A Different Perspective

A few short years ago if you would have asked me what a good youth minister looked liked I would have said a lot of different things. Man of God, good family man, good with students, fun, good leader, and all the other things you could put in there, but something has changed for me the last month or so. I also would have added someone who had a large youth group into that description as well. My thoughts on that have changed. Oh don’t get me wrong being a youth minister of a large group is tough you have to be organized and really good at what you do, but good "youth minister" may or may not be part of that. You see I spent years rapped up in the fact that no matter what I did it was a success numbers wise. I didn’t worry about who wasn’t there because I had so many students that were it didn’t matter. Man, how sad is that I could have huge events with lots of students and my elders, and parents could say man your such a good youth minister, but in actuality all I did was make sure we had numbers. Oh, don’t get me wrong I really believe that the ministry I did in the past really helped young people know God and I am proud of that and I praise God for that. I guess what I am saying is it was easy. I jumped in the driver’s seat of a ministry that had an established youth program for 20 years and as long as I didn’t run it off the road I got the “good jobs” from everyone. I could tell students that we were all going to meet at the building and sneeze and 100 of them would show up. I could tell parents I needed sponsors for a trip and I would have to turn over half of them away. I had unlimited resources and if I didn’t have enough money I could always get more. It was all easy!!! Now I have to battle for everything. The programs have got to be good for students to show up. Resources are limited and let’s just say parent support could be better. I guess what I am saying is for the first time in my life I am really having to work at the whole youth minister deal. The cool part is the little victories don’t go unnoticed. I girl talking to me about here family struggle, a guy who brings a friend for the first time, kids excited about an activity as simple as a flag football game. I guess deep down I always knew that numbers really had nothing to do with being good at this crazy job, I mean after all two of the best youth minister I have ever known (the two guys I work with) had groups smaller then mine at MRCC. Nope now you ask me what a good youth minister looks like and numbers has nothing to do with it at least not the numbers I used to worry about. Now a good youth minister is someone who is just trying to get as many kids to heaven as he can. To be honest I don’t know what God has planned for my group that I work with now, but what I do know is I will never take for granted the small victories ever again.