Youth ministry is funny. It's so unpredictable when young people will respond to something like a service and when they will disengage. For some reason or another they really got into it this weekned. I have a few hunches why things seemed to click.
Volunteer Attendance: First service's volunteer to teen ration was super high. I think that anyone who will show up at 8 AM to serve and interact with 12-14 year olds deserves a special place in heaven, but those who do it with excellence? Wow. This week I want to highlight three amazing youth workers.
Jessica Worthy has been with Marie and I since we came to shoreline over four years ago. She's one of those people who "get" relational youth ministry. She's fantastic with logistical things, but doesn't sacrifice relationships with our kids to get things done. She's taken on several roles over the years, and now she is truely a leader of leaders. I'm fantastically greatful for the way she serves the Lord and our young people.
Chris Kennedy and Jeremy Fry - The universal cry from most youth pastors is "Lord, please please please give me more youth workers!" Next is, "Lord, we need more guys!" G-d answered both of those cries of mine. These two guys love kids, are great relationships, show tons of initiative and are all around all-stars. They have changed the culture of our normally difficult and sleepy first service time.
Our services are nowhere near perfect, of course. However, they are not what they used to be at all! I'm excited to see our team grow in health in these significant ways.
Looking forward, I'm spending more time developing these leaders who will in turn, develope other leaders. I am also spending significant amounts of time learning how I can better partner with and equip the parents of our church community by going to trainings such as the D6 conference and Real World Parents presenters training. I feel like God's taking me into a different season of life, where things will be added to what I already do. Instead of only pastoring teens, I'll train others to do it too and I'll also be more intentional about my responsibility to encourage parents.
1 comment:
Although our teens aren't nearly as large in numbers as yours, I do definately recognize the cries for good talented youth workers in this ministry. It's so good to hear that your ministry has been blessed with such dedicated people who seem to have a clear understanding of what is important and that the whole ministry continues to grow and develop. As for perfection, no ministry is perfect and I think it's actually quit healthy for teens to see that it's not perfect. After all only God is perfect and whatever we humans do we'll never get it right completely. Just a sence of realism :)
I love you and I'm really proud of the work you do and how dedicated you are to those teens.
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