I received an email this week asking about transitioning new leadership next year. It was a great reminder. If you have not begun by now, you do want to be thinking about which leaders you can count on returning next year and who can be asked to move into leadership. The earlier you can choose your leaders for next year the more they can prepare for their roles. Here are some things to help in the transitioning process.
Transitioning to new leadership
1. What is God calling our leaders to?
- Why not take them through the “Transformational Community” article. Use the discussion questions to guide your study.
- Ben Rivera’s Life Focus studies are a great way to look at the purpose passages of the Bible and think through how to develop a personal mission. There is nothing like the personal interaction with God’s Word that these studies help foster. You can either do the studies during your leadership meetings or have them do them on their own and then come prepared to discuss them.
2. Developing personal vision.
- Next, for personal perspective, read and study “Developing Vision for your Movement”. Establishing vision and motivation is so important for your students.
- Another helpful diagnostic is “Evaluating the Direction of my Movement”.
3. Planning.
- Finally, in preparation for the fall, look at the “First 6 Weeks”. This will help to specifically plan for the most critical time of the year.
- Read “Two Essentials for the First Week of School”.
My youngest son, Tom, has his first high school track meet this week. The relays are always exciting races. The handoff is the most important part of any relay. If that baton is dropped, the team is disqualified, or, at the least, looses precious seconds and momentum. The next runner to receive the baton gets themselves into position to receive it and then take off running. They must keep in mind both what is happening with the runner handing off and the race in front of them. This is such an apt metaphor of what we want to see happen in transitioning leadership. They watch the current leadership to consider what and how to lead and they begin to plan for when it is their turn to lead. Let’s help that baton pass go well.
