Training Onramps for Your Youth Ministry Team

by Kara Powell and the Fuller Youth Institute

Kara and the team at FYI have filled an important training gap with this excellent resource that moves volunteers from being chaperones to becoming shepherds. This thoroughly-researched, user-friendly approach (team journals, group meeting guides, etc.) is precisely the kind of mentor-focused training that our leaders need and the kind of motivating/equipping resource that wise (and busy) youth workers want to provide but seldom have time to prepare.
Dr. Duffy Robbins
Professor of Youth Ministry
Eastern University

If you’re like most youth workers, you hold regular meetings for your adult volunteers and small group leaders. And if you’re like most youth workers, all too often these meetings degenerate into a string of announcements about upcoming events and fail to lead your team toward deeper ministry philosophies or practices.

Deep Leadership offers you something different: a school year’s worth of training modules that are both easy to use but also geared for heavy contextualization based on the particular needs of leaders, kids, and communities.

Journeying as a Team

The companion piece to this curriculum, the Deep Leadership Training Journal, is a complementary resource available for staff and volunteers that helps them mull over and apply the training to their lives and ministries during the few weeks following your team’s discussion.

Topics You’ll Cover

An Assessment of Your Ministry’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats
Integrating Students into the Life of the Church
Effective Family Ministry
Holistic Ministry: Giving Kids More Than Just a Bible Study
Giving and Receiving Mentoring
Getting the Rest You Need
Deep Justice/Maximizing Your Next Service Experience or Missions Trip
Helping Kids Through Hurt, Pain, and Trauma
Giving Your Kids a Faith that Lasts

Look for Deep Leadership in Print as

Essential Leadership: Ministry Team Meetings That Work

Available in January 2010!

Deep Leadership and the Deep Leadership Training Journal were available exclusively on this website from September 2-December 15 2008 as electronic files (pdf downloads). Youth Specialties/Zondervan is releasing these resources in hard copy form under the new title in January 2010.

What Other Leaders Are Saying About Deep Leadership:

The quality of resources that are coming from FYI is unparalleled these days, and Deep Leadership is as good as anything I’ve seen. Deploying an increasing number of well cared for adult ministry leaders is the not-so-secret key to our ability to share Jesus with kids in life-on-life relationships. Our staff who use Deep Leadership will find it an extremely valuable asset in this multiplication strategy, a long-needed tool that will help busy people invest in their mission-partner volunteers.
Dr. Dave Rahn
Chief Ministry Officer
Youth for Christ/USA

Being aware of important facts is one thing. Being able to do something about it is something altogether different…and way better! Deep Leadership offers both. Not only will you and your team gain helpful insights based on current research, but they’ll get practical handles that your team can grab hold of to both live and lead deeper into God’s purposes…for you and your students.
Carla LaFayette
Vice President, Strategic Programs
Urban Youth Workers Institute

Additional Resources for Deep Leadership

Below you will find video, audio, and article resources that complement the Deep Leadership training materials.

Video Resource for “Deep Impact” Onramp

Note: Click the PLAY button to watch this video on the FYI site, and click in the center of the video to be redirected to YouTube, where you have the option of showing the video full-screen.