So amazing

I love youth pastors. I really do. I may be a bit biased having been married to one and basically been one myself, but really I think they may be favorites of a few other non youth ministry people.

This past weekend I spent a very wet weekend (it literally did not stop raining from the moment I left AU until the time I returned) up near Lake Michigan at Camp Warner at a Youth Leaders retreat for the CHOG in the State of Michigan. Leaving, I wasn't very excited and I wasn't feeling the greatest. But I left with a different attitude. Over the course of the weekend I heard bits and pieces about these youth pastors lives and ministries. Many of them were volunteers who worked full time and moonlighted as youth pastors at their small churches. BLESS THEM! Youth ministry is not a part time job even if it is advertised as on. To do honestly effective youth ministry, it is a full time lifestyle type of job. These people were doing that!

We shared our joys and pains of working with middle school students. They were nice enough to share some of their stories with me, a perfect stranger to them. One youth leader that just captured me was...well I don't remember his name at the moment. I sat down with him at dinner one night and the other fellows from our table had left and just asked some questions about him and his ministry. He is in construction full time but also does the youth ministry at a small (possibly dying) church near Detriot. He said he came from a larger church that had alot going on, plenty of resources but he wasn't being used there. So he and his wife happened to stop by this church one Sunday and found out they did not have a youth pastor and there a few youth in the church. So they made the switch. Talk about "SEE A NEED FILL A NEED". He was sacrificing and giving up working with aministry that had plenty to reach a few youth at a dying church. I don't think I could have done that. Doing Youth Ministry with out a budget can be frustrating and difficult, but it can be the most rewarding at times.

And to my surprise, most of these youth pastors were nearing 40 and OVER!! One had been in youth ministry for 32 years, another 18 years. These are lifers! Previous to going on this retreat I met with someone at a School of Theology. He told me that they encourage youth pastors to really consider an M.Div because, " lets be honest, you're not going to do Youth Ministry forever. You grow out of it and the natural progression is to become a SR Pastor". I don't agree with this guys line of thinking here, but my short meeting with him was not the time to challenge him. And I was so glad to see these two youth pastors, one who was in his 50's and the other who was 44, still doing youth ministry. One of them was the Middle School Ministry pastor!!!

I left this weekend with a continued passion for youth ministry. There is just something about being in a room full of people who love youth ministry, who love youth enough to sacrifice a weekend to learn how to work and coach young people. I hope when I go to Heaven that I get into the wing of God's big house that is full of youth pastors.