Leading From Ahead

A great game all of us have played with kids one time or another is follow the leader. You walk around with your arms out like a bird. You hop around like a frog. You make funny noises to be what ever it is that you want the kids to do. It is fun.  The point is as kids are doing that, they are following the decisions you make. You can't play follow the leader and be behind them. You can't tell them to act like a bird after they are already acting like monkeys. Anything you lead, you must learn to lead from the front to be effective. This doesn't mean you have to be the guy up front talking. It does mean you need to make the decisions where the people you are following are going and what they look like. 

First, you have to decide what you want things to look like. In our families, do you want your kids to be athletes? Bible scholars? Nerds? or whatever. You lead them by creating places for them to love those things. I have a twelve year old daughter, she won't get her head out of a book. My wife wanted to pass down the love of reading to her so as a toddler she read to her a lot. If you want ministry to be fun for kids then you create avenues for fun in your ministry. If you want to create community you create opportunities for community. Leading ahead means you dictate what you want it to be. 

All to often, I see people that allow situations and circumstances to dictate where they lead. You lead from behind in those situation. Leading from behind in your family is a problem because it allows your children to dictate your mood and who they become. It drives me crazy to hear parents always yelling "NO" to their toddlers. Tell them what you want them to do. You leave a breakable trinket on the coffee table, it is your fault. You are creating a problem. Tell your child, "play with this". Move the item some place else. 

In your ministry, when you constantly allow situations to make you create new rules or policies then you are leading from behind. You can't allow a one time situation dictate policy. The more we create rules and policies that we have to dictate to our kids the more we lose the opportunity for kids to step up and do the right thing on their own. I am not saying go ruleless. I am saying create ministry that kids can succeed at managing themselves. Keep them interested. Keep them engaged. Keep them worshipping and the rules that you need followed will happen. Lead kids don't dictate rules.