KidMin Leader Cast: We Make Professional Kidmin Leaders

Well, hello there, and welcome to the Kidman leader podcast. My name is Todd Hixenbaugh, thank you so much for joining us today. Today, we're diving into one of the most transformative aspects of leadership in ministry, leading with a servant heart. So whether you're leading a team of volunteers or shepherding a small group just in your home, or as for most of you, you are leading children and their families. This episode is going to be you. I wanted to make sure and introduce for all of you a resource that we have that comes out every Sunday, right? So this podcast comes out on Mondays, but every Sunday I have an email that comes out, and this email is going to be a great place for you to be able to even go deeper into some of these ideas that we discuss every week on the podcast. So you can get that by going to kid men newsletter.com if you go there, you're going to be able to get the newsletters go to Kidman newsletter.com and subscribe for free to be able to follow along with all of the thoughts that I have on children's ministry, children's ministry, leadership, and being able to run and grow your children's ministry. So in today's episode, again, I wanted to talk about the heart of leadership and being a servant leader. And so I wanted to start with a well piece of scripture, because why not? And that's what we're doing. So Jesus said this in Mark chapter 10, verse 45 For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve. See this verse, it perfectly sums up and captures the heart of leadership in ministry. Let's unpack today what it means to lead like Jesus. We're going to discuss the biblical foundation of servant leadership, how it transforms our team, whether they're volunteers staff and practical ways to embody this heart in our daily ministry. Remember this isn't something that you just go up on stage and your super children's ministry person. This is a daily practice. This is a private practice. In many ways, for yourself, it's you leading yourself. In many ways, most of it, I like to say, is 80% 90% you. The rest of it is just the benefits that your team gets because of the things that you've done in private. So let's start here. See Jesus. Well, Jesus is the ultimate example of this. Again, in Mark 1045, says this, For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve John 1312, through 15, says the story. It's the story of Jesus washing the disciples feet. It says Jesus showed us that. Well, didn't say that, but Jesus showed us that in that story, that Leadership isn't about power, it's not about authority, it's about humility and service is you. When Jesus bends down and he stoops to to wash the disciples feet, what's he doing? Well, what he's doing is he's showing an act of humility. He's putting himself in a place of almost subservience, right? He's, he's, he's doing something for the people around him, for his disciples. That's a beautiful picture for us to be able to follow as an example as children's ministry leaders. I'm excited to think about that example, because I think it really we I think what we do is we put it off into the corner. We don't talk about it enough. So what does that look like? Well, it means we have a call to imitate Christ. See in Philippians, chapter two, verses three and four, Paul reminds us Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, rather in humility, value others above yourself, right? This is the heart posture of a servant leader.
For us,
it's it can't be about us. It has to be, it has to be about others. When we serve our teams, we have to realize that, just as Paul tells us to follow him as he follows Christ, that's really what we're doing, is we're saying to our volunteers, to our paid staff, hey, follow me as I'm following Christ. Hey, we're going to be leading families. We're going to be leading children. We're going to be discipling them and partnering with families and helping families to understand how to disciple their own children. This is hard stuff, right? This is important work. Well, we have an example. Our call is to imitate Christ. Why? Is servant leadership so important though? I think it transforms teams. Let me, let me show you what I mean. Building trust in respect. That's that's really the basis of what we're talking about. You see, when leaders serve their teams, it builds trust. People who follow leaders usually follow them, the ones that care for them. They're not following tasks. They're following people. Maybe they have a job title, maybe they have a volunteer position that they've signed up for. They usually sign up for those things because of the person
that's important
see. For me, I
remember when I was an intern, and there was a guy that I served with who was my leader. His name was, was Kevin and and Kevin would spend
a lot of time
when I was an intern teaching me things. But one of the other things that he would do that I always thought was so amazing is
Kevin,
Kevin, would go into the classroom. I was the kindergarten, first grade lead teacher when I started as an intern at our 11 o'clock service, and the kids had no idea who he was. He would come in with his guitar, and he would play music with him. And I always thought that was funny, because, like, you know, he's running this whole ministry. He has other places he could be more important. Things he could be doing, people he could be talking to. I could, you know, do the music part portion. It's not difficult. But he would always bring his guitar in, and he and he would do that, and it mattered that he cared enough about the Sunday school classes that we were running to do it. It really mattered. And he would come in and and play with the kids and teach them songs and talk with them and spend time with them and spend time with with me while I was leading and doing my own class. And then afterwards, he would talk to me and have encouragement, and he would have things that he would share, and hey, I saw you. Did it this way. Great idea. Things like that. It mattered. And just the little ways that he was caring for me made me want to follow him. Made me want to to go and and do more. Do do better. It made me want to serve in that ministry. And so maybe for us, we need to think about, Hey, are we sitting back in our chairs? Are we letting our volunteers run around? They're there to volunteer. No doubt that's a good thing, to let them do that. But how can we be supporting them? How can we be doing tasks that you know maybe don't make sense for us to be doing, taking out the trash, setting up for an event, things like that? How can we be participating in a way that helps people to see we're all on it? Or if you're a person who's not on staff, right, maybe you're a volunteer in your church and and you you have children, you're the volunteer. Or maybe you're a volunteer leader. Maybe you're the only person who's doing the children's ministry in your church. You know, the thing that I, I'm drawn to a lot, is Morris, cotton Todd, showing children
that what they
what they are supposed to do, is lead in a humble way. I can start very early. It's important to show them that now,
one of the things that
I think is very important, and I don't know I probably do this radically i If so, I like to say it like this. I don't like to say no for people. I like to say no for people. And so servant leaders should be empowering their teams to thrive. You invest in others. You create a culture where people feel valued and motivated.
I probably do this.
I probably go extreme with this, and I could share stories of how
There have actually been times when
this has backfired for me, but, but when I think of, when I think of empowering a volunteer, I think of setting them up for success. I think of setting them in a space where they're actually able to
to be able to succeed.
And so one of the things that that I'm obsessed with is making sure that that I'm giving people the opportunity to step up to lead, and then preparing them to do that. So one of the stories that that I have is is actually a vision that someone gave me. He told me, he said, One day I want to be able to he's like, where I want this children's ministry to go is, i. I want to be able to come in on a Sunday morning and nobody know who I am, and
walk in to
the children's ministry space, drop off my kid, and have nobody, except for the volunteers, know that I'm the children's ministry leader. And I thought that was a weird vision. It's like, No, you want to be out front and you want to, you want to, you know, be doing all that and leading and Rob, what he's communicating was, I don't want to be the one that's out front doing it all. I want to equip the saints for ministry. I want to do it at a high level. I don't even want the parents and families to know it's it's me behind the scenes. Now I probably go a little extreme with that, but the principle of the thing is this, we need to be handing things consistently to people and allowing for them to step into leadership roles and then offer the mentorship to back them up, whether that's training, books, advice, a one on one on a week or every other week basis, trusting and allowing for volunteers to do the things that God is calling them to do. That's a big deal, and it's harder than it looks. But when we do it, when we do it effectively, that's when we begin to serve with a servant's heart. That's when we begin to lead with a servant's heart. It's a beautiful thing, Reflecting Christ in others. This is another thing that I've been thinking a lot about. See servant leadership not only impacts your team, it's a witness to the love of Christ. When people see humility and kindness and leadership, it draws them closer to God. I want to lead with a servant's heart, because I want people to see that and go, Wow. I want to be I want what that guy has like I want. I want to I want to know God like that. I want to read the Bible more. I want to pray more, man. I want to serve these kids and these families because I want that like I want to. I want to be part of that. We can reflect Christ to others. That's a beautiful thing, you see. It goes back to what Paul said, Follow me as I follow Christ. I want people to want to follow Jesus because of the things that they see in me. That makes me excited. Not not because I'm great, not because of all the things that I'm am and the things that I do, but because of how good God is and the things that he's done in my life. So when I serve with a servant's heart, when I lead with a servant's heart, when I do that at a high level, empower people and pray for people and equip them and do that as they draw close to me, my volunteers, the people who I work with, man that that's an opportunity for them to grow closer to God too. And finally, the thing that that I've been thinking about is okay, what's the practical piece for us to talk about today? What's the what's the practical side? What can we take away that? That would be some things that we can begin to try immediately when it comes to serving with a lead, leader's heart, with a with serving, with leading, with a servant's heart. What can we do? First thing is you can practice active listening. Listening is one of the simplest yet most effect, the most effective and powerful ways to serve your team. When you take time to hear their concerns, ideas and needs, it shows you value them for who they are, not just what they do.
One of the ways I do this
is I talk a lot. My job is spent talking and twice as much listening. Some days I get that right. Some days I get that wrong. When I'm in conversations with people, what I've learned is that maintaining eye contact, strong eye contact,
communicates that you're listening, that you're present,
asking open ended questions. I used to just want to get to the point, so I'd ask very specific questions, and what I learned is that oftentimes context gets lost in that, right? Sometimes people have a lot they want to say a lot, that they're processing, and they don't even fully have all the answers yet, but as they talk, they get to form the ideas. And so I started asking and opening up quite I started to actually learn that through podcasting, right? Actually, is what I did. I learned that the more open ended questions that I asked, the better answers that I was getting from guests. And I started applying that in children's ministry with my volunteers. And when I did that, and I allowed them to process, I afterwards, I kept getting the same comment. It's like, Thanks for really listening. And I was like, all, all I did was, let you talk. You just talked. But it matters. It shows people that you're willing to you. To let them process and be a safe space to process, finally, following up on their input. So I was terrible about this when I was young. I was so bad at this. I would let people talk and talk and talk, but I already made up what I was going to do, and I was kind of just doing it because I knew that I was supposed to just talking to them, asking their opinion. I would try to feed them their answer that I wanted them to give. But I had an old timer one time tell me he said, You know, God made the body of Christ the body, and
everybody plays a part in it.
