Stuff You Don't Learn in Seminary part 3

The Legendary Youth Minister

The Story

Now this may come as a shock to some of my long-term subscribers… I have not always been the all-knowing, middle aged, pastor-professor that sits above you now: I was once young. As you know, the best thing you can do when you are young and people want to “guide you” is continually point out what scripture says:

Let no one look down on your youthfulness, but show yourself as a model to those who believe in word, conduct, love, faith, and purity. (1 Tim 4:12 LSB)

But you don’t need to bother them with the second half of the verse, the first clause will make your point - especially if you repeat it frequently and loudly.

Our Youth Ministry Outfit was mostly green cargo shorts with a grey Tshirt or color other than green. I could not grow a beard at this time…

Now, the greatest thing about starting ministry at a young age is that you get paid a lot. I was 19 when I started getting paid $85 per week. That could buy a lot of $2.99 Pizza at Fazzolis. Plus, you get to do Youth Ministry. The small churches that are wise enough to hire a 19 year old are often not wise enough to realize that the Youth Ministry might outnumber the Sunday Morning adult attendance quickly. Then they may find themselves in an awkward position of being overcrowded by young folks and have to tell you how great you are. At least that was the result when my roommates and I started out in Youth Ministry at the turn of the millennium.

If there is one thing that college students have learned that is applicable to Youth Ministry it’s that T-shirts and free food will draw a crowd. So my roommate¹ and I decided we would help with FCA at the local school. There we would advertise events with free food and limited free T-shirts. The T-shirts were often whatever came in our YLO boxes.² And just like that, we had half the school show up for our joint youth ministry events.

Man could we put on a show! One time we even had the Christian Wrestling Federation come to our 5th quarter in the school gym. Those guys cared so much about us that they let us to pay for their dinner and a 2am breakfast at Dennys!³ Now, imagine a gym full of students being led by two 19 year olds. It was glorious chaos. Everyone was amazed that we were doing such a great job, and kept telling us. Even the school’s athletics coaches encouraged kids to attend Youth Ministry events, so I know they approved.

But, it wasn’t all fun and games. After all, I was spending like 30min to an hour EVERY WEEK preparing stuff. But when you’re invincible you can get things done really quick, especially if you chug Dr. Pepper. So I had learned to make it work. Then at the ripe old age of 20, our pastor left. At that point, I was the only staff member there for 9 months. Looking back that church got the deal of the century. I was paid $100 per week to preach on Sundays and lead youth on Sundays and Wednesdays.

My leadership skills were off the charts. I managed to grow the church by -10 which was about a 30% loss. Remember sometimes you grow through subtraction right? I even told the lady who cleaned the church that if she really wanted to go down the road and listen to that other preacher that she should probably go ahead and do it. Our one deacon and I talked about it later, and he said: we’re probably better off without her. I was #winning. Now it was time to head to seminary and share my gifts.

The Backstory

The story above, while real is meant as a sarcastic way of demonstrating a problem that wasn’t addressed in Seminary - or bible college.⁴ I think the deacon’s comments were made more in shock than approval. The first issue I had was that I thought that I had signed up to teach the Bible, and it turned out I had been hired to manage a group of unruly teenagers. Naturally this cut into my Bible teaching. And, I was undisciplined enough that I found shortcuts to make it look like I was prepared. Thankfully nothing illegal happened that I know of. I can’t tell you how many times I caught kids sneaking around at camp or pranking other kids with way over the top pranks. By the grace of God nothing scandalous happened either. Unfortunately scandalous things did happen with other folks I knew in other places.

One of the problems I had was discipline. Scripture addresses this problem:

Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, But he who hates reproof is senseless. (Prov 12:1 LSB)

Like a city that is broken into and without a wall is a man without restraint over his spirit. (Prov 25:28 LSB)

Naturally without personal discipline, the quality of my ministry was pretty uneven. That lack of understanding discipline in my personal life and in the organization of the church was definitely a limiting factor for that church. Discipline was not something I saw modeled in the first pastor that I worked with. Honestly most of the others were great, but that first one modeled a lack of discipline for me.

I was also arrogant. I am not saying every 19yr old guy is arrogant - but I was. Again scripture offers insight:

Pride goes before destruction, And a haughty spirit before stumbling. (Prov 16:18 LSB)

These two things are still problems I struggle with, and are areas I ask guys to hold me accountable in. This character stuff isn’t taught in seminary but I would highly suggest you get a feel for a person’s discipline and pride level before you assign them a ministry position. If you are in seminary - begin to work on discipline and humility. Do your best work for assignments. Ask questions with the hope of gaining knowledge rather than proving someone wrong. I’m far more effective for the kingdom now that God has taught me some level of discipline and humility.

1. I’m still best friends with this guy - though we are both much different people now.

2. Evidently they still make these!!???

3. The event I recall was at least 25 years ago, so the organization undoubtedly has different people if it still exists.

4. I graduated from Baylor University with a double major in Religion and Communication