when you sense the passion is fading

Most youth workers are easily excited! And, excitement can be a great asset, but excitement will eventually fade. When this happens, many youth workers find themselves in a scary ministry season accompanied by doubt. We believe that God does great things in these moments and is more than able to change one’s heart to break for something new. While we don’t have a specific prescription for your fading passion, we do have some thoughts for how God might be redirecting your life:

Speak Lord, for your servant is listening.
That specific prayer changed a life, a nation, and the world. More important than a well crafted action plan is the unwavering commitment to stop and listen to God’s quiet voice. Pour your heart out to Him and be patient as you listen. It may feel like your hand is in the fire, and you want a quick fix, but the high temperature might just be God molding something new.

During these times, we want to challenge you to pray prayers like this: “God, what are you up to? Where are you moving? I don’t know how things will pan out, but I’m committed to being faithful… and, your servant is listening.”

Look around!
While you’re “looking up” through prayer, it’s time to look around and look inward. Take some significant time to give thought to what you’re doing and how you feel about it. What ministry actions FILL you and replenish you and why? What actions DRAIN and deplete you… and why? Consider what might be outside your control: what could be reinforcing the ruts? What are the repeating patterns and relationships that currently feel limiting?

It takes practice and commitment to become introspective, but anyone who desires to be an effective ministry needs to develop the skills required to mine the heart and discover its good and bad.

Connect
Don’t go through a difficult, passionless season alone! It will be worth your risk to reach out to a trusted friend or mentor and inform them of what’s going on. Hold nothing back. Ask questions. Listen. But make sure you do this BEFORE you’ve settled on a new course of action.

Act
At some point, you’ll need to decide what needs changing AND translate that change into action. It’s up to you to discern the right time, but you might want to think about the difference between patience and procrastination… the difference is often… simply fear.

The change you need to make may be surprising, be looking for God to do something you would have never thought of on your own. You may need to change your attitude or change something in your situation (or everything in your situation!). Change isn’t easy!

One last thought: Do you have a sin to confess? We wish we could skip this last comment, but we realize that some people get stuck and become passionless because of unfinished business with God. Disobedience is an obvious hurdle to sincere passion. If there’s something messing with your heart… deal with it ASAP!