How to do a Team Meeting

Where to begin? In the Prepare Phase you learned about gatekeepers, adults God has placed on campus who open doors for access to students. From your list, choose your hottest contact, that person who has demonstrated the most enthusiasm toward the idea of students getting involved with Cru. In many cases, it’s a coach of a team, and for the purpose of explaining the concept of team meeting, we will use a coach as the sponsor, but it could very well be a teacher, activity coordinator, or parent volunteer.

Step One: Approach the Coach.

A good time to talk with a coach is right before, or after practice. Try not to interrupt them during coaching hours. When you’re ready to ask the coach for a team meeting, here’s a sample of what you could say. (As in all ‘scripts’ feel free to personalize this)

“Hi Coach, thanks for your time today. (Small Talk) How has the team been looking so far? What are some of the main things you are currently working on with the team? What would you say are some of your team’s biggest challenges?”

(This last question is good for raising issues the team is facing. Team unity is a universal goal of all teams and is something that Cru can help with.)

“We believe that students can make a big impact in the lives of their peers and leave a legacy. An area we’ve seen a lot of success is when we’ve come alongside teams. We help players use their faith to develop servant leadership that will bring about greater unity on their team.

Coach, would you be interested in a motivational talk for your team. I’m trained to do that, and would love to serve you and them in that way. Typically, it’s only about ten minutes, and I could be available before or after practice, whichever you think best fits.”

We assume that if the coach has been identified as a gatekeeper that they know about Cru. However, it not, here’s how to explain it to a coach or teacher.

“Cru is a national high school organization that desires to be a resource to teachers and coaches in the public schools by helping their students develop positive values, leadership skills, and a personal faith that will impact every area of their lives.”

(Let the coach decide if it’s something he’d want)

“That’s great, what day would work best for the team?”

“Coach, one last thing. One of the reasons it’s good for us to do this is that it gives us face time with students. Part of what I do with Cru is give students the chance to be involved in a small group, where we investigate God. We do it in a way that any student, from any back ground, or even no background spiritually would feel comfortable. The way we find out interest is by sponsoring a pizza party for the team, strictly voluntary of course, and there explain Cru and invite students to be involved. Shelly’s parents have volunteered to have it at their house, if it’s something you would be open to.”

Keep in mind, that you’re asking the coach for two things. First, face time with the team through a motivational ten minute talk. This will allow students to get to know you. Second, you’re firming up when the follow up pizza party could fit into their schedule.

Step Two: The Ten Minute Team Meeting

You show up for a practice of the cross country runners, they are spread out around the gym stretching. You had spoken to the coach the week before, and he had given today as the best time for you to come and address his team on the topic of motivation. The team has an important invitational meet in a couple days. Let’s ease drop on the conversation.

Hi coach!

Hi Justin, thanks again for coming out. (Coach turns to his runners). Guys, this is Justin, he’s from Cru, and I’ll let him explain about that, but he’s here to give you a few things to think about as we get ready for Saturday’s meet.

Justin?

You ask the team to scoot a little closer, and begin.

Thanks, Coach, it’s good to be here. I’ve never run cross country, but I did play tennis in high school. I know a little about getting ready for the big match, and so I asked the coach for a few minutes of your time. Again, I’m Justin, and I work for Cru, a faith-based student organization that helps students in the mental, physical and spiritual areas of their lives. One of the most fun things I get to do, is address athletes like you…..

Three D’s Heart of a Champion -Desire, Dedication, determination

Transition: What to say to set up the team outreach event:

“As I said before, I’m with Cru, and we’re here to help students grow in all areas of life, mental, physical and spiritual. On Thursday night Shelly’s parents are opening their house for a team pizza party. We’ll play games, and have a lot of fun, but we’re also going to learn more about Cru, and opportunities we give students to get involved. We would love for you to attend, but want you to know it’s strictly on a volunteer basis. We will be talking about faith, and if that’s something your parents aren’t comfortable with, that’s ok. Please let them know, and if they have questions, they can get in touch with me. Coach has my information.”

Step Three: The Team Outreach Event

Following is a typical flow of an athletic follow-up meeting where the gospel is shared. The goal of this meeting is to connect meaningfully with students, give a clear explanation and invitation to respond to Christ, and let the team know when and where the next meeting will be.

12:00 Welcome to CRU

• My name is __________and I am part of a group called CRU. CRU is a national high school organization dedicated to helping students develop positive values, leadership skills, and a personal faith that impacts every area of your life. Today we are going to start out by finding out if you have 2 qualities that make good athlete’s great athletes. Are you smart, and are you tough?

