My Experience as Youth Pastor

The Youth group is growing again so that is cool, but we aren't quite to the point of splitting into Jr. High and Sr. High so that presents some problems. The biggest problem is the things that the younger group really get into the older group pretends they are too cool to enjoy. I say pretends because if you watch you will catch them off guard from time to time getting into it until the remember their friends might notice and put the cool face back on.

Game night is where this become most obvious. I do various ice breakers and such ever week but once a month we have a game night with fabulous prizes, well not so fabulous, and there is at least one game where the Youth get to do something to me. It can be quite nasty for me but they enjoy it.

Right now the Jr. Highers volunteer for all the games. OK I might have to volunteer a few of them but they have a great time once they are dragged up front kicking and screaming. I can't even drag the High Schoolers up. Trust me I tried. I might have one or two that will get involved, but most of them just sit back and chill. I've tried various kinds of games but they just aren't into it. I've even setup my Wii, PS2, and Xbox 360 with various games and pretty well didn't get any involvement from most of this group. I do know a few of them are into certain games such as card games that aren't really right for the game night, but even those games I know that at least a third of the older students wouldn't be involved with.

I know this is something that other Youth Pastors have dealt with. How do you get them involved? Even if they don't actually get up and play I'd like to see them interested in the things we are doing.

I have said recently, possibly here or in a comment on another blog, that one of my biggest struggles is pride. My wife will gladly admit that my ego makes Texas big look small most of the time. Suffice it to say that I can think highly of myself. My opinion is based on a true story. I am well read and blessed with many talents both intellectually and physically. This means I'm often right so I tend to assume I am right more often than not.

This is, of course, a problem. Pride is the most evil of all sins because it breeds all sin. God tends to keep me humble by allowing me to get to strutting just long enough to trip over my own feet. Over the years I've grown to the point that I am finally starting to try and control my pride.

This brings me to my current crisis of pride. I have been praised quite a bit lately and I have tried to keep in my head that I am only as successful as God makes me to be. Today, I made a comment over at SCL and someone commented that my comment was funnier than Jon's post. While I tend to disagree I felt my ego grow 3 sizes this day. Before I knew it I was strutting around with my monstrous ego. I think strutting is a way of walking while carrying a huge burden like an oversized ego.

Well, I saw what I was doing and decided to take a step back and evaluate myself. I am not all that and that is ok because God is. Of course now I'm feeling pretty proud at controlling my pride … vicious cycle.

I love tech. I am a geek, I freely admit that, but I am a tech geek to be specific. I am drawn to electronics like a moth to a high intensity LED array surrounded by a wire mesh conducting extreme amperage. If it flashes I want it. More than wanting, though, I also understand. I can do my own coding and assemble my own computers. I say all of this to make it clear that I am not about to attack technology lightly.

Technology, as awesome as it is, is a feeble crutch at best. If you rely on electronics to do everything you will be in a world of hurt when it doesn't work right. What is worse is that the more you need a given piece of tech to work, the more likely it will fail at the worst possible time. This is typically called "Murphy's Law of …" For example, Murphy's Law of printing dictates that the likelihood of printer error increases exponentially the closer to your deadline you are. In other words, if you are doing your printing a couple of weeks before your deadline the printer will work perfectly, but if you are only one week out you have a 20% chance of failure while the day before is an 80% chance of failure and an all night printing party results in a 99% likely hood of the printer breaking halfway through the job.

This also applies to other areas of technology. I can't tell you the number of times that I had media for a sermon that worked perfectly the 5 times I tested it prior to actually preaching, but the moment of truth resulted in audio without video, visa versa, or neither.

I find that by preparing for electronic failure I am more able to recover when disaster hits, and the catastrophic happens far less frequently. I try to do common math in my head instead of using calculators, I backup to multiple locations, I do my papers early and print them early, and I have backup illustrations for when media fails to run properly.

I think my basic assumption that technology will fail is why I can love it so much. I am prepared for the worst case and so when things don't work it isn't a total loss.

