Sometimes in ministry leaders have to know when to get out of the way. We spend a lot of time equipping those who we are in ministry with.
This weekend as I was going to sleep during our “Homeless For a Night” event my mind went to the way that our students really stepped up and planned a ton of the event themselves. I checked in with them from time to time in and got updates about the progress that was being made. We worked through road blocks together and had real joint ownership over things.
One of the hard parts about letting go of ideas and control of ministry is that they might not happen the way that they were originally intended. But, every time we have an event where our students give the primary leadership and vision they come out better than anything than I or our adults could do on our own.
When there is momentum in a ministry (see the Faith Lab: Momentum post) sometimes the best thing that we can do as leaders is step aside. Some things will turn out great and others will not. We are called to rejoice with our students and congregation when things go well. Also helping our young people to “fail well” is a part of discipleship and getting out of the way too. We will not let the students in our ministry fall flat on their faces if they have a misstep, but perhaps once in a while we need to be the net that catches them when they fall rather than bailing them out so that the misstep is not noticed. I love the times where I can debrief with our students and we can always learn from what went well and what we can improve on.
It is hard to get out of the way and much more relational to come beside the congregation and students and learn together, but well worth it in the long run. Besides our goal in ministry isn’t seamless programs is it deep discipleship.
