Bamboo Driven Youth Ministry - The Next Big Thing (new blog post)

Bamboo trees are funny.  Not "ha ha" funny.  Strange, different sorts of plants funny.  You may already know this little tidbit of info, but I just discovered it.  Some types of giant bamboo trees have a unique growth pattern.  You plant the small seedling in the ground, and the first year, it doesn't do much.  You water it, care for it, make sure it's safe and has good soil.  Still, not much growth.
Year two rolls around, and all that hard work results in, well, nothing.  It's alive, but it just sits there.
Year three?  Bumpkis.  Nada.  Small, green little plant is sucking up nutrients and food, and your time, but not moving.
Surely in year four, it will take off.  Nope.
Year five?  Explosive growth!  Eighty to ninety feet in one year.  That little booger will take off and grow in visible ways everyday, until it reaches it's full height.
Now what if a bamboo farmer wasn't aware of this amazing pattern?  They'd give up, quit feeding and caring for the plants, and throw them out, or go find a new job.  It takes someone who has rasied bamboo to help them understand the patterns of growth so they can stay the course and see everything hit maturity.
Youth ministry is the same way.  Students will come, you'll pour into them, build into them, pray for them, feed them spiritually, feed them emotionally, feed them physically.  To what we see, nothing happens.  They sit there, green, and not growing. 
Eighth grade year?  Nothing.
Freshman?  Nothing.
Sophomore? Nada.
Junior Year?  Zilch
But then, sometimes in their senior year, sometimes in college, sometimes in their 20's, it will all take off.  Their faith becomes their own.  They begin serving locally and globally and God uses them in AMAZING ways.  The very kids you were CONVINCED would never become anything, they grow into beautiful, tall, strong trees.
Don't give up!  Don't stop.  I've been in this a few years.  I have former students in their 30's.  They will surprise you, I promise.  You do NOT know which ones God will use, I guarantee it.  His ways are not our ways, at all.  Be faithful to care for your little trees this week. 
Growth is coming. 
And it's amazing.

The Senior Pastor / Youth Pastor Relationship: The Myth of "Feed Me"

Lesson #2 - They Are Not Your Private Mentor

Honestly, a lot of times when I'm teaching college students who are ready to leave school and begin in ministry, they have this unspoken idea that when they get to a good church, the senior pastor is going to mentor them, shape them, and pour tons of time into them.  They have this picture of them and their senior pastor taking long walks, eating ice cream together, spending hours exegeting Numbers 14, and having their wisdom tank filled up and over running.  In this dream, birds sing, a rainbow appears in the sky, and Jesus comes down and plays disc golf with them as the light fades.

End scene.

Uhh.....no.  Let's be perfectly honest here.  I love my senior pastor today.  He has poured into me, and taught me more than I can imagine.  I owe much of who I am as a pastor to him.  I am completely grateful for him, he's my brother, and he's an amazing man of God.  But we don't eat ice cream and study ancient texts together.  We are brothers and friends.  But his role in the church is to lead the church, and to train the people to do the work of ministry.  He is not my personal mentor.  The pastor in my previous church wasn't, the pastor before that wasn't either.  It's not their role.

I do learn from him, and he does pour into me from time to time.  But the reality is, in most churches, there isn't enough time or resources for the senior pastor to give you that much attention.  Your growth is up to you.  I do have friends with very different relationships with their senior pastors.  Some are very close friends, some aren't.  Some are very discipleship focused with their staff, some are more hands off.  It varies, just depending on the church's size, values, the pastor's personality, and the stage of life of the youth pastor. 

One thing I try to pour into everyone I send out into ministry is that their personal spiritual growth is up to them, not anyone else.  It's their responsibility to figure out who to learn from, and their responsibility to be sure they are learning and growing.  God is our mentor.  But don't look to your senior pastor to do that for you.  It's an unfair, unrealistic, and sometimes selfish idea.

So, how do you grow?  Read.  Alot.  Pray.  Alot. Attend conferences, listen to podcasts, get around leaders who know more than you do, and admit to them and yourself that they know more than you do.  Be a life long learner.  We are all disciples.  We all need to grow and change everyday.

Just don't dump that weight on your senior pastor's shoulders.

God doesn't.