How To Delegate In Your Ministry

Years ago I attended a family wedding; therefore, I needed to delegate leadership responsibilities to a few volunteers.  When I returned no one died, nothing burned down or was broken; however, there were a few mishaps in my absence.  Plans fell through, activities did not happen and when I came back the ministry was out of sorts.  The problem?  I did not do a good job at handing off responsibilities and tasks.

Courtesy of Ian Sane/Creative Commons License

As a leader you need to know how to delegate responsibility or else you will limit the growth of your youth ministry.  It’s with this skill that a youth minister can:

• Extend his capacity
• Add new voices to the ministry.
• Play to his strengths
• Create a succession plan

If you are going to keep your ministry growing and moving it’s important to learn how to delegate effectively.  It’s not rocket science; however, it does take a some bold and strategic steps.  To delegate properly you need to:

• Understand What To Pass On: Knowing what to delegate means understanding your weaknesses and strengths.  That means giving up tasks you like (And some you don’t like) in order to be great at others.  When you know what to delegate you can start praying for the right people to take ownership of that area.  To get started list out your job responsibilities, and then prioritize them.  Try to whittle down your “must do’s” to 3 or 5.

• Share Creative Responsibility: Your ministry needs different voices because you are reaching out to several types of students.  This means sharing the themes and topics of what you want to talk about with your students and asking leaders and asking them, “How can we best amplify the point?” By delegating creative responsibility you’ll be able to approach the same subjects in a new light over and over again.

• Cast Vision With Clear Instruction: To avoid mishaps and disappointment when you delegate it’s important to motivate and set your team up for success.  Delegating is not as simple as saying, “Here you take it.” You need to give your leaders the purpose of the task, it’s impact and lessons you’ve learned from success and failure.  When you give them the whole picture they’ll be able to embrace the responsibility and take the burden off your shoulders.

• Be Willing To Let Go: When you pour time, energy and emotion in to something, to just give it away seems cold and irresponsible.  To help with the pain of delegating make the act a ceremony.  Celebrate the new life this area of your ministry will experience.  Acknowledge your braveness to let it go.  When you are willing to let go of responsibility it means you care more about the ministry’s effectiveness than your own pride.

The more you delegate now the easier it will become down the road as your ministry grows.  The important thing to remember is by letting go a piece of your ministry you are preparing for the future when you might have to step down or away.  The more you keep for yourself the less chance it has to survive when you are gone. By practicing the art of delegation you give your ministry the ability to grow and impact more people with the love of Jesus Christ.

What’s your biggest fear or apprehension to delegating a piece of your ministry?