Youth Pastor....What the?
So someone asked about what a youth pastor actually does. That is a great question because that is another thing I wrestle with all the time. What do I do? I am not totally sure. I think the church, my boss, hired me to teach the kids in the church about Jesus and to help them answer some of their life questions, and I think to help "climatize" the youth into the church so they can and will one day be a greater contributing factor to the church and community then they already are.
I think what I do has changed from that a bit because I am who I am......I think! For me youth ministry is not just to the church kids but to the greater community and the youth that are here in Coaldale. I believe Jesus has given me some kid of love for kids that I can't hide. I get many opportunities to spend time with kids, eating with them, talking, playing games, driving, whatever all sorts of stuff. These time are conducive to building relationships and building into kids lives. Youth Ministry is one, in my humble opinion, that is best done when I can walk along side a youth and laugh and cry and seek and ask questions and work and struggle and enjoy the good times together with them. "Live Life" withy these kids as best I can. Mayeb by some miracle they will see the love that God has given me for them and they might one day want to know His love as well.
People have a basic need for companionship, someone to listen to be there and love them. That is what I do, I think or I want to do anyway. I also have some responsibilities in the church that kind of get tacked on to the "Youth Pastor", kind of like a "cling on". They may include speaking, counselling , endless meetings, and relationships in the church..
That is a simple version of what I do. IF their are other more expeienced youth pastors out their who can better describe or add or take away from this list please be my guest.
Peace out
md
I think what I do has changed from that a bit because I am who I am......I think! For me youth ministry is not just to the church kids but to the greater community and the youth that are here in Coaldale. I believe Jesus has given me some kid of love for kids that I can't hide. I get many opportunities to spend time with kids, eating with them, talking, playing games, driving, whatever all sorts of stuff. These time are conducive to building relationships and building into kids lives. Youth Ministry is one, in my humble opinion, that is best done when I can walk along side a youth and laugh and cry and seek and ask questions and work and struggle and enjoy the good times together with them. "Live Life" withy these kids as best I can. Mayeb by some miracle they will see the love that God has given me for them and they might one day want to know His love as well.
People have a basic need for companionship, someone to listen to be there and love them. That is what I do, I think or I want to do anyway. I also have some responsibilities in the church that kind of get tacked on to the "Youth Pastor", kind of like a "cling on". They may include speaking, counselling , endless meetings, and relationships in the church..
That is a simple version of what I do. IF their are other more expeienced youth pastors out their who can better describe or add or take away from this list please be my guest.
Peace out
md
posted by YootguyMark at
8:59 AM
5 Comments:
In deed...I had a youth move to Hepburn last year and I invited him to youthgroup spent time getting to know him and such, and one day in my office he says to me: "what do you do?" and i was like well umm this, hang out with you and others, tell you about Jesus, model Jesus grow with Jesus....well actually my answer was to him "not much" (always trying to be funny, a must for youthpastors) but in my head i was going over tons of things, evaluating what do i do, and is it needed...its good to hear your thoughts on this, i think its a very common question for youth-pastors. Keep doing what your doing man, God Bless...
By
Paul, at 9:52 AM
hey that stuff on relationships - - was that chapter 13 of the that book we were going to write. I thought for sure you were going to say something about how the Y.P. job was to rent FM radio transmitters so that we could complain about how much money we lost on the drive in movie night - that didn't turn out to be an outreach like we thought and ended up getting us in trouble with the board.
yeah i think you got it all wrong?!?
out
By
Increasing..., at 7:57 AM
I never get boared of what I do. Kids like you are what keep me on my toes. The hardest part is hadr to say but I will keep thinking about it and it may show up on a blog sometime.
md
By
YootguyMark, at 10:27 AM
I can't say I am a "...more experienced youth pastor" but I would have to say that I often struggle with feeling accomplished at the end of the day. Especially when I have things planned to get done that day and instead of doing those things I wind up hanging out with kids. Then my wife says, "...so what did you do today?" I say "...well I hung out with so and so and went for fries with so and so and lunch with so and so." Then she might say something like, "Oh, so you got nothing done today then." Just thought I would throw that out there. The thing is when I look back on things the more rewarding times are the times I spent with people, not in my office. So, all that to say, yeah, you are right Mark. I heard you and Dale were writing a book on this, do it man! Thanks for the thoughts Mark!
By
Anonymous, at 1:35 PM
Who's this Gilbert Dueck? Stop spreading lies.
By
Gil, at 3:09 PM
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