12:05 Sports Trivia

• Quiz students over their sports trivia. (Put together about 10 questions - just google “sports trivia”) Ask a question and throw a sucker to the first person to answer correctly.

12:10 Tuff Man Contest

• Bring up 4 or 5 guys who think they are the toughest in the room and have another student (a spotter) come up and place as many clothes pins on their face as they can in a minutes time. Then have the spotter remove and count up the clothes pins. Person with the most wins. Take pictures!

12:20 Why we are here.

Every student is looking for fulfillment. To find it, a balance needs to be established in the three major areas:

1. Mental: The school helps you to develop mentally – through teachers, classes, homework and some extracurricular activities.
2. Physical: School also helps you develop physically – with coaches, through P.E. classes, sports and other activities.
3. Spiritual: The school isn’t designed to help you spiritually. That’s where Cru High School comes in. We are designed to help you and other students help each other in the spiritual area.

(check out the Triangle Diagram video on THIS PAGE to see it explained)

To develop spiritually, an individual needs to understand two things:

1. How to start a relationship with God.

2. How to grow in that relationship with God.

Today we are going to look at this first area, how you can start a relationship with God.

(If you have a student involved and prepped to share their testimony, here would be a good place for them to do it.)

12:25 The Gospel

Have students share the Connecting with God booklet, Or have a speaker share the Gospel.

12:40 Comment Cards

Explain and have team fill out the Comment Cards and invite to 4 week challenge. Give the time and location of the study. Make sure anyone interested in the study is directed to put that on their card, with contact information.

12:45 Eat pizza.

(Try to resist looking at comment cards until students are gone.)

1:00 Dismiss and clean up.

Take note, the entire meeting lasts no longer than an hour. There’s genuine fun involved, and great face time with those who will do the follow up. Students are given a chance to receive Christ, and to fill out a comment card. The students know when and where the next touch point will be(make sure it’s no longer than one week into the future).

Did you see what you just did? You just…

• Shared the gospel with a number of students who had never heard it
• Showed young believers how to share their faith
• Gave a few Christian leadership students an opportunity to lead spiritually
• Showed non-believers that Christians are loving and can be real
• Build relationships with teenagers on your target campus
• Began building a relationship with a coach

AMAZING!

This one event has done so much to move forward the work of the Gospel on your campus. Have you ever had a more spiritually impactful couple of hours? What a day! Now go grab a burger or ice cream to celebrate and start thinking of your next steps to follow these students up!

Team Meeting Tip Sheet

The smallest detail can make or break a successful outreach

Team Meeting Tips

• To help write a Team Meeting talk ask the coach what they see their team needs to improve on in order to be more successful as a team. Find quotes & true inspirational stories online of athletes or teams that exemplify or support your points.
• Don’t take too much time when doing your Team talk. We suggest no longer than 10 minutes.
• If you’re speaking to a team directly after practice consider bringing sports drinks & energy bars for the team to drink & eat while you’re speaking to them.
• Always confirm with the coach the day/night before to make sure you’re still on for your Team talk, and at what time. Show up early to watch practice, taking mental notes of the culture of the team.
• Always be aware of how the team is doing record wise so that you can compliment them on their successful season or encourage them if the team is struggling. Watch a game, and note outstanding plays, etc. During your talk drop names and what you observed.
• Practice your Team talk ahead of time. This will help you be less focused on your notes and more focused on the athletes & being full of energy & enthusiastic. Don’t wing it! Invest time in practicing your talk.
• Keep a file of Team talks that you or someone else has written that you can easily access to speak on or use to create your own talk from. Also, a file with great quotes & inspirational stories is quite helpful too.

Team Outreach Tips

• Choose your location wisely: “Popular kids will go to popular kids homes. Unpopular kids will go to popular kids homes (for the most part), but popular kids will not go to unpopular kids homes.” This may not sound compassionate or Christ-like and it certainly doesn’t reflect how God sees people, but it’s the reality of our youth culture & it’s an important principle to follow in order to get the most students to come to your Outreach or follow-up group following a Team meeting. (This obviously doesn’t apply if your Outreach or follow-up meeting is at a pizza place, park, or other public location.)
• If there is significant time (more than three days) between the team meeting and the outreach event, visit the team the day before to remind them of time and location.
• Whenever you can, include leadership students in your outreach event. If your audience are freshmen, this is especially helpful as they look up to older students.

Reference the Team Meeting/Outreach Flow Chart. (on the Ministry Skills tab at cru.org/launchbox) It will help insure little details related to your Team Meeting/Outreach don’t fall through the cracks & could result in miscommunication with the coach, or lower turnout by the students.