Liaisons Ripe and Ready to Serve

By Gerald Bell (Kansas City 2003)

One key ingredient to DVULI’s secret sauce is the liaison relationship. This special bonding begins when a youth leader interviews for participation in the 18-month training. While on the learning journey, the cohort members become connected with their designated liaison, who takes intentional steps to build trust with them. Right before graduation, liaisons present to the cohort a menu of benefits designed to sustain urban leaders in youth ministry for the duration of their careers.

After leaders complete the initial training, the liaison is tasked to regularly check in with each alumnus as a way of monitoring and evaluating their developmental status. Conversations are held around how it’s going in youth work and in their personal life. These meaningful talks provide the liaison insight as to the ways alumni are living out the goals they’ve set for their overall development in leadership, ministry, and community.

What’s unique is liaisons are graduates of DVULI who understand the demands and challenges of urban youth work. As alumni, they have the privilege of recruiting, supporting, and coaching participants who are on the learning track they too have experienced. Meaning a liaison can relate to what it takes to apply the new skills they have received from DVULI.

It is critical that every alumnus remains accessible and engaged in the liaison relationship. The alumni benefits package is loaded with resources to minimize gaps in their youth ministry trajectory and to ensure they maintain a sense of value for self-care. Further, alumni can take advantage of micro-grant opportunities for collaborating with their youth ministry peers locally.

What Liaisons Want from Alumni
Because liaisons can relate to working in isolation in youth work, what alumni need to know is that the liaison relationship is intended to be a career-long guide to a new way of living and working. DVULI calls it “Breakthrough!”

To that end, what liaisons want most from alumni is a healthy relationship with open dialogue about how to sustain the alumnus in youth work.

Action Steps for Alumni
Here is what liaisons ask of alumni:

• Have at least one check-in phone call a year with the liaison.
• Inform the liaison of any new contact information as soon as it changes.
• Attend the alumni gatherings the liaison plans in their city once a year.
• Safely store their username and password to the DVULI.org website.
• Tell their liaison if they’d like any additional leadership development or training.
• If possible, never miss a DVULI reunion!
• Contact their liaison anytime they have a question or a life or ministry update.