we are going to start spotting leadership in the young people who come to our local youth group, because I believe we do that. I am asking when we will begin cultivating it in them beyond youth group. There has been a lot said about mentoring in the Christian community over the years. At the risk of restating some of that out of my own ignorance of past dialogue, I ask the question above and I want to follow it up by sharing some of my own life experience.
What is the most difficult time in the lives of our young people today? What is the time in which we are most likely to lose our Christian youth to a secular society? For most, it’s the college years. It’s the time after they leave youth group and we send them off to get their education. I often wonder why we do it that way. Perhaps it’s because some secular PhD somewhere told us that’s what our youth need. We are encouraged to send them off to college for four or five years so this secular PhD can educate our youth by placing them in an institution that prolongs their adolescence and ensures they start their adult lives in a heap of debt. Don’t get too scared. I am not suggesting that we do away with higher education. I am just suggesting that we chose to be the largest, most important and most influential part of it.
I got off the path when I started college. My family could not afford to send me to a University so I went to a community college and got a job. I was lucky enough to walk right into a management role and by the time I was 19, I was the full-time manager of a retail store and a full-time student. Over the course of the next couple of years, the importance of school began to fade as my paychecks began to rise. At 21, after traveling all across California working hard for my employer, I was given the opportunity to run a million dollar store. I quit school and moved to Sacramento ready to climb the corporate ladder.
You can probably guess what happened next. At 22, I was living with my parents again after being thrown under and run over by the corporate bus several times. I was facing troubles I knew nothing about and had never seen coming. I was being sued (see part about being thrown under the bus), my credit was trashed, I got evicted from my apartment and I was not anywhere near finishing school. It’s funny to think I used to believe I was successful at a young age.
None of that even comes near describing the spiritual fall I took during that time. It was sadly typical for most people my age. I definitely was not the person I had been in youth group. I was kind of like the guy Jesus describes in the parable of the prodigal son. I got some cash, went off on my own and did stupid things with it until it was all gone.
I have to wonder how that young leader would have turned out if a Man of Jesus had come to him and said, “Hey Ryan, I see that you have great leadership potential and I hear that you are interested working in my field. I want to help you gain some experience and to help grow your leadership skills while you go through school.” Some of you may be thinking it sounds like an internship, but what I am talking about is a job. A real life, real world job that comes with a Godly mentor. My price tag would have been small too. I was making a whopping $9.20-an-hour at my first job as a retail store manager at age 19 and I thought I was living it big time. I moved to Sacramento at 21 to run the million dollar store making $17.00-an-hour. That may sound like a good number but in 2001 in Sacramento it was not much. I even bounced a couple of rent checks while I was there. The point I am making is that a Christian business man from my school, my church, or my community could have added a great leader of the future to his team inexpensively. At the same time, I could have received some valuable guidance and training. Perhaps I could have even finished school at a reasonable pace.
So here’s the question again: When are we going to start cultivating leadership in our youth? A year ago, as a multi unit retail store manager, I had $9.00-an-hour jobs with commission and benefits to hand out like candy and I would have loved to have some great Christian leaders of the future to give them to. I had two of them on my team and they were priceless. I could have had twenty of them if I had been smart enough to go looking for them. I had the wrong perspective because I wasn’t looking to use the position God had placed me in to grow leaders for him. What I should have been doing was intentionally investing in mutually beneficial relationships that develop followers of Christ. In other words, I should have been hiring Christian youth, helping to provide some guidance and development for them and I would have had a stronger work force as a result.
Developing leaders is not easy; it often requires providing very challenging feedback along with sacrificing large amounts of energy and time. It is however well worth the effort. It’s also a must. Any organization worth their salt understands that it must develop leaders from with-in. We are no different as a body of believers in Christ. If we want to grow (bring more people to Christ) we need to develop leaders from with-in our faith and outside the walls of our Churches.
What that looks like is mentorship that extends beyond the walls of our Churches. It looks like Christian businessmen investing in our young adults, helping them learn Godly wisdom, giving them valuable experience and teaching them something useful. We need to become more intentional as a body of believers and if we want to grow the body of Christ, we need to grow leaders. The best way for us to do that is by investing in the development of the leadership skills of Christian youth.
The responsibility sits on the shoulders of those who have been placed in a position to act. If you own or manage a business, if you have experience and wisdom to share, then you have a responsibility to grow and develop the skills of the Christian leaders of the future. At Men of Jesus we are willing to provide as much support as we can to help those who are willing to invest in our youth. Stay tuned to the Leadership Forum as we will continue to explore the crucial topic of leadership development.
Here’s some of what the book of Proverbs has to say on this subject:
† Proverbs 26:10 Like an archer who wounds at random is he who hires a fool or any passer-by.
† Proverbs 9:9 Instruct a wise man and he will be wiser still; teach a righteous man and he will add to his learning.
† Proverbs 13:14 The teaching of the wise is a fountain of life, turning a man from the snares of death.
† Proverbs 19:27 Stop listening to instruction, my son, and you will stray from the words of knowledge.