And just because you think that you have the best idea, well, you should check anyways, because maybe you don't. And I, I ran my head into the wall so many times as a young leader, because I didn't listen and trust my team. I didn't ask them questions, I didn't give them the opportunity to give feedback. Now it's funny, because when I have VBS team meetings or, you know, meetings for my midweek programming or something with our good news club that we run on Tuesdays, a lot of times I sit and listen to what the volunteers have to say. Oftentimes they know better than me, because they're the ones implementing the ideas in real time. And then I use those things. I go back into our staff meetings, and I use what they've told me, and it matters when they see me following up and doing something about information they've given me. Boy, that that really buys something. It buys a big piece of credibility and and respect. That's huge deal. Let's go back to our example of Jesus washing his washing the disciples feet, just like Jesus washed the disciples feet. Servant leaders aren't afraid to meet practical needs. So I wanted to give you just a couple of things, maybe this week that you can try. Maybe you're having an event, right? Help set up for the event. Help tear down for the event. Maybe take on a simple task, maybe something small that would just ease a volunteer's burden, right? That could be as simple as greeting, standing at the door and greeting as families are walking in, or, you know, making sure that you're running to get extra crayons that a teacher might need, because maybe their class had more kids than it normally does. Or maybe that is providing resources training to somebody who needs the support, right? Maybe you have a teacher that's struggling with classroom management, and you find a video online from some an expert who actually can help them to understand how to do that better. Maybe it's a book, but providing them with support, leading with humility, gang, that's, that's, that's the whole thing. And so true humility isn't thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less. That's the big deal. And so here's some ideas for you for how we can begin to do that. Well, admit when you're wrong. I'm bad at that. I don't think I'm wrong, and I have been hurt so many times by that, and I've lost credibility. I've lost respect amongst volunteers. I've been unwilling to do that, and the older that I get, the more that I realize boy, leading with humility, leading with servant's heart, comes back to admitting that, hey, I messed up. I didn't do that. I didn't follow through on what I said I would follow through on I'm sorry, like admitting when I'm wrong, that has been huge. That's been huge giving credit to the team for the success of the ministry. Very rarely does it happen that the success of a program or an event, an idea, comes down to what one person did almost every single time. It's the work of an entire group. And when we can give praise and give the credit to the entire group, rather than just selfishly hoarding it for ourselves, we can get way further, faster, right? Because it wasn't all us. Anyways, Jesus doing this all the time, like Jesus is always encouraging the disciples. He's always doing that. He's correcting them when they need corrected, but he's encouraging them, showing them how to do things. It's a good idea to give credit to the team, and then staying open to feedback, I like to give out opportunities for feedback for every big event that we do, VBS, Easter stuff, whatever your big events are. But one of the things that I've resolved that I'm going to do. More of this year is I want to be able to get feedback on weekly things too. I want to hear people not just when our mid week programming ends in May. I want to hear from them consistently throughout the year. Hey, this is something that we need to fix, or this is something we should do, give them a feedback loop to be able to consistently provide ideas and and even corrections that need to happen before it turns into a problem.
It also is a great way of getting new ideas.
I'm super creative, and I don't think I need more ideas, but I'm always stronger when I'm allowing the space to occur for new ideas from my team
allow for feedback to happen.
So the final thing is this,
let's be praying
for our team. One of the most powerful ways to serve your team is through prayer. When you lift up their needs before God, it aligns your heart with is make prayer a regular part of your leadership routine. This is something that's done behind the scenes. Nobody's going to see this. There's no glory to be had from this ever it's it's just something that happens behind closed doors. But it doesn't mean that it's not something that's important. See, it aligns you with God, and what God's purpose is for your ministry, it's not your ministry, it's God's this is the way to be able to make sure that you are following him and not your own desires. So let's recap things today. We talked about the biblical foundation of servant leadership, how it transformed teams in practical ways to embody this in a ministry. What are some action steps we can take? Take a moment this week to serve your team in a meaningful way, whether it's listening, meeting in need, or simply praying for them. If you enjoyed this episode, here's what I want you to do. I want you to share it with your team. Share it with another ministry leader. Don't forget to subscribe for more insights on leading well in your ministry. Remember, the whole goal of the Kidman leader cast is to make professional children's ministry leaders professional doesn't mean that you have it all together. It means that you're following God. It means that you're following what he wants in your ministry and in your life that you're directing and leading your team, whether they're volunteers or staff, to be able to go to the next level so important. Let's pray, Lord, thank You for the example of Jesus, the ultimate servant leader. Help us to lead with humility, with love and a heart for service. Bless our teams and the children we minister to that your name may be glorified forever. Amen. You.