Like many young Christians, you may be wondering how to deepen your relationship with God, and service as a youth leader is a call that you might be feeling.  Many people, including the prophet and healer TB Joshua, began their service to God in this way and have contined to serve Him through missionary life, preaching, or in any number of other ways. As you think about the enormous responsibility that this entails, or remember leaders who inspired you to develop your own relationship with God, you may wonder or have doubts about your ability to be a leader of leaders.  This is natural, or course, and you are right – the role of the youth leader is an important one. However, if God calls you to serve in this way, you must answer the call as fully as you can.  Here are some of the things that a youth leader contributes to the community.

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A positive role model

Youth leaders make a commitment to be a role model for others.  This means that they accept the responsibility of leading life according to God’s ways rather than according to the world’s ways.  This can be a real challenge because most among us will make mistakes, and may at times feel that they have not fully honored their relationship with God through their actions.  For these reason, you might feel that you are not able to be a role model to other youth. However, one of the most important things that you can model to other young people is how to accept responsibility for mistakes, how to ask God for forgiveness, and how to recommit to a relationship with Him.  Don’t fall into the trap of thinking you must lead a perfect life.

Encourage and correct

Youth leaders may be working with  youth who are already  committed to a life serving God, or they may be working with youth who are still finding their way towards God.  Either way, part of your responsibility as a youth leader is to help them as they question, examine, wonder, and worry about the choices they are making, or will need to make in future.  They may misstep – just as you may – and as youth leader one of your most important responsibilities is to help them to understand why and how they erred, and to encourage them to avoid making the same mistakes again.

Live faithfully

Partly about being a role model and partly about encouraging, youth leaders must live their faith daily, openly, and transparently.  A youth leader’s relationship with God should be visible in every aspect of their lives, not simply when they are “wearing their youth leader hat.”  It should infuse their relationships not only with other Christians with with everyone they deal with in their daily lives.  It is not always easy, in a secular context, to live according to God’s ways, and yet this is what a youth leader, as role model, encourager and corrector, must strive to do.