One of the things that I have really enjoyed over the years is using a lead team for our girls event. I briefly mentioned it in a previous post about the prayer experience in a bag. I’ve recruited girls to serve on the lead team differently over the years.  Now granted, sometimes there are groups that initially I wondered if we would ever accomplish what we were setting out to do.  Sometimes I have thought that this whole lead team thing is for the birds.  But I keep coming back to the end of the event and the teamwork that comes from working with other volunteers and these wonderful teen girls. So today I’m giving you some of the tips I use for putting together a lead team.

In the past, before we had a Student Lead team that served on Sunday mornings, I would ask Sunday school teachers and lifegroup leaders to submit names of girls they felt should serve on the Snowball lead team.  This way, it helped keep me from appearing like I was “picking” favorites.  Now we have a snowball application that we put online.  We use wufoo forms and post it on a posterous site.  Then we release the link to the Student Lead team and tell them they have a deadline to get their application submitted. Once it’s submitted, then they will be notified that they are on the team if they meet the necessary requirements.

I have found that it’s best to have a team of 10-12th grade girls.  This year, we’re utilizing girls who have already shown a level of commitment by serving every sunday morning as a Student Peer Group table leader.  That means that the girls who apply for Snowball lead team this year are weekly involved with God’s word and help to lead their peers to dig into His word on a weekly basis.   As we gear up for our Snowball lead team planning event, we’ll divide up the team into 3 teams:  Logistics,  Worship, and Fellowship    Each group will be responsible for working on a small group lesson as well.

We’ve done the brainstorming event differently as well. Sometimes we’ve spent the night in a hotel brainstorming and fellowshipping from Saturday afternoon to Sunday morning.  Other times we’ve just taken a Sunday afternoon to brainstorm. It sometimes seems like it would be easier to just do it yourself, but I guarantee that in the end, it will be extremely rewarding to everyone involved if you do a little more work on the front end to release the details to teams of students.  You will be amazed at what God does in and through those teams of girls.  What have you seen work when you do a lead team?