Publications
Growing Young Leaders: Faith, Freedom, Failure, and Flourishing by Donald Smith
Growing Young Leaders: Faith, Freedom, Failure, and Flourishing by Donald Smith
This book fills in gaps in research on leadership development programs for youth through taking the opportunity to research a long-standing leadership development program for young men that has evidenced some success. The research question was: What factors contribute to the apparent success of the Boys’ Brigade leadership program? Using a grounded theory methodology, the program was examined through the lenses of communitas, liminality, servant-leadership, masculine spirituality, rites of passage, and wilderness. Research findings are that program is characterized by its uniqueness and the final theory that emerged identified the importance for youth ministry of acceptance, imperfection, and freedom and empowerment, within an overarching spiritual dimension, evidenced throughout the study, most remarkably through the positive response to worship. Staff factors were also critical, including the description of the staff team as being multi-generational, non-hierarchical, and servant-led, not placing a high value on differentiation of status and allowing a seamless transition of course graduates into staff roles.