One of the most exciting parts of being a Christian is knowing that there is work to do, and that we are trusted by God to carry it out. College ministry is just one piece of the puzzle that you and I have responded to. How can we follow God’s model of delegating work?
I believe that one of God’s greatest gifts to the Church is His delegation of mission, and that He gives us the authority to see pieces of it come together. In other words, God has chosen not to be selfish in His work, but to release responsibility to His people. Sure, He has the power to snap His fingers and solve all of the world’s problems, but how much more does it bring Him glory that fallible humans take part in seeing His work accomplished across the Earth?
God has a long history of delegation. From the very beginning, He charged Adam and his descendants to watch over the Earth and its creatures. God delegated Moses to bring a nation back into relationship with Him. Jeremiah and dozens of other prophets were delegated to be God’s mouthpiece to the Earth. God even delegated Himself, by sending Jesus to be savior to all who would believe, who in turn delegated His followers to accomplish great works throughout the Earth. Do we have any right to be selfish with our work?
I recently started working full time, while keeping a part time pastoral position in college ministry for my church. To be honest, the recent influx of college students back into my life after summer break was overwhelming. As a rule of thumb, college ministries should be hopping the first two weeks of the semester, so we had a lot going on. Between working full time, doing ministry, and rehearsing with my band, I had worked over eighty hours each of the first two weeks. I realize that many of you are in the same busy-boat, and I want to suggest to you that we as leaders are serving our followers by delegating our work.
After those first two eighty-hour weeks, I decided that something had to change, or that I’d get burnt out real quick. I immediately thought of ways to hand off some of my tasks to my amazing college ministry interns and student leadership team, and they’ve done an awesome job so far. Jay and John, my two interns, lead a weekly bible study, have taken charge of our worship-team in big ways, and have been focusing on ways that our club can become officially recognized on campus this semester. Xiolynn and Meghan just hung one hundred fliers around campus. Alexandria is coordinating our weekly Friday night activities. Abby is carrying on our card ministry. And there’s so many more students doing amazing things week after week, and I’m so appreciative. I couldn’t do this work without them accepting these delegated roles.
I want to suggest that you delegate a majority of your tasks to allow you to be people-focused in your ministry, not task-focused. By handing off responsibilities, you are freeing up time that you can spend with actual humans, instead of checking things off of a list. Another really cool thing happens when you delegate responsibilities to your students; they tend to get excited that a leader in their life has just entrusted an important ministry into their hands, and they totally own it. Let’s remember how leaders are developed in the first place; they are given an opportunity to lead. Let’s follow God’s example. Let’s develop leaders by delegated our work.
What tasks have you delegated to your student leadership or fellow volunteers? Do you have any cool stories about how these people reacted?