As summer approaches, ministry leaders in many churches will spend time recruiting and training new leaders to serve in their church’s kids ministry, the youth ministry, and to lead groups and classes for adults. If you are approached and asked, here are six reasons you should say yes:
1. You will learn more deeply.
If you are showing up each week at church and only learning, you are not learning as much as you could if you started also feeding others. You have likely heard this many times; a teacher or leader will say, “I am getting way more out of this than you are.” The reason we hear this so frequently is because it is true. As a leader prepares to lead others, the leader is sharpened. As a teacher prepares to feed others, the teacher is fed.
2. You will be able to articulate the faith more clearly.
The great theologian Helmut Thielicke required all of his doctoral students to teach kids while they were studying theology for their advanced degrees. He knew that if you really understood theology, you could articulate it to someone else—even to a child. Articulating truth to real people helps you really learn it.
3. You will give of yourself more freely.
Christians give of themselves not to earn favor with Christ but because Christ gave of Himself for us. When you lead a group of kids, students, or adults and you pray for those you are leading, you will find yourself loving them more than you imagined and giving of yourself more than you planned. And you will know you are a part of something very significant.
4. You will impact others exponentially.
An investment you make in others is not a short-term investment. It impacts the lives of those you serve and the lives of people they will serve. The middle school student you pour into will one day have his own family. The young couple you invest in will make an impact in their careers. The ripple effect of ministering to others is profound.
5. You will be stewarding your gifts and His grace faithfully.
You are included in the body of Christ, and you have been gifted to serve the body. If you are a Christian, He has qualified and gifted you to serve. The Scripture is clear that “just as each one has received a gift, use it to serve others, as good stewards of the varied grace of God” (1 Peter 4:10). You get to steward the grace of God and distribute it to others as you use your gift!
6. You will be investing eternally.
The last lines from Charles Studd’s famous poem are a helpful reminder: “Only one life ’twill soon be past. Only what’s done for Christ will last.” When you are invited to pour the teachings of Christ into others, you are being invited to invest in what will last. You are being invited to make an eternal impact in the lives of others. This invitation is too compelling to turn down.
