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Encouragement for Youth Pastors

As a student pastor, I desire to encourage other brothers serving students and families among various ministry settings across the nation. Therefore, I started this blog. I thought to myself, "Why not?" I read blogs by other prominent youth ministers, professors, and pastors that share their thoughts and methods online maybe I should too. Thanks for reading my first one, and I hope you will find encouragement through this post. 

If you are still reading, I hope my insights will provide you with useful thoughts for your own life in ministry. Youth ministry provides ample opportunities to minister and spiritually mature the next generation of brothers and sisters in Christ, but sometimes seeing students develop in their walk with Jesus Christ does not come rapidly. We all need encouragement in ministry. Not just from students and members within the body of believers, but from each other. Paul exhorts the Thessalonians, "Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing" (1 Thess. 5:11). I believe we must encourage others that are serving the next generation to live their lives for the glory of God (1 Cor. 10:31). 

Three ways I desire to encourage youth pastors:

1) Be a perpetual learner. In this technology saturated culture, we have many resources at our fingertips to grow in our knowledge of Christ. Brothers, take advantage of these resources. Seek to always further your theological training. Take free courses online, listen to sermons from solid Bible expositors, go to seminary, read, and find a mentor that will push you theologically. Howard Hendricks once wrote in Teaching to Change Lives, "If you stop growing today, you stop teaching tomorrow" (pg. 17). The students we minister to need to be theologically developed, but we must be theologically grounded in order to develop them. 

2) Be a humble servant. The ultimate example of humility is Jesus Christ. Read Philippians 2: 1-11 to see the humility that should be emulated by all believers and servants of King Jesus. It takes humility to learn when you make a mistake. We are all going to make mistakes, but if we lack in humility, we will lack in longevity. Serve your students and families with the love of Christ. Serve your family with the love of Christ. The key to Philippians 2 may be defined by verse 3 when Paul writes, "Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves." Don't compare yourself to the other ministries in the community. Be faithful to the ministry God has led you to. In some ministry areas, that takes humility.

3) Be connected to God. This encouragement seems to be the one that convicts me the most. Days that are filled with a multitude of tasks from planing, spending time with students, meetings, studying, or family seem to get in the way of our time with God. Read Power through Prayer by E. M. Bounds to see the extent of the prayer life required in the prayer closet. Even the Psalmist wrote, "Blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the Lord! Blessed are those who keep his testimonies, who seek him with their whole heart" (Ps. 119:1-2). Spend time alone with God everyday. We need Christ to be the center of not only our ministries, but the center of our lives. 

I pray you were encouraged by this post, and I look forward to writing many more in the future. 

"Grace be with all of you" (Heb. 13:25),

Pastor J
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