I encourage you to learn how to use tech correctly, and I'll talk about some of these things in the future. I also encourage you to accept that if you embrace electronics you will experience heartache and frustration. This is like any relationship, and like any relationship the effort to push past the heartache and frustration is well worth it.

I am blessed to have the Senior Pastor I have. I feel it is very important to fall under the authority of your Senior Pastor as a Youth Pastor. I made sure to ask mine some questions during the interview to make sure that I would be able to serve under him. I wanted to know his vision for the church and expectations for me. His answers were exactly what I needed to hear because they lined up very well with what I felt God was calling me to. We have been able to work very well together. I work to keep him in the loop on what I am doing and to stay under the protection of his authority in all that I do.

I have heard some horror stories from various other YP friends though and so I've decided to try and consolidate the many pastors out there into a few types based on their attitude towards people that work under them.

Hands off:

This pastor is not interested in what you are doing just as long as they don't get a phone call about it. You can do an illustration or game and its fine. You can plan any kind of trip or event without fear of being shut down. Work the hours you want and do what you want when you are working. This pastor is obsessed with one small area of ministry and so long as you don't bother them you will be able to get away with murder.

Pros: You have complete freedom to run your department how you see fit.

Cons: This environment can be plagued with a lack of vision and don't expect any kind of mentoring or direction.

Greatest Enemy: Overprotective parent with his home, work, and cell numbers.

The former Youth Pastor:

This guy wasn't just a Youth pastor he was the youth pastor before you took over. The old pastor stepped out and the church asked him to step up. You think that is your Youth group now, think again. You will be preaching what he has picked and doing the events he has planned. Let's face it, you're only there because he can't be Senior Pastor and Youth Pastor.

Pros: You won't ever have to think while working for this guy.

Cons: You won't ever have to think while working for this guy.

Greatest Enemy: The families that wish the Senior Pastor before him would come back.

Micromanager:

The pastor that can't trust anyone to do their job right. They set very strict office hours and expect constant updates on what you are doing. How does this guy find the time to do everything the Senior pastor is suppose to do? My guess is way too much coffee.

Pros: … umm, well, you usually get 2 days off a week according to the very strict schedule.

Cons: It looks really bad to leave a church as soon as you realize that you are working for a micromanager.

Greatest enemy: The hippy Youth Pastor

The best friend:

The pastor that wants to be your best friend. He wants to spend every lunch with you and a couple of dinners each week. He tries to go on every youth event and tries to be the Youths' best friend also. He wants to know everything you have been up to but because he actually cares about you not like the micromanager that just wants to make sure you are busy.

Pros: Can be a great mentor and actually cares about you.

Cons: Often tries too hard to be cool and embarrassed you in front of other friends and the Youth.

Greatest enemy: Anyone that takes up too much of your time.

There are certainly other types of pastors but these are the ones that I have been hearing about lately. Of course these are stereotypes but some pastors really do these things. Oh the horror stories I have heard. Also, I have used the male pronoun but female pastors can do the same things. I will say that no matter how bad your Senior Pastor is, you should still speak highly of him in front of others. Find nice things to say and look for the positive. It is never appropriate to tear down any minister in your church.

Numbers aren't everything but they sure do help. That is the problem with numbers. When you have a bunch of people come to your service you feel great but when the numbers drop you feel terrible. Your self-worth gets attached to these numbers. That is probably why ministers play the number game. You know, when 15 people show up but you go ahead and round that to 20. 40 people might as well be 50 and 75 is as good as a hundred. Pretty soon you are rounding 600 to an even thousand.

When you round like that it is much easier to ignore the dropping numbers unless they drop below the next level. You have 40 people one week and 35 people the next week you can still round that to 50 right? Going from 700 to 600 definitely counts at 1000 still, so it's all good. The problem with the number game is, people aren't numbers.

Tonight I felt really good because we had a great crowd. Our numbers have gone up every week for the past month or so and this is great for the number game I play in my head, but I'm also convicted about playing this game. There were real people there at church and they had real needs.

I had a girl come back to Youth that hasn't been in service for almost 3 months. She brought 2 friends with her that have never been. I had a boy that hasn't been to service in even longer. There was a girl there that hadn't been in service in about 5-6 years. She was asking about the YP from back then. I'm not sure if she had been in any church since then. There were a few other visitors and I'm sad to say I counted them as numbers first and people second. I did make a point to talk to each of them and to try and make them feel welcome. I was honest in my intent with all of that not just trying to keep my numbers up, but so much of me is wired to think of the number as a real value.

I don't know how long I will wrestle with this issue. I don't know if I will ever completely overcome the number game, but I can try to make myself keep people more important than numbers.

So I'm going through our music selection the other day and it occurs to me that all the music we have, every last song, was great back in the 90s. Oh we might have a song or two from the turn of the millennium, but not much and those are pretty slow.

I am now in the hunt for good worship music for my Youth group. Stuff that we don't sing in "big church." Right now our worship is exactly what we do up top and the youth just aren't into it. I have been able to make a few changes with what we are doing that seems to be working but I can't seem to find music that has the driving beat but is also "worshipful."

The biggest change we made was having out lead guitar go from acoustic to electric. The guy playing rocks and was never really comfortable on the acoustic. It just isn't his style. He didn't have time to get his acoustic one day but had his electric with him and made it work. After that I've asked him to leave the acoustic at home.

The problem now is really the music itself. I want something that we haven't sung a thousand times before; something that the Youth would listen to on their iPods; something they'll actually sing along to. I'm not sure how to find that something though. I've asked my worship team and some other people that are more up to date with music than I am to find some new music. So far I've found a bunch of bands that I really like but that won't work for worship because the lyrics just don't lend themselves to it.

I wonder if anyone out there has a suggestion?

I actually enjoy history. I keep this bit of information secret because then people might wonder why I hate learning history so much. If you asked what my least favorite class was in school it was history. The problem is learning dates. My brain just isn't wired for dates. I honestly have trouble with the most basic of information like my birthday. It isn't that I can't remember numbers. I can remember certain kinds of numbers like no bodies business. I can tell you my phone number from when I was 14 years old. I know IP addresses for servers I setup years ago. I just can't remember dates very well. I can't spell in English either. I can spell perfectly in 3 other languages but not English. I have a great vocabulary but terribly spelling.

I digress. My point is that history is fun and exciting and knowing the key events from the ancient Middle East to Rome really opens up your understanding of the Bible. I've been working on giving history to my Young Adults group as I go through an end times study from Daniel, Matthew 24, and Revelation. We are on Daniel 7 and I have learned some things myself that were never taught in any of my history classes. I was able to run down these details because of what I did learn. One thing jumped out at me because of one of the few dates I actually remember from history.

70 AD. This is the year that Rome sacked Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple. I applied this bit of random trivia to some information I was researching as I tried t make sense of the 4^th beast in Daniel 7. The beast has 10 horns and those horns are 10 rulers. Then a small horn rises up and pushes out 3 of those rulers before boasting and persecuting the saints. Rome was initially a republic and so the ruler was the people and then there were 9 emperors from Julius Caesar to 69 AD. In 68 AD Nero dies leaving Rome in civil war. There are a total of 4 emperors in 69 AD. The first 3 die very quickly and the last sets up a new dynasty. This emperor (Caesar Flavius) buys off all the historians to ensure history is written to suit him. He also is responsible for the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem.

I can't guarantee that this is the correct interpretation for the vision, but it seems to fit. I had searched this out but haven't really seen the idea anywhere else. As I study this more I find there are some amazing details that are revealed and even more details given so that we can know what to expect. I think this is the reason I like history. When you really get into it there is a mystery that presents itself and I love solving mysteries.

Connect the dots and you will see that there is truth in this mystery.