My friend Ben Rivera recently had a conversation with
a student leader and he advised her to begin to prepare now for next year and
for next year’s leaders. You might be saying, “But we’re just getting
into this school year, we’re not thinking about next year yet.” However,
there is something very powerful and important yet very simple that you can
begin to do now to prepare future leaders…
Journal Your Ministry
Activities
Buy yourself a small notebook and
call it your “Ministry Journal” or create a document on your computer or start
a blog. In this journal you want to log and describe the activities that
you’re doing each week with the campus ministry. Describe all the things
you are doing in ministry as well as how you felt things went and what changes
you would make if you could do it again or if things went well, why they went
well.
Activities you could include in
your journal are:
- Your leadership planning times
- Weekly meetings or Bible studies if you have them
- Beginning of year surveys
- Social events or evangelistic outreaches
- Prayer meetings
- Reserving rooms or finding places to have meetings or events
- Printing and putting up posters or how you advertised your activities
- Things that went really well
- Things you would do differently
- Everything else you do for the ministry
Your journaled notes will give
the next leaders a huge head start because they’ll have a better idea of what
works and what does not work on your campus and how to go about doing
things. Plus they will glean from your experience so they don’t make the
same mistakes you’ve made.
As you hand over leadership when
you graduate, you will also pass them your ‘journal’, to those who will carry
on. When it comes to leaders for the future, now is the time to
prepare. Journaling 5-10 minutes each week could be one of the best things
you do to continue the legacy of ministry on your campus.
