It’s 5 am. My wife is resting, and my new born son is laying in the crib next to my fold out hospital bed/couch.
Life. Is. Good.
God. Is. Good.
My ministry just got a little bit bigger.
My prayer is that Benjamin will be a man of God, passionate about seeing others know, love, and worship Jesus. My prayer is that I will father him in a way that stirs his affections for Christ.
Life. Is. Good.
God. Is. Good.
If you’re anything like me you get caught up in wanting your ministry to get better and better and better and better and you spend a lot of time DOING Ministry but don’t spend as much time BEING WITH JESUS!! I’m so GUILTY of this!!
We get busy doing stuff FOR JESUS but neglect to spend time WITH JESUS!!!
LOVE JESUS more than ANYTHING ELSE!!
If we want our MARRIAGES to get better, SPENDING TIME WITH JESUS is a MUST!!
If we want to be the best PARENTS, SPENDING TIME WITH JESUS is a MUST!!
You can never SPEND ENOUGH TIME with JESUS!!
-One of the most important things you can do before you leave your house for the day is to SPEND TIME WITH JESUS!
-If we want to REFLECT JESUS in PUBLIC we must SPEND TIME with JESUS in PRIVATE!!
“Whatever you do don’t get these OUT of ORDER!!”
-Love Jesus First, then your Wife and Kids, then your Ministry!!
-Your FIRST MINISTRY that God gave you is your FAMILY!!
-Ministry starts at HOME!! Don’t lose your FAMILY trying to serve the CHURCH.
-“FAMILY is your #1 CONGREGATION”!! –Larry Osborne
-“LOVE your WIFE more than you LOVE the CHURCH. The church is JESUS’ BRIDE, not yours!” –Craig Groeschel
-“Don’t allow increasing ministry to decrease your
intimacy, and don’t let your service exceed your
worship.” –Doug Fields
The best thing you can do for your students and ministry is to love Jesus more than both of them.
Philippians 3:8-10
New International Version (NIV)8 What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. 10 I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death!!
Follow these three easy instructions and repeat.
Last weekend I got to spend time with a bunch of other middle school pastor’s at the Youth Cartel’s Campference (theyouthcartel.com). If you work with middle schoolers and haven’t been I highly suggest that you check it out next fall. Several times during the weekend I thought to myself, “It feels so good to know that I’m not crazy for loving middle school ministry.” Youth ministry can make us feel crazy sometimes. The Campference had three things that are universal antidotes to going crazy in youth ministry.
Community – This weekend I was surrounded by people who understood my calling. I couldn’t do youth ministry if I didn’t have other people who affirmed my passion for teens. We need to be reminded regularly that our ministry matters to others and to God. Community reminds of this. Your community doesn’t have to be other youth pastors. It can come from ministry parents and your leadership team. Wherever it comes from you need it! You shouldn’t be doing ministry alone.
Rest – Sometimes the most sanity forming thing we can do is to get away and rest. At the campference all the programming is optional so I didn’t feel guilty when I got away for a nap. When you rest you are reminding yourself that God is in control and it isn’t all up to you. This truth brings sanity to our crazy lives.
Learning – One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. I do that so often in ministry. I think I have it all figured out. When I become a learner I open myself to the possibility that there are other ways to think about and practice ministry to teens. I got the chance to learn from some pretty brilliant people this weekend and I am already trying to figure out what changes we need to make.
Community, Rest, and Learning…Three things that will keep us from going crazy in youth ministry. Which of those three do you need most right now? How are you going to get them into your life?
Do you remember growing up as a child and feeling insecure? I remember a moment in time when I was 13 years old and played basketball for my local town in the community league. At the end of each year, they would pick an “all-star” team to play other communities. For me, this was a big deal. I had made the team the year before and did well. This particular year, we had a new coach and a new system. I tried out and misunderstood what the coach had said to everyone. I didn’t receive a phone call but thought it meant I made the team. The opposite was true, though. I walked up to the gym with the guys and waited for the coach to arrive. When he came, I remember him looking at me with a curious but frustrated look. He asked me to step aside as everyone else walked into the gym, and he told me that I had not made the team.
As my friends walked in and I did not, I felt insecure in my ability as a basketball player. This moment in my life fueled my passion to play high school and then college basketball.
My performance was wrapped up in my identity.
