Lay Leaders

It is difficult to know what to do with lay leaders sometimes. Specifically one of the ladies that helps lead Extended Play is a mystery. Kristy is one of those people that feels like she should be leading, but never really shows leadership initiative, nor does she want to take leadership of things even when I suggest them to her.

For example, Kristy keeps saying that she really feels like God wants her to lead EP. Except she does not feel comfortable talking to new people, she does not want to organize events, she does not feel like teaching is specifically her gift, and she does not really want to come up with anything for us to do. So in a lot of ways I am extremely baffled as to how she is “leading” anything at all.

Furthermore, EP is a group for young adults. But the parameters of the group seem to be somewhat ill defined. We know that “young adulthood” starts at 18 years old. But at what point are you no longer considered a young adult? According to our group info, EP is for people aged 18-30. The problem with that is that most of our congregation is between the ages of 18-30. So I feel like there should be some further criteria for what constitutes a young adult. In my mind, once you have children you are no longer a young adult.

But Kristy has kids as well. Which makes me think, maybe I could try to talk her into running a program for young parents, or parents with young children. Both of her kids are getting older, in that they are no longer toddlers. But we have a lot of parents of toddlers in the church. So maybe I can see if she wants to start up a small group for young parents. Or possibly we could even make that a part of EP. I could still teach a lesson, and then we would break off into small groups within EP where she facilitates one group and I run the other.

It is possible that she has a much different calling then leading EP, but because we do not yet have the program she does not recognize it. This is definitely something I might want to explore with her. Next Monday at our meeting we will be looking at our Ministry Match Profiles and it is possible that that might reveal more about her personality.