9 top tips for young leaders

You’re under 30 and you’re leading in church. How do you lead well and raise up the next generation of young leaders? Ben Ryan from Limitless and Sam Johnson from City Church Cardiff share their views

 

Did you know that out of Elim’s 700 active ministers, just 29 (four per cent) are aged under 30? It’s a stat that General Superintendent Mark Pugh is keen to change. That’s why, at this year’s ELS, he invited Sam Johnson and Ben Ryan to take a ‘Leading Young’ seminar.

The pair began the session by highlighting a tough challenge for Elim: addressing a lack of young leaders in national and local positions and breaking a cycle where younger people lack opportunities because leaders hold their roles until retirement.

“We celebrate ministers when they retire at 67 and they’re still senior leaders. I’m not sure we should be celebrating that as much as someone who’s retiring who has, over the past ten years, seen other people raised up while taking steps to the side themselves,” says Sam.

If leaders of every age adopt this mentality, he explains, Elim can raise and nurture its next generation of leaders.

“It’s important for me, as someone in a position of leadership, to ask: can I raise someone up and get out of the way so I’m offering opportunities?”

In their seminar Ben and Sam emphasised “head, heart and hands” – actions which young leaders can take to put this advice into practice.

Head

1. Don’t be afraid to fail

Ben helped lead his youth group as a young adult. “It was absolute chaos. Week in week out, the church building was smashed to bits. It felt like we were always putting out fires,” he says.

“As a young leader stepping into ministry I was scared of getting it wrong.”

This is a fear we can relate to at any age, but take heart: everyone fails – look at Peter and his denial of Jesus – and God doesn’t discard us when we mess up in ministry.

“We need to stop viewing failure as the end and start seeing it as part of the journey. It’s not about being fearless, but being faithful in spite of our fears.”

2. Yield to wisdom

“There’s a cultural assumption that as you get older you get wiser – therefore young people are foolish, older people are wise and we’re all on a journey to wisdom. That isn’t true,” says Sam.

You only have to look at Soloman veering off course to take many hundreds of wives to see wisdom can be lost with age. Sam quotes Beth Moore, who says “You don’t age into wisdom, you yield into it.”

“My encouragement around wisdom is seek it out. Don’t think it’s going to come to you. Ask for it and when it comes, learn to yield your thoughts and wisdom to the wisdom God brings.”

3. Leading = serving

“So often, leadership is confused with having power, holding a microphone or being in the spotlight,” says Ben.

“But Jesus flips this completely upside down. He says ‘the greatest among you must be your servant’.”

Counter-cultural kingdom leadership begins at the bottom – by picking up a towel, not a title. Credibility, trust, authenticity and integrity are the result.

“It removes entitlement and builds empathy with the people around us.

“We have to lead by lifting others up rather than climbing over each other.”

Heart

4. Get real

In a world that is curated, filtered and performance-driven, young leaders who are real stand out, says Ben. “Authentic leadership isn’t about having all the answers… it’s about being honest, self-aware and grounded in who you really are.”

People are drawn to leaders who are vulnerable, and when you lead authentically others will feel safe to open up too.

“Jesus is the perfect model of this. He didn’t hide his emotions or fears. He wept, got tired, asked questions.

“You don’t have to have it all together, God is just asking us to be real.”

5. Guard against pride

John Stott once said that in every area of our Christian lives, pride is our greatest enemy and humility is our greatest friend.

Pride damages our hearts, Sam says, because it squashes our ability to accept we need salvation and forgiveness and to live lifestyles of worship. It also makes serving all about us.

“If we don’t eradicate pride and ego we face a very difficult walk, firstly with Jesus and secondly in ministry,” says Sam.

“We have to be in a space where we can receive daily salvation, make daily confession and live a lifestyle of worship.

“We also need to be in a place where we say, ‘I’m going to serve this person like no one else is watching’, because most of the time, no one is!”

Hands

6. Lead up…

This skill is one of the most vital yet often overlooked, says Ben. It’s the ability to honour and influence people above you without needing a position yourself.

“It’s about offering solutions, being trustworthy and showing initiative, not waiting to be asked but adding value off your own back,” he explains.

7. …and release down

Coupled with this is investing in younger people and empowering them to lead.

“When we commit to bridging the gap between the generations we become part of something bigger than ourselves, and that’s how legacy is built,” says Ben.

He’s experienced this himself.

“My pastor took me to speaking engagements, at times handing me the microphone and saying, ‘Ben, tell the church what God’s saying to them.’

“His heart was to release space for me to grow.”

8. Be self-aware

Sam describes the joy of being laid-back and having fun as a leader, but equally the need to be sensitive and adaptable depending on the situation. “I want to create culture, bring joy, happiness and teach people that church isn’t somewhere to come and be scared and sit in your Sunday best… but I’m also aware that if my senior leader is away and I have to lead someone’s mother’s funeral, they might be nervous about whether I can lead it well.

“…I need to communicate to people that I love them enough as a leader to lay myself down and say, ‘how can I serve you?’

“At times that’s by being totally myself, at others it’s by holding something of myself back because people need something different from me.”

9. Lead yourself well

“Before we can lead others we have to lead ourselves well,” says Ben. “Selfleadership is where the unseen battles are won; your disciplines, thoughts, emotional and spiritual health.”

It’s easy to look good in public while crumbling in private, he says, but eventually those cracks will appear.

That’s why being intentional about rest, accountability, reflection, saying yes and no, and asking tough questions about our motivation and integrity matters.

“The best leaders don’t just have strong platforms, they have deep roots,” says Ben.

This article first appeared in Direction Magazine. For further details, please click here.