I entered the ministry, and the urge to continue to find security in my performance still exists. This in turn reveals my insecurity.
One of my struggles has always been feeling insecure. I have a type A personality with a relentless desire to improve and lead others. My weakness is relying more upon what I do and less upon God’s strength in me.
You might feel this way too. We worry about our reputation, rejection and failure. I’m in a daily learning process of finding confidence in God and not in my performance.
5 Ways to Find Confidence in God:
1. Realize you are a child of God. There is nothing that we can do to make God love us MORE or love us LESS. Let that sink into your heart. He is our Heavenly Father, and He defines us.
2. Serve God out of gratefulness. We shouldn’t be lazy but instead should be diligent to fulfill His calling. We need to relentlessly rely upon the Holy Spirit. I try to maintain this throughout the day by praying about everything. I work FROM gratitude and not FOR His worth.
3. Focus upon God’s blessings. Instead of worrying about what we cannot control, focus upon His blessings. Write a list of ways that God has answered prayer. Talk about the people who have began a relationship with Jesus.
4. Stop comparing and start encouraging. You are not that person and they are not you. God made YOU unique and for a specific purpose of glorifying Him. Focus upon God’s calling for your life and live that out with passion. Comparison kills peace. Comparison kills joy. Contentment builds both peace and joy. The next time you start comparing your salary, home, church size and vehicle, start thanking God for His blessings.
5. Trust God with the results. We are not responsible to change people. We are simply given the opportunity to imitate Jesus and influence others with Jesus. God is God; we are not.
What is it in your life that makes you feel insecure? What would you add to the conversation?
It’s Sunday afternoon and God has just moved in incredible ways in the youth ministry I pastor, so why do I feel so awful and dejected? How can I not hear the encouragement from others and find myself planted on the few things that did not go right? Is there something wrong with me? Does this have anything to do with me?
The feeling at the end of a great weekend retreat, Disciple Now, camp experience, mission trip, or any of the other events we do can be exhilarating. The group feels a sense of camaraderie and the spirit of the group has completely changed from when you arrived or started. We all love events for this reason (it’s definitely not for the planning). An event can accomplish some things that a weekly service can’t. The part that’s not talked about and that those outside of student ministry don’t get is what I like to call “event lag.” It’s the negative feeling or happenings after an event that just can’t be shaken. It threatens to ruin the whole experience or make us doubt what God has just done.
Often, the problem with “event lag” is that it makes us immediately look towards ourselves. We’ve (hopefully) spent an entire weekend talking about how it’s all about Jesus and within a blink of an eye it’s back to being about us. It is hard not to take the parent gripping about something, or the young person tweeting something dumb, personally. We’ve invested so much into the weekend and we want everything to go smoothly. Part of it is because we want the students/parents to think they have the best youth pastor in the world, but another part of it is that we want to honor God in what we do. How do we respond to criticism? How do we react when things don’t go the way they are planned?
Sometimes events do not work out the way you planned and situations go haywire. Don’t take it personal. Imagine Robin Williams holding you right now saying “It’s not your fault… It’s not your fault… It’s not your fault.” At our fall retreat, my worship leader messaged me two hours before we left to tell me he couldn’t make it because he has diverticulitis… two hours! Diverticulitis! Who’s ever even heard of that?!? I went into a mini-panic, but then I realized that my freak out was not helping anyone. God worked it out when a buddy of mine stepped in to lead worship. Worship was amazing that weekend and it was not something I planned. At the end of the retreat, we planned more than enough drivers to pick us up and we had 4 or 5 that didn’t show up. Just…didn’t…show…up. There are certain things that are within your control, but you can’t control everything. On a side note, if you are a lazy planner or unprepared then you need to repent and get on that grind. Your students and God deserve better.
God can use these hiccups to remind us to trust in Him. It’s easy to slip into a mode of trusting in our own understanding and not His. God will accomplish His work and use every event as a teaching moment for our benefit. Do not let “event lag” come and steal your joy, remember that it is found in God and not in events. Talk it out with a buddy in youth ministry… gain some outside perspective. It’s good to know that you aren’t alone in your feelings. Open up to your spouse, use this as a point of intimacy. Most of all, when your soul feels drained, tired and beat down after an event, be still, and listen to God’s voice. You are a child of the King above being a pastor.
