Are you called to ministry? The fundamental question.

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Who do you want to serve?

The greatest commandment says to love God with every ounce and fibre of your being and it says to love other people like you do yourself (Matt. 22:36-40).

Basically…

Do you love God and love others?

Or

In reality – do you want to serve your own needs?

  • Do you want to minster the great love of Jesus to the great needs of broken people?
  • Are you so moved in praise and heartfelt gratitude to God that this overflows in a Jesus-like passion for others?
  • Do you recognise that people are flawed and vulnerable, and need the message of the Gospel to dwell in them richly as a grace-and-mercy response to their lives?
  • Are you overwhelmed with the story of the Cross to the point that if you don’t call it out of others, you’ll dry up into a nothingness husk?

Or

  • Are you most passionate about ‘fixing people’s theology’ and ‘rooting out the heretic’?
  • Do you see facts, figures, viewpoints, doctrines, worldviews, and belief systems before you see real actual people holding them?
  • Are you looking to scratch an itch that allows you to read all day and show off your knowledge at the weekends?
  • Do you want to create an audience for your teaching or debate abilities?
  • Are you thinking more about God than you are worshipping God?

What about the ‘ministry qualifications’ from Titus and Timothy?

Titus 1 and 1 Timothy 3 both give fabulous qualifications for ministry, but these are for after you have established the initial passion and drive which we traditionally call ‘calling’.

Calling is a fundamental move of the Holy Spirit in your life that wells up as a desire to fulfil the great commandment and live it out in the great commission. It is supported by grace and driven by mercy. It begins in humility and grows deep roots of dependence on God for all you need.

Your CV won’t get you into ministry; God will get you into ministry. Ministry is a miracle calling which God produces and provides. At interview, your heart for, and relationship with Him is what should bleed through. Your experience and qualifications are simply the evidence of that heart. They are the smoke to the fire of God.

Ambition vs. Calling

Ambition for ministry is not the same thing as calling to ministry. Start with these few questions:

  • Do I love God?

How is that love manifest in my life?

 

  • Do I love Jesus Christ, as God?

How does the story of the cross dwell in me personally?

 

  • Do I love the Holy Spirit, as God?

What dependency do I show Him every day I live?

 

  • Do I love the Father, as God?

What would I do and how would I live as a response to His will?

 

  • Do I love ‘non-Christian’ people?

Do I primarily see them as human beings needing the mercy of God?

 

  • Do I love Christian people?

Do I see them as human beings on a careful and precarious journey of grace?

 

  • Do I love people who agree with me?

Do I use them as a comfort and support for my ego?

 

  • Do I love people who disagree with me?

Am I willing to push through the thin veil of human worldviews and see the life of Christ and needs of the flesh within them?

 

  • Do I love people?

Do I want them to know and experience the same love of God that I know and experience?

 

Photo by Nathan Bingle on Unsplash

Where have all the boyscouts (youth pastors) gone?

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I recently took part in discussion about the decline in full-time youth ministry positions. The question before us was: why are there so few qualified applicants to so many vacant youth ministry positions?

Much of the conversation was measured and insightful, is not a tad predictable. Low pay, poor management, unrealistic expectations, and a general lack of understanding of what youth ministry is, all featured highly in our chat. All of these I think are true reasons why people don’t want to be youth pastors.

There is however another side to this coin.

Some important history, and some unfulfilled hopes

Youth ministry has never been a multi-million-dollar exercise. However, it did enjoy a strong resurgence at two points in our recent history:

In the late 1940s parachurch organisations like Young Life and Youth for Christ began pooling resources to develop missionary work among teenagers not being met by the post-war church. This was a valiant effort with many positive outcomes, however the negative side-effect was a centralisation of youth ministry away from the local church.

In the 80s and 90s, the techniques of these organisations were emulated in some wealthy churches, which then trickled down to the rest of us, creating the modern church-based ‘youth pastor’. These youth pastors developed much of the standard project templates that we use today.

Without making light of the genuine passion these groups and people had for young lives and Jesus, both of these movements where an attempt to ‘fix’ issues in the church. With the decline of Christendom, there was a wide-reaching fall in attendance across denominations. With that came diluted maturity, lower commitment, creeping secularisation, and a huge drop-off rate between the ages of 11-14. The hope was that modern youth ministry was going to save the church from these realities.

Youth ministry has not fixed any of these issues. If anything, certain popular youth ministry models have made them worse by driving deeper a wedge between young people and the rest of the church.

Youth ministry is still a baby

Whereas the church has been training pastors for centuries, youth ministry is still very much in its infancy academically and practically.

We don’t have things like the Reformation to look back on as a melting pot for healthy practices to emerge and be challenged. We don’t have hundreds of years of trial and error to perfect the ultimate ‘lock in.’ We don’t have ancient ecclesiastical giants to look up to as archetypal youth pastors (with perhaps the exception of Mike Yaconelli!). We’re still babies.

Although ministry among young people was happening in some form before the 1940s it was largely part of a broader whole; specialisation and compartmentalism are traits of the 20th Century.

In terms of training, youth ministry courses still feel randomised, like they’re missing an essential magnetic identity, and – In the last decade – we have seen less specialised youth ministry courses being created or surviving. There’s also been far less student uptake in the ones that do exist.

The ‘product’ isn’t there and neither are the ‘customers’. If the product isn’t ready, then after the ‘first to try and first to buy’ alpha consumer has been through it, no one follows.

What am I getting at?

One of the unspoken problems is that youth ministry is still very young, and it’s not clear at the moment whether – as a profession – it will survive the next few decades.

If we want youth ministry to thrive, and for there to be serious competition in the positions we create, then the whole church collective needs to work together towards biblically solid foundations for it’s future.

I recently wrote a book called Rebooted, which was written to gently prod the conversation in a deeper direction. My passion is to give youth ministry the biblical chance it deserves by creating stronger foundations found in the Bible itself. My hope is that it will spur better books and speakers to go deeper into those very foundations that we truly need to find our identity, then grow and thrive.

Were still kids! Let’s not give up, let’s take stock and go deeper. The foundations are not set yet, so there’s only so high we can build before it keeps collapsing. Let’s dig deep and give youth ministry the fighting chance it deserves!

Thanks!

Photo by Jonas Jacobsson on Unsplash