It's me verses the world, Church edition

It is interesting to look back at the past 16 years of full-time youth ministry and see how my execution of ministry has changed.  It's also interesting to see the how the people God has put in my life have effected what I do, and it is the people who I considered to be antagonist who have helped me grow the most.  In hindsight much of what made these people seem like antagonists were faults in my personality and learning gaps in ministry.

My first paid gig was as Director of Youth and Children at First Baptist Church in North Myrtle Beach, SC.  This was a very exciting time for me as this job seemed to be the proof of God's calling on my life to youth ministry.  God blessed what happened at FBC immensely.  Although I never kept the numbers, it was a regular occurrence for a student to accept Christ during youth group.  I was only at FBC for 3 years, but I am still seeing the fruit of my time there.  Some of the students are continuing to serve God, some have since gone into the ministry, and a few are still very close friends of mine.  There was really only one part of FBC that I saw as a a negative and that was my supervisor.  He and I butted heads on a regular basis.  As I look back I see the mistakes that he made.  He hovered over my shoulder a bit and I always felt like he was looking for a reason to be critical.  I was a very young kid (23 yrs old), and I was a typical youth director: unorganized, messy, late on deadlines.  I know some may say I'm still like that, but trust me, I was much worse.  My supervisor at FBC was a organized guy, and he struggled managing me.  I don't have a clear enough memory to appropriately declare who was more at fault; him for being heavy-handed or me for being an organization nightmare. I do know that I missed the opportunity to learn from him.  15 years later I am still using some of the tools he gave me.  Most of the things he tried to teach me he was right about.  He was not a harsh guy, but he did want things to be done his way.  I felt that he looked at me as a young punk kid that had no idea how to be a minister.  Now I can see that that would probably have been a fair assessment of where I was at the time.  Becoming a youth director was a dream of mine, and once I had become a youth minster, I felt I had arrived.  I was unable or unwilling to see myself as a student of ministry.  God placed him in my life to teach me how to be a minister, and I did learn from him.  I only wish I had listened more.

After my time at First Baptist I took a year off to concentrate solely on school, and I made the president's list.  After I graduated from college, I began looking for a full time youth ministry job.  A church in Athens, GA contacted me and we began the interview process.  My father I and drove the 6 hours to Athens, and I spent the next few days meeting some amazing people.  These were men and women who believed in and followed the Bible, and they were excited about youth ministry.  They wanted to see youth following Christ with all of their heart.  I don't like to typically label myself, but the label "conservative Christian" fits nicely.  This search committee was was a group of conservative Christians who wanted their youth taught conservative principles.  The church in Athens offered me the job, and after sometime of prayer, I accepted it.  It did not take me long to realize that things were not quite as they had seemed.  I was brought into a very liberal church by a very conservative search committee who saw the problems in the church.  I walked in blind.  I assumed that the search committee was a fair mirror of what the rest of the church was like.  It is important to state that I was raised a Southern Baptist, and I naively thought that ALL Christians believed two core things:
1.  Jesus is the Son of God, and the only way to heaven.
2.  The Bible is true and inspired by God.
You can imagine how stunned I was to find out that not only were there people who called themselves Christians and did not believe in these two basic things, but the senior pastor at my new church was one of them.  It was a very tough time.  I was in constant battles with parents because they felt I was too sure of what I was saying.  I would teach youth group on Sunday night and would spend all day Monday on the phone with parents defending what I had taught their children.  Eventually some parents stopped calling me and started going straight to the senior pastor.  My already emotionally draining Mondays got tougher as I would get a 2 hour break from defending my faith to parents to sit down in the senior pastors office to do the same with him.  This continued for over a year and a half.  My new wife, Heather, and I had convinced ourselves this was a mission field.  Then the session voted on several things, two of which were my list.  They voted that we could not prove that #1 or #2 were true.

In my last Monday meeting in his office he stated that he believed Jesus was the only way to heaven "for him," but if a Hindu came in his office and said they had found a way to heaven who was he to say they were wrong.  To which I replied, "You are the senior pastor.  If you don't tell them to truth of Christ, who will?".  He asked me why I so badly wanted to be in charge of whether people went to hell or not.  I responded, "I'll answer your question if you answer mine.  How does your belief system exist and the verse that says 'I am the way, and the truth, and the life no one comes to the Father except through me' (John 14:6) exist at the same time."  To this day, I am not really sure why he got as upset as he did after I asked the question, but he did.  He was upset, angry, and loud.  I just sat silently stunned as he raised his voice at me.  I need to state that it was the only time he showed anger with me.  He had always been very kind to me although there was a tension because I was going to teach the truth and he did not think it was true.  My resume was online that very day.

