November 6, 2025 • 27 mins
Start the New Year strong and grow a healthy, thriving youth ministry...if you'd like to work with us, check out GrowYourYouthMinistry.com *** As every year and season of youth ministry goes by, there is always something new that you learn as a youth pastor. In this episode, we wanted to reflect on a few important pieces of advice that I've gotten along the way that I wish I had known sooner.
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📚 Books Mentioned in this Episode:
📕 "Imagine Heaven" by John Burke: https://amzn.to/4p093A1
📗 "Imagine the God of Heaven" by John Burke: https://amzn.to/47pC9To
📘 "Accidental Pharisee" by Larry Osborne: https://amzn.to/4qKzn2H
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(#039) 5 Things I Wish I Knew Before Becoming a Youth Pastor
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Today we're talking about four pieces of advice that
I wish I had known sooner inyouth ministry.
SPEAKER_01 (00:17):
Welcome to the Ministry Coach Podcast, where we
bring you weekly tips andtactics to help you fast track
the growth and health of youryouth ministry.
My name is Jeff Lascola, andthis is Kristen Lascola.
SPEAKER_00 (00:29):
You sounded different on that intro.
Like you were being veryintentional with your words.
SPEAKER_01 (00:36):
Time to enunciate.
SPEAKER_00 (00:38):
Jeff Lascola.
Well, Jeff Lascola, today we aregoing to talk about four pieces
of youth ministry advice I wishI had known sooner.
SPEAKER_01 (00:48):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (00:48):
And now it's too late for me, but it might not be
for you.
So listen up because this isimportant.
Well, and there are things thatI feel like I've learned along
the way, uh, especially fromChris Brown.
He teaches me so much.
He's our senior pastor.
And we meet as a studentministries team twice a month.
(01:12):
And every time I just am like,where would I be without all
this advice?
Nowhere.
And one thing he reminds us of alot, and this is my number one,
is that don't take youthministry success, successes, or
failures personally.
So I think there's he alwayssays, like, when we take our
(01:33):
ministry very personally,there's this temptation that
when something is a success orgoes really well, we can't help
but swell with pride.
And then now we have this prideissue because we see it as an
extension of me.
Look at what I did, and it justspeaks so highly of me.
(01:55):
But on the other side, thereason why that's dangerous is
because if something didn't gowell and is a failure, that can
very easily lead to like thisministry depression where you
second guess everything andyou're kind of in a mopey mood
because you think I'm just notcut out for this or I messed up.
(02:17):
And to kind of take it one stepfurther, I think it's like how
we define successes and failuresin ministry largely seems to,
since the dawn of youth ministrytime, have to center around
numbers.
Like, and I think that's likethis weird metric we can't seem
(02:38):
to shake, like in the youthministry world.
And while we've done episodes onthis before, that numbers do
tell a story, they just don'ttell the whole story.
Numbers aren't everything, andso we can think, okay, it was
successful because a lot ofpeople came.
So, regardless of what happened,I'm working with a youth pastor
(03:01):
right now whose ministry hasnever been bigger and never been
more unhealthy.
SPEAKER_01 (03:07):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (03:08):
And I've been through that as well, as like
your numbers skyrocket, andeverything comes along with that
that you can imagine.
Um, right now we're healthy, butI remember maybe three years
ago, we just had a class thatwas dragging us through the mud,
and it was just so hard to get ahandle on the health.
(03:32):
And so numbers don't alwaysequal health.
And people say, well, healthythings grow.
Well, and then I always comeback with, well, so does mold
and mildew and gross stuff, youknow.
People like get really sick fromthe mold growing in their home
under unbeknownst to them.
So it is a sign, but what signis the growth?
(03:55):
And so um, we can't take it sopersonally.
Like, here's a better questionto be asking, and this comes
from Chris Brown.
Thank you, Chris.
Is was I faithful?
