If you've worked as a youth pastor you've likely heard the ever-changing statistics. Youth pastors work an average of 1 year at any church. Youth Pastors stay pastors for an average of 3 years before looking for another profession. Youth Pastors are more likely to be overworked, under payed, and completely burnt out than any other professional ministry position... I've heard all of these things before. (Though I've never actually SEEN any statistics... I mean who would participate in these surveys anyway?)
So having survived in professional ministry for just about two years now, I present to you...
5 ways to make sure you don't stay in (professional) ministry:
1. Stop reading the Bible. If I'm honest, I probably hated the Bible my first few months of ministry. It was this unending riddle filled with secret meanings and written in strange languages, and it existed only to give me bad grades in my Bible classes. I found that any time I wrote a paper on something I considered obvious (In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, easy enough right?) I was way more likely to fail, but anytime I tried to write a paper on something I didn't understand at all (wait, Jesus just killed a fig tree... for no reason?) I couldn't get past the first page without questioning my faith.
So I just avoided the Bible. I stuck with lessons I was sure of: God wanted us to forgive people, love people, feed people. He didn't want us to be jerks. Avoiding the Bible was the worst decision I could have made. I started feeling distant from God, confused about everything, and in general removed from the Spirit.
2. Don't go into the office. This blog is a testament to the power of office hours. Most ministry jobs are salary based, you come and go as you please and you justify coming into the office at 4 PM with "I work late on Wednesday nights, and really early on Sundays," but don't fall into this trap. Ministry requires MORE work not LESS than most jobs. You need to be self motivated and constantly assessing how you can make the ministry more Christ-like. It's a difficult burden to bear, and it doesn't get any lighter by watching Hulu.
3. Ignore the old people. It's easy as a Youth Pastor to think "my job is to hang out with the High Schoolers and so I don't need to get to know anyone else". Under the Bible, the elders in your church are going to be your greatest wealth of knowledge about God. Let me put it this way, why would you have shelves and shelves of Bible commentaries (or the equivalent of shelves on your eReader) in hopes of making the scripture more relevant when you could just ask one of the older people in the church and get a poignant story about what the verse really means.
4. Ignore your conscience. God has placed you in a ministry job to do his work and if there's something about the church that every part of your soul seems to say "this isn't what God wants" the worst response is to ignore it. You are now a church leader and if you allow sin into the church then the responsibility is on you just as much as the elders and other pastors.
5. Be a coward. No, there's no guarantee you'll get a raise at the end of the year. There's not even a guarantee that you'll have a job, but there is a guarantee that Christ will be with you where you proclaim his Gospel. So pick yourself up and do His work, and if you don't have a job at the end of the year then pick up all your commentaries, ask God where he wants you, and do it all again. You have been commissioned for a life time, not just for the amount of time the church is able to pay you.
So having survived in professional ministry for just about two years now, I present to you...
5 ways to make sure you don't stay in (professional) ministry:
1. Stop reading the Bible. If I'm honest, I probably hated the Bible my first few months of ministry. It was this unending riddle filled with secret meanings and written in strange languages, and it existed only to give me bad grades in my Bible classes. I found that any time I wrote a paper on something I considered obvious (In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, easy enough right?) I was way more likely to fail, but anytime I tried to write a paper on something I didn't understand at all (wait, Jesus just killed a fig tree... for no reason?) I couldn't get past the first page without questioning my faith.
So I just avoided the Bible. I stuck with lessons I was sure of: God wanted us to forgive people, love people, feed people. He didn't want us to be jerks. Avoiding the Bible was the worst decision I could have made. I started feeling distant from God, confused about everything, and in general removed from the Spirit.
2. Don't go into the office. This blog is a testament to the power of office hours. Most ministry jobs are salary based, you come and go as you please and you justify coming into the office at 4 PM with "I work late on Wednesday nights, and really early on Sundays," but don't fall into this trap. Ministry requires MORE work not LESS than most jobs. You need to be self motivated and constantly assessing how you can make the ministry more Christ-like. It's a difficult burden to bear, and it doesn't get any lighter by watching Hulu.
3. Ignore the old people. It's easy as a Youth Pastor to think "my job is to hang out with the High Schoolers and so I don't need to get to know anyone else". Under the Bible, the elders in your church are going to be your greatest wealth of knowledge about God. Let me put it this way, why would you have shelves and shelves of Bible commentaries (or the equivalent of shelves on your eReader) in hopes of making the scripture more relevant when you could just ask one of the older people in the church and get a poignant story about what the verse really means.
4. Ignore your conscience. God has placed you in a ministry job to do his work and if there's something about the church that every part of your soul seems to say "this isn't what God wants" the worst response is to ignore it. You are now a church leader and if you allow sin into the church then the responsibility is on you just as much as the elders and other pastors.
5. Be a coward. No, there's no guarantee you'll get a raise at the end of the year. There's not even a guarantee that you'll have a job, but there is a guarantee that Christ will be with you where you proclaim his Gospel. So pick yourself up and do His work, and if you don't have a job at the end of the year then pick up all your commentaries, ask God where he wants you, and do it all again. You have been commissioned for a life time, not just for the amount of time the church is able to pay you.
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