College Union

Years ago, J. David Stone co-edited a book entitled, “Catching The Rainbow.”  Long out of print, the focus of Stone’s work was a concept of leadership for youth ministry.  Leaving youth ministry to do campus ministry, I discovered something very interesting.  Stone’s core leadership concept worked in youth ministry to a limited extent, but it flourished in campus ministry.

Before attempting to explain this relatively simple model, most people in campus ministry would quickly respond that they are committed to developing student leaders. But when pressed to evaluate the fruit of there effort, most of us have to confess that we are not extremely pleased with our leadership development plan. This simple model keeps me grounded and has produce many leaders and very fruitful ministry. Where does this system of shared leadership begin?  It begins with the “four stages of ease.”

1. I do it.
2. I do it, you help.
3. You do it, I help.
4. You do it.  I move on to other ministries.

These four stages are easy to state, but much more difficult to implement.  Layer after layer of reasons exist concerning why we struggle to share leadership with young adults.  I will list a few.

Our need for control!    My initial response to a person with a big need to control is this.  Campus ministry is probably not for you.  In the campus setting, young adults already have plenty of professors attempting to control them.  Young adults want a relationship in which they are encouraged, affirmed and given freedom to try.  Jesus sent out 70 with some training yet one can easily argue they were not fully equipped or ready!   Share leadership if you dare!

Many of us are ordained elders!   Ordained to word, sacrament, service and order,   one   may internalize one’s ordination to order in some interesting ways.  “Order” means different things to different people.  I submit that the “four stages of ease” are a significant part of what it means to order the life of a fellowship and a church.  Understanding order from our ordination as some sort of mandate to dictate is off the mark.

We know better than young adults.   Hum.  I doubt that is true all of the time.  In I Timothy 4:12, Paul reminds us that the young have a place in leadership.  In many facets, they can often do things better than I can.

It is too much work!  To constantly open the door to young adults for leadership is very labor intensive in the early stages.  Yet after a certain point is reached, it is very freeing.   Expending energy and time on the front end often saves energy and time later!  Sometimes we have to cook, clean, set up and initiate ministry.  Yet following the “four stages of ease” will ultimately free one’s time if one commit to follow the model.

I want to share leadership and grow leaders but I don’t know how.  Now we are getting somewhere!

To get started each stage of ease has corresponding tracks that need to be understood to truly benefit from the process. The first corresponding track is called the relationship or educational track.

Stage One

Leadership track:          I do it!

Relationship track: Find common interests.  Share our stories with one another.  Listen to their story!

Once I was repairing a fence at our building.  A young freshman walked up and we started talking.  As we laughed and talked, he slowly opened up.  All the while, I was hammering and repairing the fence.  Yes, he began to help with the fence. But the more important work was developing the relationship.  Friendship took root in the experience of repairing a fence.  This young adult eventually became a major leader in our ministry and was one of our mission coordinators.  Of course, before reaching that level of leadership, we had to work through each “stage of ease” carefully.

In this stage, the work is important but the relationship is very important too. Practicing our listen skills and getting them to tell their stories is critical. Setting the foundation for this approach begins with my willingness to work and to get them talking. Then at a critical moment we share a little about ourselves. Try to get at least three of their stories to ever one you offer.

Stage Two

Leadership track:          I do it, you help!

Relational track:            Belonging, risking, trusting
At this stage, the young adult is beginning to feel accepted, included and wanted. It may be time to move to stage two. “Could you come help us build the set for the play we are doing?”  While building the set another leader joined the group and discovered that our new freshman was a sound man at his home church.  “We have a sound person, but he needs help from time to time.  Would you be interested in talking to him?”

Being careful not to push too much responsibility on people too quickly, the assessment needed here is, “does she or he feel that sense of belonging enough to join in some?”  The process is always about building relationship first, involving in leadership, second. Rushing this stage has big consequences. Asking the student to do too much at this stage has been my mistake much too often. I am a risker by nature so they should be too! This is so wrong in many cases. Leaving space to explore where they want to get involved is honoring the student.

Stage Three

Leadership track:          You do it, I help (or support.)

Relational track:            Planning life together

At this third stage, “letting go” to give students opportunities for leadership is critical.  We, as campus ministers, are challenged at this point to explore various ways of lending support to student leaders.   With whatever we try, the young adult needs to know we are supportive but also responsible to step back in on issues of substance. But the style and form of the ministry task will reflect their way of doing it. Once I was trying to explain Wesley’s doctrine of prevenient, justifying and sanctifying grace, using the porch, door and house analogy many of us have used.  The student leader took the analogy and made it relevant for the student group.  It was great to see the student’s ownership and leadership emerge.

The relational/educational track associated with this leadership stage is planning life together.  It is extremely exciting to be part of a process that enables students to step up and make solid plans for ministry, and carry them through.  My stepping back, yet remaining supportive, opens the avenue to student lead ministry.

Earlier we touched on Jesus sending out the 70. Will they do well? Are they ready? If Jesus sends them out to minister, I think I will too! Ready or not here they come. What if they fail? I go in to this process praying for them and calculating which ministries are ok to have some failure and which truly should not. A worship service should not be left for failure but components of it can be rough or lacking here and there. Once we recruited a person to sing a solo in our service. She gave it all she had but it was a joyful noise. I was concerned for her until I saw the outpouring of support she received from the fellowship. They were proud of her for offering herself!

Stage Four

Leadership track:                                  You do it, I’ll move on to other ministry needs.

Relational/ Educational track:                A supportive, Christian community, family

There is much of ministry we do that really could and should be done by others.  Young adults are very capable of planning and implementing significant ministries if given the tools, and the opportunity.  This last step affirms this important reality:  there are essential aspects of ministry we neglect and do not get done.  If we work through the “four stages of ease” redundantly and effectively, we begin to experience a freeing to do new ministries, to get back to what we were called to do in the first place.  It took the repairing a fence to find a great mission coordinator.  We slowly hand over responsibility until we reach the rewarding place of empowering young adults.

There is so much more to this model.  For example, there is a third track developed by David Stone in the original book, the theological track.  Using John Westerhoff’s book, Will Our Children Have Faith?, four theological stages are discussed that match the “four stages of ease.”

Theological                               Relational/Educational               Leadership

Experiencing faith                      Finding common ground                        I do it

Telling your story

Affiliative faith                           Belonging (risking, trusting)                   I do it, you help

Searching faith                          Planning life together                             You do it, I help

Owned faith                              Supportive Christian Community           You do it, I move on!

Since young adults tend to be in the searching faith stage, sharing responsibility and leadership with them becomes essential to their faith development.  When we say, as campus ministers and leaders, “it’s just easier to do it myself,” we must realize that we may have, at that moment, blocked someone’s faith development and entry into authentic Christian community.

I wish I could say,  for more information…, but the book is out of print, and its target audience was people working with youth (ages 12-18), not people working with  young adults in university communities.  It is my strong suggestion that you sit down and examine what you are doing in ministry.  From there, begin to pray about how and who might take a particular area of ministry.  Slowly begin to hand it over to those wonderful college students ready to try.  Sure I make it sound easier than it is.  But the principle works.

To my friends who incorporate interns in a large part of their ministry, I offer a word of caution.  I have found it a great temptation to empower the interns only to the end that they do the ministry, not the students.  Teach them the “four stages of ease!”  Turn them into ministers who share leadership and responsibility, too.

Grace and Peace,
David Goolsby

Categories: Student Leadership
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