So the question is not, did dida hundred kids show up or 200
kids, or am I the biggest youthgroup in town, or am I bigger
(04:16):
than the church that I'msecretly competing with, but I
would never admit it, or theyouth group in my own church I'm
competing with and don't want toadmit it.
But the question is not, am Ithe biggest and am I the best?
Because at the end of your life,you're not gonna stand in front
of your youth group.
You know what I mean?
Like you're not going to give ananswer to them.
(04:39):
You're going to give an answerto God.
So the question on his mind issimply, were you faithful to
what I've given you?
And we're going to talk a littlebit more, maybe about what that
looks like.
Like, okay, well, how do I knowif I'm faithful or not?
That'll come later on in thisepisode, but I think that is a
(05:00):
better question than how manypeople came.
It's like, well, was I faithfulto what God called me to do?
Because that is ultimately whoyou answer to.
So, number two, I wish I hadknown this sooner in youth
ministry, and there was no wayto know this until I was on the
other side of the growthmountain.
(05:23):
But the Bible says it, and it'strue, you reap what you sow.
And then, kind of like thesubtitle underneath that is and
sowing takes a very long time.
I think way longer than youexpect.
And I think that a lot of youthpastors aren't prepared for
(05:44):
that, of how long the sewingtakes.
You are digging, you areplanting, you are fertilizing,
you are weeding, and you don'tsee anything of substance and
maybe a little sprout here andthere, but you keep toiling
away, toiling away, toilingaway.
And eventually the growth comes,but it takes years, not months.
(06:10):
And so I think people are like,want to put a little miracle
grow on something and be like,okay, where's this growth
everyone was talking about?
It's like, no, it could take adecade.
Like, I mean, it really could,depending on what you're
starting with and how you'restarting.
And, you know, we get a lot ofemails from a lot of really
(06:32):
small youth groups, which isfine, but a lot of them are the
very first youth group theirchurches ever had.
If you're the very first youthgroup your church has ever had
and you're not building uponanything, you're not taking over
for someone, I guarantee you,like growth will happen.
It just might take a while.
(06:54):
And really getting like theculture down of like, what is
what is this ministry?
Like, what are we known for?
Like, what does it mean to be apart of this ministry?
And that will take years.
So think about the the ministryyou want in 10 years, or the
ministry you're hoping to berunning in 10 years, is the
ministry you're building today.
(07:15):
It's not gonna just all of asudden pop up out of nowhere,
but it's like the hard work thatyou're putting in now.
So let's go back and answer thequestion that we posed in the
first one.
Well, what does faithfulnesslook like then?
It's how you steward a fewthings or manage the gospel,
your people, and your resources.
(07:37):
And I'm reading this book rightnow by I think the author's name
is John Burke.
And he wrote a book calledImagine Heaven, which is all
these near-death experiencepeople that he vetted in a very
interesting way.
Like they weren't money hungry,they weren't fame hungry, they
weren't writing books.
(07:58):
He said a lot of them actuallyhad a risk involved with sharing
their story, like whether theycame from a different religious
background or they were part ofacademia, and that was kind of
like okay, weirdo, or uhsomething like that.
So he's writing this secondbook, or he wrote it, I'm
reading it right now, calledImagine the God of Heaven.
(08:20):
And there's this veryinteresting theme that kind of
goes through both books, andthat the whole anytime anyone
has this, and this is not in theBible, so whatever, take it with
a grain of salt.
I'm not gonna put my he evensays he doesn't plant his
theology on any of this, it'sjust interesting because a lot
(08:41):
of the stories are very similar,like crazy similar.
So he's like, there's gotta besomething to this.
Anyways, the question, which isbiblical, that God wants to know
from a lot of these people thathave to give an account of their
life is how did you love?
And these people said that whenthey were kind of in this
(09:01):
in-between, like in going intothe afterlife, they would have
this life like flashback, kindof like, you know, when they say
my life before my eyes, but theysaw their life in totality, and
they said a sense they were ableto have that they couldn't have
here on earth was they couldsense how they made the other
(09:24):
person feel.
