The past few weeks have been heavy for me. You know, the type of weeks where your to-do list is a mile long and you don’t know where to start. Between special events and school starting back, there seemed to be more to do than I could shoulder.
 
     The past few weeks have been tough, but they’ve also been vital for our youth ministry. During my heaviest time of ministry this year, our team experienced some incredible wins! As a matter of fact, last Wednesday was not only one of my busiest Wednesdays of the year, it was also one of the best!
 
     So how in the world did an overwhelming night of ministry turn into such a win? Easy, our team carried us to a win I couldn’t have shouldered on my own. Everybody did their job and focused on their assignment. So even in the middle of the fray, I found myself free to love on students and leaders like never before!
 
    When you have a winning team, there’s nothing you can’t get through. There’s no obstacle you cannot overcome. But the time to develop your team is not when things get tough, it starts long before that.
 
     Over the past few weeks, I’ve been trying to pinpoint what we did to develop a team like this. I wish I could take credit for it, but more than anything it’s a product of our church culture. We have leaders who show us daily how to develop a winning team, but I never tried to identify how until recently.
 
     In an attempt to reverse engineer what causes this, I came up with three keys to developing a winning team. I say it often, but youth ministry is tough. Every leader will come to a point where they need a team to lean on. It’s my prayer that these three keys will help you develop a team you can lean on when you need them.

3 Keys to Developing a Winning Team

1) Trust Your People

Trust can be difficult for leaders. It’s easy to talk about trusting your people, but much harder to actually do it. You see, the problem with trust is there’s always a chance you will fall.
 
You’ve probably made your students perform a “trust fall” before. Let’s be honest, it’s pretty funny to watch  students flail about and freak out when they start to fall! We know their partner will catch them, but they’re not so sure.
 
Church leaders, I believe it’s time to do a leadership trust fall with our volunteers! I hate that word by the way. I don’t want volunteers, I want leaders. Your people will never make the jump from volunteers to leaders though if you don’t trust them.
 
Trust is defined as the firm belief in the reliability and ability of someone. This is why trust is so hard! When you trust your team, it means you trust them to get the job done. You don’t look over their shoulder, check in with them 100 times, or take the job back out of fear. That’s not trust.
 
The person who says “If you want a job done right, do it yourself” has a trust problem. Not only that, but they definitely aren’t leading a winning team. Trusting your team is the only way they can become trustworthy. So trust them to do ministry and not just sit on the sidelines.
 
Trust is hard, but it’s worth it! You can’t develop a winning team without trust.

2) Empower Your People

When most leaders think about empowering people, they think about delegation. Empowering people is more than that though. You will always delegate to people when you empower them, but you won’t empower people just because you delegate to them.

You see, delegation is about tasks, but empowerment is about authority. Delegating tasks gives your people something to do, but empowering them gives them something to lead. Winning teams are teams with people who are empowered to lead and not simply perform tasks!

If you want to develop a winning team, give your people authority. Empower them with the authority to lead things that matter! If you delegate busy work you’ll develop busy people. If you empower authority you’ll develop powerful people!

Winning teams are empowered teams. How are you empowering your youth ministry team?

3) Develop Your People

Trusting people is getting them in the game, empowering people is giving them authority, and developing people is helping them win! To develop someone is to help them grow and get better. Great leaders are great developers of people!

It’s important to understand people will fail at times when you trust and empower them. It’s not a bad thing, it’s just part of the process. The question is not whether they will fail, the question is how will you respond when they do. Our job as leaders is to develop people and help them grow.

The hardest part of developing people is the time it takes. It takes time to fix  mistakes. It takes time to teach new skills. And it takes spending time with your people to get to know them and pray over them to truly develop them.

If you want to develop a winning team, do whatever it takes to develop your people. Take the time to help them grow spiritually, personally, and in leadership. Winning teams are developed by winning coaches, so let’s commit to being those coaches for our people!

     Are you a part of a winning team? What steps can you take to become a better coach? Let me know in the comments section below. Also, subscribe below to receive free resources and updates directly to your inbox.