003: Leadership Team Structures

Welcome to the College Ministry Leadership Podcast, a conversation to glean. insights to support the church, serve the campus, and Join the conversation, enlist the allies, and affirm the coalitions. We are ministers who affirm Dr. Bill Bright's statement to win the college campus today in order to win the world tomorrow. Welcome to the third installment of College Ministry Leadership Podcast. We're joined today by Arles Dickerson. Arles, you've been college ministry how long?

Forty three years. Forty three years. He uh he travels the country for Life Way Christian Resources. discussing college mentored leadership. Here's what you need to know about Arles. He's one of the smartest minds that I know personally that that understands strategic organizational leadership. So Arles, welcome to the podcast.

Uh now at least we'll have more than five listeners in last week. So tell us a little bit about what you do with LifeWay and uh the importance of college mentoring leadership. Uh well LifeWay has the assignment by the Southern

The overall coordinator of college ministry within Southern Davies Life. And some years ago, due to financial uh restraints while the staff Uh so there are four of us who are contract workers in different areas and I work Mostly what that means is I work with uh college ministers, uh both church and

Well I will tell you one thing. If if it weren't for Arlis Dixon, I'd I'd still be trying to grow ministry through just creating a large corporate worship service. In fact, uh a lot of a lot of you out there in in podcast world can echo my testimony. You know, you go to a college passion event and then you go back to Mississippi or Louisiana, wherever you are, and you try to replicate that experience.

And you realize it it just did not work and you try to figure out, you know, why did it not work, lots of reasons there.

Uh I know that's kind of an immature way of ministry, but at the end of the day it's got to do with leadership development. So Arles, tell us a little bit about why that leadership development's important and uh those leadership structures that you can implement.

In college ministry. Talk a little bit about that. Okay. Well, I think I think leadership development is huge. First of all, it it multiplies your ministry. Uh the more you're able to develop student leaders, the more people they lives they speak. building uh big time in the lives of their leaders. And one state within Southern Madison's College Minister because they said they weren't doing enough in the area of leadership development. And yet, when they looked at their job.

Uh if you think it's not an expectation, it's not written down. I love what you said about the ministry multiplication. I mean I that at the heart is uh biblical. In fact a couple of weeks ago I told our large group that, you know, what they hear doesn't end here. Right. But they're propelled from this large group and to make disciples. And so if if we're not doing that as an example Well, I think you've heard me talk about it.

leadership team go through and number those from one to seventeen in terms of their value to them. Well some of

Hey, talk to us a l uh a little about the different teams that you've seen throughout the country. What what do the structures look like? You know, how are they uh what are the roles and responsibilities of these team members? Talk to us a little bit about One is that you want your leadership team to be really small and it's just Um On the other end of the spectrum you've got us and we have like a tech

Talk to us a little bit about the advantages and disadvantages of those two different models. Well, uh uh for one all have to be at the same level in terms of commitment or time responsibility or or whatever like that. And if they didn't get selected one of the leadership positions, they would go elsewhere looking for an opportunity to to serve and lead. And so I said, Okay, we we need to be providing them that opportunity. Uh I saw uh one one group they had uh

Uh they had their hopes and dreams team. They just had two teams, and it was the hopes and dreams team and the e team. And the hopes and And they met with the staff and their whole purpose was just dream and plan and Vision cast. E team and I don't even know what E stood for, uh but the E team uh did the more uh students kind of losing sight of the big picture and just, well, you know, all I do is set up chairs or something. Yeah. Something like that. And so they That was really interesting.

And that's all they do. And then once that's over, then they're dismissed and and uh they're I'm like a church committee.

semester or a year would commit to a short term thing. And uh and so they're all Well for those of us who have a leadership team in place How often should that team meet? Uh what should they talk about? You know, who should lead that team meeting? Talk a little bit about that. Well, uh I think I think somebody has to meet every week. Now if you have different levels, you know, there's the deal like like what we did here was the team leaders met every week.

I know some places where they do kinda like that and then there's a once a month meeting. Talk a little bit about y I I don't know if you want to use this word but hierarchy, you know you said uh with this particular team we have team members. And that team leader is led by a president. Well it's interesting though, you say most Uh because several places were not.'Cause there's criticism there. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. The the criticism Uh

ministry when they went into that position. And I just think that kind of responsibility and opportunity God has really used in the lives of lots of students. So I'm I'm super keen on the idea of uh of there being a a I also know a lot of people would say, look, I I understand leadership teams and and I've tried that but it just hasn't worked because college students are not committed.

importance of of leading and it's just it's draining. What would you say to that college minister? What can what can that college minister do? Well I can say we've all been there. Yeah. I think we've all been there. But but I I think that's part of the We are we are trying to teach them responsibility and that's part of what we're all about. See I And that's where I think, you know, some some people say

Discuss the process of uh of of making sure that student's committed. How do you how do you ensure that so that you know they don't quit after week two? Well number one And also spelling out real clearly and saying, Oh, I didn't know you were expecting that from me. And so I think you lay out the hard case scenario. Here's what we want, here's the amount of time we expect.

said uh this is the time we expect how much time should we expect? Yeah well I uh Then from there some students that that's all they do. I think there's a I think there's an exception. Well I'm gonna ask you a hard question, this is one that I deal with because obviously we have a commitment and even an ethical commitment as well. What would you say to the student who looks at that commitment and says, That's just that's legalistic?

I would say okay. Yeah. You know, but but that's that's our deal. Sure. And and that we do that. 'Cause at the at the end of the day it it protects our integrity, I think, for them to commit and they need to learn commitment. Exactly. Exactly. And that's what we're saying. We're we're I go back to our role as a teacher there. Um, talk a little bit about when you should change leadership teams uh during the course of a year and and and why

Well my my first year I changed uh not too long after we got started. I met with a leadership team and I saw pretty quickly we're gonna need to change. Uh and I think Mostly now I know some people are on the quarter system and that and that's totally different, but I lean uh I lean toward the thing of newly are least likely to be seeing new people have things going on and so forth and then when they come back in the fall they've done it. I know some people pick their leadership.

That's your most important, you know, time of the whole year. And different camp situations are different. So and so Great thoughts. Arles, thanks for being here today. Oh, I joined him. Thank you. You can follow Arles at uh Arles Dickerson on Twitter. A-R-L-I-N-N-N. And then make sure to check out his blog at arlusdigerson.blogspot.com. Would love to hear from you. What topics do you want to know about? You can email me your thoughts.

uh C Logan at ABSC or ask me on Twitter at Chad Logan and uh follow CM leadership as well. Hey next week we'll discuss some of the various seasons of college ministry.