Coaching Your Volunteers
Ah, the fall. High School Football. You can see your breath. You’re eating overpriced nachos from the under-staffed school booster club concession stand. There’s nothing better than the crack of the football helmets hitting together. The cheerleaders in the background, the coach barking commands to his team. The team listens then works together in perfect unison to score a touchdown.
The difference between the picture we just painted and your role as a youth worker? You’re not in the stands in the youth ministry game, my friend. You are a coach. Here are some thoughts about coaching your volunteer team in the seasons ahead.
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PRESEASON (late summer)
A coach in this season is focused on making sure his team is ready to perform at the highest level. Training and conditioning are the key. Preparation is essential for success on the field. In your ministry pre-season (July/August) make sure your team is trained and ready for the challenges of the season ahead.
INSEASON (school year)
A coach in this season is focused on winning games. Watching game films, evaluation and adjustments are key here. A youth ministry coach needs to constantly be evaluating services, programs and people to make sure each are working effectively. You can make changes at this point, but they have to be the right ones because the game is on the line.
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The HOLY MATRIMONY SALE!
SAVE today on 4 Perfectly Paired Bundles!
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OFFSEASON (summer)
This season is hardly “off” right? We recently looked back on this past summer and it felt busier than another other season this past year. So forgive us where the analogy breaks down a bit – but a coach in the off season becomes a strategist. They change up the playbook. They toss out what wasn’t working and experiment with something new. They take advantage of the lull and focus on recruiting new talent for their team. They plan ahead and make sure they are ready for when the team is assembled in the preseason once again.
Go get ‘em, coach!
Conversation
To Great Article Friends, #1.
To Great Article Friends,
#1. Whenever I think of coaching, I think of Bobby Knight throwing a chair and abusing athletes as a control freak.
#2. Football, and my son played college football, is like watching the Roman Gladiators of ROME. What are we as Christian promoting.
#3. Can't we do better than buy into the secular athletic celebrity culture by creating a cadre of youth who abide deeply, engage broadly and are both empowered and resourced by the KINGDOM...including the adult laity over the age of 40 who have raised their kids and might have some wisdom to share.
#4. I don't understand where you are getting these insights...if that is what you call them.
For example, engage youth and their parents in questions that will relate to their future life...
"What 21st century society, like the information society, will your child work in, play in and help shape?
There will be a new society by 2030 that will replace the information society. We have the opportunity to help shape it or react to it. Teens, such as JOBS and GATES, shaped the information society; therefore, teens might will shape the DESIGN SOCIETY Of 2030.
Thanks for being willing to post my somewhat controversial comments.
First, you analogy of
First, you analogy of football coaches sucks.
Second, the question that parents and coaches should be asking is, "Does the high school or college have disability insurance if my son is disabled mentally because of a series of concussions?"
Third, it is time that we let the students organize the activities much like the former sand lot games that went on a generation ago.
Fourth, have teens develop team service projects that deal with the underlying causes of a problem, e.g., food, housing or poverty as well as the symptoms.
Fifth, don't call them volunteers. They are called by God and accountable to God. Volunteers just bail out all too often.
Just a few thoughts but you never respond...I am getting discouraged!
Great article friends, I
Great article friends,
I really like the connection between the youth world and our time watching football. It is a great reminder to all youth workers that we are the coach and need to spend sometime in the off season (if there is an off season in youth ministry), preseason and post season growing and educating the team.
Great post.
thanks a bunch
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