Gilbert’s Coaching Tips

If you are like me, you probably have a fairly long list of things to do to wrap up the semester before heading into the summer.  Our Student LINC team sat down last week to talk about the types of things we are doing to finish up.  We came up with some typical things that we all do and a few things out of the ordinary.   The more I thought about some of those items, they seemed to fall into a few categories.  Though not exhaustive, hopefully this will spur some of your thinking as you transition from Spring into Summer.

Know what you need to do to hit the ground running in August.

• Possibly have a leadership retreat, but in any case, make sure leaders plan for the fall.
  • http://www.godsquad.com/leading/fallplan.htm
• Find out the earliest possible time to connect with Freshmen.
  • One of Eric’ Dellaire’s schools is allowing them to send an email to incoming freshmen two weeks before they arrive on campus.

Celebrate what God has done this year.

• Ben Rivera encourages his ministries to have an end of the year party.
• Gets stats from your student leaders.  This is a tangible way to see how God has worked.
  • You can use this tool on GodSquad to help you gather stats if you are doing multiple ministries.

Send the students off to the summer on a solid footing.

• There is a Summer Survival Guide on GodSquad with various components from which you can choose.
• Encourage students to get summer phone numbers to stay in touch.
• As you think about graduating seniors, request the “Next” booklet from the Every Student Sent team to help coach them well.
  • Eric set himself up as a team on AllCallings.com.  He is encouraging his seniors to join his team as a way of staying connected.

For any students doing high school ministry, there are three articles for leaders on http://www.gocampus.org/

• Out with the Old!, “Senior Banquet Outreach”.
• In with the New!, “Future Freshman Spectacular”.
• Planning for the summer, ”Summer Ministry ideas”.