Student Leadership - who needs ‘em?
February 19th, 2007I am writing this to you - my friends in campus ministry hoping to pull out some discussion about student leaders. Recently a colleague recounted an issue with one of his leaders and it brought to memory many other conversations I have had over the years with various campus ministers. Student leaders: Can’t live with them, can’t live without them!There is so much drama. 20 year olds know everything. “Sacred Cows” are just as real in the college community as they are in the multi-generational local church. And dare I say it, many Methodist raised students seem to have a special gift of antagonism.
My colleague spoke of a misunderstanding in communication that hurt the feelings of one leader. For nearly two weeks, the leader grew more and more angry, yet she never confronted her campus pastor. Things just started getting wierd - not with her, but with 4 other students. After intuition and mind-reading, followed by the heeve-hoe of pulling it out of them, my colleague discovered the source of the wierdness. For two weeks, these students - all leaders in the ministry - commiserated together, creating a whispering campaign that infected half the student leadership.
How do you handle something like this?
Many similar things have happened and continue to happen in our ministry. We spend much of our student leadership meetings talking about communication and meta-communication and healthy confrontation and group process and group-think, blah, blah, blah. Personally, I grow weary of it because I want our student leadership meetings to be positive and worshipful; celebratory of what God is doing in our community. God is moving and lives are being touched, yet every week we wonder, “is the student leadership going to be ok with us today?”
So do we need student leaders? Yes we do. But how do we help them communicate in ways that are life-giving and not destructive? How do we harness their passion and turn it from grumbling and strife toward problem-solving and being part of solutions? How do we validate their opinions and positions, yet help steer them to a better place? How do we affirm them and impart value to them as people and as leaders, yet challenge them to push themselves to a healthier perspective?
I have my own ideas about how to answer these questions. By no means should I or will I give up on them - - after all, no one gave up on me. I simply would like to hear from you about your experiences with dealing with the drama and how you pastor your student leaders - these that will be sitting at their computer in 8 - 10 - 15 years typing the same things.
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All of us in campus ministry can recall situations like the one above. Sure, students cause problems, treat each other poorly, etc. It can be very frustrating to work with college students!
However, one thing that is important in this type of situation is our mindsets as leaders - how do we view our students? Translate it to Jesus when He picked the disciples…I doubt that He was not aware of the future frustrations that were awaiting Him with the group that was before Him. But, The Bible says that He chose them to ‘be with Him.’ To me, that means that Jesus knew the costs and still said, “I dont care about your weaknesses as much as I see your potential.”
Our mindsets toward our students should be one of grace - none of us should be shocked at what our students do, because they really do not know better! College is one of the most formative times, and so we have the privilege to help our students learn how to engage in the community of believers according to the testimony of the Word and the power of the Holy Spirit.
I will stop ramblin now and see what others have to say!