Youth Pastors Can Do Anything!

Youth Pastors can do anything.

(Side note: this article is really just for me and my guiltiness.)

A month out, my brother asked me to be his wedding coordinator. I thought, sure, I can do this, I can do anything. I'm a youth pastor.  It's it true that if you are in youth ministry, under your skill set it will say:

I am a:

Carpenter, travel agent, 24 hour emergency line, teacher, pastor, music director, food preparer,bus driver, DJ, janitor, administrator, decorator, babysitter (ouch), CEO, UFO, skit creator, videographer, video editor, powerpoint creator, delegator, reader, financial guru, mediator, prayer warrior, wedding coordinator.

The wedding went fine, I was totally in my element. I was in charge of all the details. The next week I  started to see the pictures from the wedding go onto Facebook. Over and over I kept saying "I didn't know they were there! How did I not talk to them, let alone see them? Was I even at this wedding?!"

And then I started to think about youth ministry. How often are we caught up in the "programming" of things that we don't see who is actually showing up to our youth events?

Now, don't get me wrong, administration, preparation, and planning meetings are very important. I've experienced youth pastors who spend all their time connecting with students and do absolutely no planning or administration, and end up failing miserably.

I've also seen (**ahem, myself**) get caught up in the details and forget about the ministry, the questions to ask like "how are you? did you win your game this week? what's going on with your faith?"

Of course, there's that ugly word again.... balance.

Youth pastors can do alot of stuff. But lets get back to the basics, yeah? And let's do them with balance. I mean, our economy is forcing us to go back to the basics, so let's do it for our ministries too.

A week after the wedding, I gave the sermon in our service. I talked about community and the importance of noticing those around us, and choosing to interact rather than disengage. I talked about how it's our choice to not get caught up in the details, but focus on the relationships. Sometimes, the devil can be in the details.

So here's a few questions to ask yourself:

When was the last time you wrote a note to a kid (besides on facebook)?

When was the last time you went to a game, musical, or simply stopped by a student's house just to say hi?

When was the last time you ask a teen how they are really doing, rather than giving them a task when they walk in the room?

Did you have more planning meetings than student connection meetings this week?

Do we remember the test that they asked us to pray about, do we ask them about that?

Anyway, this article is really just for me, the "youth pastor who can do everything" and has no balance. I need to read this everyday. How are you doing with balance? With getting back to the basics?

I pray that we can all get back to the real reason we got into ministry, to remember how God called us to this place, and be able to really start connecting with students again.