5 Critical Questions for Youth Pastors

So I’ve realized in the past few years just how lackadaisical I’ve been in my student ministry.  It’s not that I lost my creative drive or passion for families…I just got comfortable ‘coasting’, so to speak.  I’d still invest in some ‘youth ministry awesomeness’ — but I wasn’t looking at my ministry or myself with a critical eye.

You may need to make a hard left to course correct…asking these questions could help yank the wheel.

1.  Why am I doing this?  Not this specific event, but church ministry in general!  If the answer is less than ‘Jesus called me to do it and because of that, I can do nothing else,’ consider a course correction.  It’s easy to get mired down in thoughts of family provision, lack of experience or training in another field, or just plain old ‘I don’t know what else I would do.’  None of those are reasons to stay in ministry…and they aren’t strong enough reasons to keep us there, either.

2.  Why am I doing this?  And by ‘this’, I mean, yes, that specific event – ministry – trip – etc.   If the answer is anywhere in the wheelhouse of “because we always do this”, “because I already have the route programmed on my gps”, “because we’d have revolt if we got rid of this”….it’s time to yank the wheel!  We MUST assess the reasons why we do what we do…otherwise this youth ministry becomes the newest generation of ‘we’ve never done it that way before.’

3.  Can I do this without Jesus?  If the answer is yes, then it’s not ministry…it’s programming.  I would jokingly tell my wife “I’ve been doing student ministry so long, I don’t even need Jesus anymore…I got this.”  Then one day, I realized it wasn’t as much of a joke as I thought it was.  I had mostly cut Jesus out of the process.  That’s not ministry.  If it’s not something ‘bigger than me’ to accomplish, then it’s not worth doing.

4.  Who is my Provider?  If our answer is the church, then we’re already in the weeds.  Make a hard U-turn!  We are not at our church for money, insurance, vacation time, or whatever other benefit we get that the guy down the street doesn’t get.  We’re at-will employees of Almighty God – and HE alone is our Jehovah Jireh…not the personnel committee, the church treasurer, the less-than-tithers or the lucrative givers.  Don’t make me rant about youth pastors who go or stay based primarily on money.  I was caught in that trap once upon a time…and it’s a miserable existence.

5.  Who is my First Love?  It really is the most important question of all.  Sometimes church work can suck the Jesus right out of us.  Be sure to intentionally invest in your personal walk with Jesus – independent of Bible study prep, sermon notes, or whatever other work-related reason drives you to Scripture.  Have you been embraced by Holiness today – have you sensed His presence – do you know His laughter – has He whispered anything to you recently?

Jesus is at the beginning and end of all we do as youth workers.  As you travel this road, make sure He’s also in the middle.

The Timex Standard in Youth Ministry

Have you ever spent an entire week sweating and bleeding and not sleeping alongside teenagers on a mission trip only to return home from the trip to a parent who is 40 minutes late picking them up?  It’s maddening.  We’re physically tired.  We’re spiritually spent.  We love our students and exult in all that God has done over the week…but we’re ready to go home.  We’ve had these kids for a week – the least the parents can do is show up on time, right?

And so the hypocrisy begins.

We internally rail on parents when they show up late to retrieve their students or the group has to wait because someone is running late for departure time.  But we’re also the first to pull out the Holy Spirit when we need to run late during Bible study.  I mean, we can’t rush the things of God – and maybe the Spirit is just thick amongst our students one night.

Or how about this one – we tell parents we’ll be back from the outing at a specific time, but we’re running late because…well, hey, things happen.  We are coordinating an eight car, two passenger van convoy.  And you’d think that fast food restaurant had never served a bus-load of teenagers with an abundance of special orders and a pocket full of pennies before!  Cut us some slack!

Life cannot be ruled by the clock.  Sometimes issues do arise.  Sometimes the Spirit of God does demand additional minutes to complete His work.

And sometimes parents run late picking up their kids.  If we want to hold them to a Timex standard, we better keep an eye on our own pocket watch.  Clocks can be sinister inventions…but they are also powerful communicators about what and WHO matters.