At some point in every person’s ministry, they have to come to a very difficult decision.  Well, there are probably many difficult decisions they have to make, but there is one that seems to have been a topic of conversation for me lately.  This is the decision to be a leader of leaders, not a leader of students.  I know, this seems a little contradictory, why would someone called to student ministry decide that they don’t want to lead students?!  But let me ask you this, what would happen if Howard Schultz, the founder of Starbucks, decided that he wanted to have the personal touch and have him serve all of the coffee to his customers?  Starbucks would not be what it is today, and my life would be filled with a void of epic proportions (and my wallet would be filled to epic proportions).  But Howard, while valuing the personal touch, saw that he wanted to share that with more than the 50 customers who he could know on a first name basis.  Instead, Howard decided to create and organization, with a foundation in the heart of Howard Schultz, and lived out by many people, in order to get his product out to as many people as possible.  Ministry is based on the personal touch, but when a ministry is successful in living out the Great Commission and is growing with students, there is no way the student staff can keep a personal relationship with every student. 

This is where a student worker has to decide, decide to lead leaders, not students.  This does not mean that you cut off all communication to students and stop pouring into them, this does mean that you begin to change your emphasis.  My ministry will always (as long as God deems it so) be towards students, but the people I have to spend more time investing in will be leaders.  The thought is the same as any leader of an organization, I have a vision and passion for something, I can no longer execute that to the fullest due to growth, so I must share and spread that vision and passion with others so they can spread it.  Instead of being able to keep in contact with and disciple 25 students effectively, I must choose to invest in 25 leaders, who will then disciple 25 students each, having exponential rewards.  This is a hard choice, and something I have struggled with for some time now, but really is not an option if your true desire is to see a healthy growth in your ministry.

The student ministry I am a part of recently went to summer camp.  I use the term loosely, because we didn’t actually “go” anywhere, we ran our own camp in our backyard.  This allowed for camp cost to go down, camp attendance to double, and 250 people got to experience it all.  I had the pleasure of being Camp Director.  This entailed a lot of work, mostly grabbing Starbucks, so I won’t go into details.  But this camp is where this thought of “leading leaders” reigned heavy.  While having a group of girls in my room, I had to take away time with them to make sure camp happened to its fullest.  Had I focused on them, the 245 other attendees would not have had the same ‘rock your face off’ experience, and the sacrifice of the five was worth it to me (don’t worry, they had an amazing small group and team leader to take care of them). 

At the end of the day, everyone has to make a decision.  For my role in leadership, I have decided that God has called me to lead in a ministry that is blessed with growth, which means my role changes, I am now a leader of leaders.