For the last year I have had a goal as it comes to my work with the Student Ministry at LifePoint: get rid of the Pied Piper. What's so funny about this goal is that being a Pied Piper was what originally defined me in ministry. I loved the fact that the kids followed me and wanted to be around me, and that was even a catalyst for me desiring to work with students. The problem with such an attitude is that it creates a self-focused ministry and keeps students from getting close to an adult leader since one person can't develop deep relationships with 60 students. So I decided to kill the Pied Piper about a year ago. I wanted to empower others to be leaders; I wanted to become a leader of leaders. The past two nights I had meetings with new people who are going to serve in the Student MInistry. I'm pretty excited to have them with us. These two people are going to take the role of loving students onto their shoulders, and they will have opportunities to develop deep relationships over the next year. For ministry to have longevity, there can't be any Pied Pipers. After all, if you know the story, the Pied Piper eventually left and the kids followed him out of the town (details of the story are here). If we want ministry to be successful for years and years, we cannot have Pied Pipers because when they leave the kids leave too (a principle that also applies to adult ministry). The Pied Piper is now dead at LifePoint, and I'm pleased to announce that we have an awesome group of leaders working with students, and these leaders are impacting lives every day.
Leave a Reply