My life changed on June 17, 2017. My wife and I welcomed our first child into the world, a beautiful, bubbly, sassy little bundle of joy, named Sloane. Sloane did what babies do: rocked our daily routine and forged a new norm for our family.
Adjusting to the new norm was equally painful and prosperous, as I was forced to rethink how I spent my personal time, in order to maximize my efforts as a husband first, father second, and vocational minister third. Over the past few months I have had to make changes to how I do ministry; some have been drastic, while others have been subtle. One emphasis that has been magnified in my ministry is the principle of multiplication.
The goal of leadership is multiplication.
As a Student Pastor, I am most effective when I find ways to multiply my ability, reach, and impact through others. No matter how hard I work, or how fast I run, I will never be able to effectively minster to all of our students. I have to purposefully allocate significant time and energy into training and equipping parents and adult leaders to minister to students. Multiplying my efforts through others is the goal of leadership.
The foundation to multiplication, particularly through adult volunteers, is recruiting the right people at the start. With Travis Avenue Student Ministry, we look for potential leaders who:
1. Love God – We want adult volunteers who love God and are trying to look more like Jesus every day. The best lesson an adult can teach a student is the life they live. If we can find adults who love God, the other details can fall into place along the way.
2. Love Students – We are looking for people who are uniquely called to pursuing teenagers, even if it be for only a season. You have to be a certain level of crazy to want to minister to teenagers. Teenagers are a beautiful mix of raw emotion, limitless passion, and relentless energy, and I love it. We are looking for people who share the same love for students that we have.
3. Fit our culture – We are picky, and will not apologize for it. We will not bring a new adult volunteer on board unless they fit the culture we aim to build. The reasons are two fold. First, an adult who does not fit our culture will hinder, not help, our ability to move towards our goal. Second, an adult who does not fit our culture will ultimately be miserable.
Once we have an adult volunteer on board, it is then our responsibility to lead by example. That will come in part two of this post later. Until then, here are some pictures of Ms. Sloane, since you know, her mom and I are obsessed.
Daniel Morrow 