It still bothers me that the search committee folks did not let me know the spiritual war that was going on in the church, and they were very aware of it.  It also bothers me that the senior pastor was present for all of the interview sessions where I talked about what I would teach the youth, he never pulled me aside and let me know that we were not on the same page.  I did get a call from the former youth director and he gave me a heads up after taking the job.

My time in Athens had hurt me, and in a lot of ways I was damaged.  I put my foot down and decided that I was going to go back to a Baptist Church.  I knew what was taught there, and I would be comfortable there.  I put my resume on a online youth ministry site, and I sent to all denominations even though I would only accept offers from a Baptist church.  I think I did that out of arrogance, and I needed lots of people to want me.  I got a call from an Episcopal church in Bluffton, SC, and I basically ignored it.  I received a call from my long time friend and fellow youth pastor Matthew Palmer.  I found out he lived in Bluffton, and they had contacted him as one of my references.  I agreed to go on the interview.  Immediately I knew God was calling my family to go to Bluffton.  The ministry in Bluffton was very successful.  It grew quickly in numbers and depth and numbers.  I was also apart of a team people who really understood ministry.  The church was going through major changes, and as it grew into something quite amazing the youth program felt the stress of the churches growing pains.  The church was moving from a relational-style, medium-sized church to a corporate-style, large church.  I was challenged by the Rector to rethink my youth ministry formula. to see myself as solely a leader-of-leaders.  This meant I would pour most of my energy into the leaders of the youth program and to spend less and less time directly with youth.  The problem was that the youth program was thriving.  We had built a program from 15 regular attendees to 70 regular attendees in only 3 years with a 5th and 6th grade youth night, an upper grade youth night, a discipleship group, and several small group.  The attending students were a mixture of students that love Jesus deeply, those who were interested in Jesus, and even curious atheists.  I was being asked to abandon something that was working well to something that to me was very unknown.  So I took the plunge.  I tried to be this leader-of-leaders.  The problem was that causing such major change to a youth program is painful, and we lost some of our numbers.  The leadership of the church was not just wanting me to change my style of ministry, but to do it with no learning curve and with no loss of numerical growth.  I struggled becoming what was a very new type of youth ministry for me, and I was given no time to learn from my failures.  I was beginning to feel pressure to have substantial numerical growth and to have it quickly.  I was told that I was expected to have a youth program with 200 students in the next year, and that was to be done solely through recruitment of leaders.  I was let go from the Bluffton church.  The main reason is because I am called to me a relational minister with High school and Middle school students.

Ahh! Poor little baby!  you've had it so rough.
It is true that this post is born from painful moments in youth ministry, and if this post was the only thing you've ever heard about the places if served then you'd probably come to the conclusion that I have had a really negative time in the churches I've worked.  It's not true though.  Youth Ministry is the 4th most important thing in my life (#1 God, #2 Heather, #3 my kids, #4 youth ministry).  I have friends from every place I've served.  Some of those friends are so close to me that I expect they will be carring my casket one day.  I love what I do, and I love what I've done.  God has taught me so much over the past 15+ years.  I believe God called me to serve at every place I've worked.  I've learned from the blessings, but most of all I've learned from the painful things.

What have I learned over the years?
While at First Baptist Church I learned that I have to have a learning attitude.  I can't get an attitude every time someone thinks they can do it better, they might be right.  I still have to respect my elders, and I can learn from thoughs who have already walked the road I am about to head down. God places people in my life that I need to learn from.  I can learn from the people even if our personalities clash.

During my time at First Presbyterian I learned that I must not be naive.  Just because people say they are a Christian, it does not mean they believe the truth.  And it does not mean they necessarily believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and savior.  I also learned that when I am looking for a place to serve the interview process was not just so they could decide if they wanted me, it was also to see if i wanted them.

It's kinda interesting to look back at my time at the Church of the Cross.  I am doing alot of the things that I was pushed to do while there.  I have taken some time to rethink how I do youth ministry.  God has called me to be in one-on-one relationship with high school and middle school students.  I will never stop doing that.  What I do now it a hybrid between what they wanted me to be, and what I have done in the past.  God is blessing how I am doing things now.  My time at the Church of the Cross also helped me to learn to take chances.  You can't win big unless you try big.  Losing big is just part of the process.  I used to be afraid of failure, but now I pray hard and try big things.

Christ Church in Savannah, GA
God has taught me things from blessing & pain and from successes & failures.  Everything I have been taught over the past 15 years as prepared me to be in Savannah, GA now.  I don't know what God has for my future, but I know I am happy that I am here and I love what I do.