What Causes Leader Territorialism?

YL Leader Survival Guide, Chapter 4

Here's a healthy thing to consider: have you ever gotten confused about who actually needs who in your relationships with your high school friends?

A while ago, I had a leader from a church tell me a peculiar story. She went to visit some of her high school friends in the lunch room. She was overjoyed to be met with excitement and hugs from the girls she knew. Then one of the girls said, "Hey, do you know our Young Life leader?"

"No, I don't, hey, it's good to meet you!"

"Oh, hey," the leader replied, then gave her the why are you talking to my girls look, and walked off.

The high school girls were a little bit confused. "Did you see that? What was that all about?" they asked the church leader.

"Ehh... I'm not sure," she replied. She felt a little strange and sad, like some sort of competition had just been started, where just seconds ago she was elated about the idea of a new counterpart in ministry. She wanted a ministry partner, and instead got a turf war.

What causes us to say "Get off my turf!" as opposed to "Yes! Reinforcements!" in these situations?

While there are definitely healthy reasons to spread out, I think our own neediness far too often plays a big role in saying the former.

Young Life leaders (and other student ministry leaders) are some of the bravest people on the planet in my mind. They charge into cafeterias, student sections of the bleachers, and other minimally attended sporting events, laying their pride on the line at every juncture necessary to weasel their way into the seemingly closed systems of high school friend groups.

But when a person, no matter how strong, puts his/her heart on the line like that to give his/her friends a chance to hear about Jesus, the sad truth is that there are simply a lot of ways insecurity can creep in. Self conscious thoughts about how funny we are(n't), how hard it is for us to carry a lunch room conversation, and whether we are good enough to even be doing this in the first place begin to plague our time around our high school friends. We start looking at other leaders, wishing we were like them. We compound our problems by lusting after other leaders' "success stories" and trying to find a way to become more like them.

All too often, these insecurities will cause something strange to occur. We start using our high school friends as a measuring stick for our worth. We let interactions with high schoolers determine how cool/funny/interesting/worthy we think we are in life (Didn't we get enough of this in high school? We've already paid our dues, friends...).We develop this desire to be desired, this need to be needed, this want to be wanted around. And when we need that, we become as needy of feeling important to our Young Life kids as they are of our leadership and guidance. This often leads to leader territorialism.

But let's just call it what it really is: a form of codependency. 

When we have the need to feel needed by the people we minister to, it often leads to leader codependency. We find a group that satisfies both our need of personal approval and our need to feel successful (due to our investment), and we just latch onto it as an energy source. We become understandably hostile when our security blanket of feeling important is in danger of being stripped away by someone else. "They're going to take my place!"

Here's something embarrassing: Leader codependency is also why some of the leaders I knew, including me at one point, refused to go after anyone but the popular kids. Because it was like a second chance to be popular in high school. It was another way way we could bolster our insecurities about our deep selves by having other people endorse us by wanting to be around us. It's one thing to pursue a kid because you connect with them. But I distinctly remember finding high schoolers similar to the people I wish thought I was cool in high school and trying to make them think I was cool as a Young Life leader. Dang, that's a hard one to admit to the public. And thankfully, it was just a phase. the healing truth came about eventually...

What do we do about it, though?

Check your security blanket. Is it something it was never meant to be? If God sent someone to take your place, would you lose the only thing that makes you feel worth anything? We weren't made to be fueled by the approval of others. It's never satisfied us in the past and it won't satisfy us now. I know from experience that when I let the enemy redefine success as "whether I'm beloved enough by those I minister to," my entire ministry not only becomes solely about me, it becomes a desperate grasp for approval that just doesn't fill me like it advertises it will. It is unsurprisingly a recipe for ineffective ministry... A healthy leader is able to give without needing from high schoolers.

Fill yourself with God. He dispels lies and frees us to be truly us, at our best. Spend time with Him frequently (this doesn't have to look a certain way), and allow praying and listening to Him to be your highest priority. Higher than contact work. Higher than your need to be needed by people, which comes from a beautiful place deep within us of wanting to be significant, but it's just twisted up a little bit. You'll be pleasantly surprised to find that everything you need for your deep self is part of God's personality!


Know the truth about yourself. You are valuable to God. He celebrates you at all times, and you were made to be filled by His celebration instead of the celebration of people. If you don't know why He celebrates you, figure out why, because it's true. Whether your high school friends think you're the coolest person on the planet, or whether they would rather hang out with the principal than with you, your worth just doesn't come from last week's interaction with 16 year olds. They have enough insecurities on their own plate to explain pretty much anything they do as a way to make themselves feel better instead of trying to bring you down because they think you suck. And even if they do think you suck... Why do they get to decide that? Your worth is in the fact that you were made in God's image (Genesis 1:26). How can you deny your worth when you can go home, look in the mirror and squint, and see a completely unique expression, albeit a broken expression, of the God of the universe?

For you new leaders that may be thinking, "I knew it was fine for me to just hang out with my team leader's seniors! Yayyyyy now I don't have to meet new people," don't get ahead of yourself just yet. There are two sides to this coin. The unhealthy territorialism is a need to be needed, but the healthy territorialism is a response to Matthew 9:37: "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few." If you don't know how rare it is for high schoolers to have any sort of mentor in their lives telling them about what's really important, what is healthy, or anything about Jesus, then let me tell you.

It's really, really, really rare. Painfully rare.

There are too many kids that don't have a solid role model in life for four different leaders to pursue the same kid. We as YL leaders spread out for the sake of the broken world; they need us to spread out. That doesn't mean four leaders can't be friends with the same kid... just because someone already has a friend doesn't mean they don't need another friend. But just remember... "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few."

So spread out! But above all, listen to God. Allow chunks of time in your day to listen to God. If your main goal is to do exactly what God tells you, you'll be sitting pretty. You won't have to worry about whether you're in the right or wrong place.  Let your need to feel successful, a healthy need, be satisfied by the real success: you followed God's call. Let yourself be celebrated by God for this success, and be filled by that celebration!



Galatians 1:10 - "For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ."


Luke 10:2-3 - "He told them, 'The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves."