Tag Archive | studentministry

The Spiritual Life of a Youth Pastor

Three essential daily disciplines of a youth pastor.

Whether you like it or not, the ministry will reflect your spiritual values. I’m pretty sure you don’t want your ministry to be apathetic, lazy and disinterested. I also don’t believe any of us want minister with the “don’t do what I do” principle. Where we stand in front of our students and encourage them to get in the Word daily, and we never do! Or share the gospel with your friends, and we never do. I’m guilty of this! When I started to discipline myself in some essential disciplines is the moment I stood in front of our students with godly confidence declaring God’s presence and activity in their lives, because I experienced it throughout the week. Yes, there are more than 3 spiritual disciplines, but I have found these three to be life giving and keeps me on track in my spiritual life. Here are my thoughts on three different spiritual disciplines I feel are essential for every youth pastor, and I have found to be true.

Daily Bible intake. We have to schedule it. I’m typically up at 5:15am every day. (Even on Saturday & Sunday’s) I’m not saying the way I do it is right, I’ve just learned the value of getting my day started with intention. Get some sleep. (Early risers hate this one) Go to bed at a reasonable time so you can get up to spend time in the Word. My pastor says it this way, “Go to bed on time, so you can get up on time, so you can spend time with God.”

Have a plan. I read through the “One Year Bible” every year. Yes… every year. It’s the foundation of my time with the Lord and then I add other types of devotionals on top of it. Without a plan you may struggle with being consistent.
Daily solitude and prayer. Create margin for prayer whenever you have your quiet time. This goes without saying and majority of us have got this down, but here’s reality. Most pastors spend an average of 4 minutes a day in prayer! Let it not be said of us. I typically close my Bible and spend about 10-15 minutes in silence, solitude and prayer. It’s so life-giving when I shut things down in my heart and head and just listen.

Another idea is to take time each week to walk your student ministry space. Seek the Lord in silence taking some intentional time to ask for His presence to fill the space. I do this every Wednesday morning in preparation for our midweek service. It’s time well spent.
Daily relational check ins. There are some important people in your life who need your attention. Your spouse, your kids, your team, and some of your strategic leaders. These people need you and you need them! These are people you live life with. Whether you text them or hug them, they need to know you’re with them. “As iron sharpens iron..”

The pitfall here is pride. Believing you are “spiritually mature” to miss a day (or two) of Bible intake or skipping out on intentional prayer. After all you’re the pastor of the ministry right? Pride. Standing in front of your students and lying about you overcoming sin, when in reality you haven’t confessed a thing! Pride. Meeting with a parent and encouraging them to get up early and pray over the bedroom doors of their kids (which is a good thing!) and you haven’t even tried to do it with your kids. Pride. There is so much peace when we can encourage our students to live godly lives when we are striving for godliness ourselves.

Your ministry doesn’t depend on you… it depends on Jesus! Remove your pride. Fight against fleshly performance and success. Stay humble. Get on your knees daily. Shelter under His wings, letting the Holy Spirit be your guide. The Holy Spirit is not going to speak in your chaos and pride. Stay humble and desperate in your daily disciplines and allow Him to work in your life which in turn will translate in your ministry to your students.

We just need to have the spiritual integrity to lead with the right motives and have a spiritual bent. The only way this can happen in our ministry is through spiritual honesty and integrity. To lead people to Jesus as you pursue Jesus yourself. The spiritual disciplines are essential to spiritual success in your ministry. If the minister goes, so goes the ministry.

Need some advice or someone to pray with? Set up a time to meet with me. I promise to listen, encourage, dust you off and kick you back in! I’d love to come alongside you and talk more about how the spiritual life of the youth pastor impacts the ministry.

September 28, 2024

Ministry and Family. Is there such a thing as balance?

I mean I was rockin’ and rollin’ in student ministry during my younger years! I was young, newly married and living the “dual income no kids” lifestyle! Students were engaged, ministry was growing and I thought to myself…”Man I’ve got this!”

You’ve heard the phrase “pride goes before the fall.” Well I heard it in the dead of night from my wife. Sometime later, things in ministry were crusing. My wife had just given birth to our first born and when we came home from the hospital, I just kept on rockin’ and rollin’. The ministry needed my enthusiasm and energy. It needed the best of me all the time.

This went on for a month or two, when one night after a long day of ministry. I came home late and Shelley was already in bed with the lights out. I came in, got ready for bed and crawled in my side of the bed. In the dead of the night I hear a simple cry, “I miss you.” My heart sank. The Lord used a simple three word phrase to strike blows to my pride. She was right. In my youthfulness and pride I made ministry more important than my family.

Ministry, especially youth ministry, has a way of doing that. The rockstar mentality. The “everything revolves around me” trap and even the “everything will fall apart if I’m not in it” type of voices rule our hearts. Oh we may not say this things out loud for fear of being perceived as prideful, but we certainly live these phrases everyday.

Our family need us too. Especially when they are young. But there is a pitfall here too. We swing the pendulum to the extreme and ignore the ministry God has called us to. So where is the middle ground? Where I don’t neglect my family and continue to lead a thriving ministry. Here’s my theory: We put so much pressure on performance and not enough on relationship.

Peformance says, you’re not doing good enough so try harder to please. Relationship says, let’s just sit and enjoy the meaningful moments. Performance is fuel for perfection and keeping expectations. Relationship is thoughtful and intentional. Performance is toxic and never ending. Relationship is eternal and life-giving. (I think you know what I’m getting at here.)

Ministry is relationships. Not a performance. Family is rooted in relationship. Not performance. When we have the right perspective it gives great clarity to our time and effort. Yes, our family needs to learn to “let go of daddy” for a time, and the ministry needs to learn how to let of “youth pastor Steve.” There is a harmony we need to discover in loving our family and ministering to our students. And I will say, there is no 50/50 in this type of perspective.

Let’s chat about creating harmony and balance with family and ministry. Set up a 1on1 coaching session and let dig deeper in your situation and context. Praying for you today.