And I thought that was sointeresting.
And like God's question foreveryone was, how did you love?
Like that was like the main goalfor from him to everyone for
their life.
And some lady said, even when itcame to like the animals in her
life, like it was kind of thisquestion, how did you treat
(09:48):
people?
How did you treat things?
How did you treat animals that Ihad put in your care, that I had
like crossed paths with you on?
Like, how did you love?
And kind of to bring that backto what we're talking about with
youth ministry is like, how arewe stewarding this ministry?
Well, that answers the questionof faithfulness.
(10:10):
How do we treat the students inour ministry?
How do we handle the gospel?
How do we handle the truth?
How do we handle the resourcesthat we've been given?
And it's always easy to say, Iwish I had more money, I wish I
had more stuff, I wish I had abigger church, I wish we had
more students coming, I wish Ihad more leaders.
Okay, well, we don't we allthose are obvious, but how are
(10:34):
you managing what you have beengiven?
Are you loving it?
Are you multiplying it?
Are you caring for it?
Because the question at the endof our lives will be how did we
care for what he's given us?
And so thinking about that inyouth ministry, instead of
always looking for more, more,more, what I wish, what it's
(10:55):
just okay, what's right in frontof me.
And we were on a coaching callthe other day, and one of the
members of YMGA, our course, shewrote me an email.
She's like, I love when you saidlike steward the heck out of
everything you have thatinspired me so much.
Alyssa, thank you.
And I was like, Yeah, and andthat's what ministry is is like
(11:16):
looking at what is right infront of you and going for it,
like stewarding the heck out ofit.
So, because like that hard workdoes pay off, you know,
eventually, excellence and whatwe do and how we manage things
is rewarded in this life and inthe life to come.
Like our ministry, our life,it's being noted, it's being
(11:40):
recorded.
Our like everything we do, itdoesn't just amount to nothing.
It is even those days where youfeel totally unseen, you feel
like your work is in vain, youfeel like it was just another
frustrating night.
Like Sunday night, we had anevent, and I just found myself
(12:01):
here I am again, waiting forthis last kid to get picked up.
And the parents are over 30minutes late, and then we're all
exhausted, and here we go again,you know.
And I just thought, like, man,that was such a missed
opportunity.
I could have really been like,hey, like, what's like tell me,
you know, like got to know thatkid on a better level instead
(12:21):
just like griping about likehere I am and I'm so tired and
why are we?
SPEAKER_01 (12:26):
Try to call them again?
SPEAKER_00 (12:27):
Like, are they on their way?
How close are they?
You know?
And I I don't think I stewardedthat moment great, because I was
so like over it, like, why everytime?
And then, you know, like youthink, oh, maybe you'll get out
of the car and say, like, sosorry, thanks for waiting, but
you know, no.
And so in those moments, like,are we looking at okay, how do I
(12:51):
steward even the irritationsreally well?
Is this an opportunity?
I got 30 extra minutes with thiskid.
Maybe God wants to do somethinghere.
30 long minutes on a Sundaynight at 8:30 when I'm
exhausted.
So yeah, not my not my finestmoment because you know, I was
(13:14):
not seeing the big picture.
Yeah, but uh hopefully nexttime.
Uh something to look forward to.
Because there will be a nexttime.
Totally.
Totally.
Hey friend, I just wanted tointerrupt this episode for a
second to let you know about anawesome opportunity for you and
your youth ministry.
So last year we launched ourcourse and coaching program
(13:36):
called Youth Ministry GrowthAccelerator, and the response
has been amazing.
So we've helped tons of youthpastors grow the size and health
of their youth ministry, and wewant to invite you to be a part
of that as well because maybeyou're just sort of feeling
stuck in a rut, maybe you don'tknow what to do next, maybe you
just have a vague plan in yourmind of what you're doing, and
(13:58):
you want some real help to getyou from where you are to where
you want to go.
So if that sounds like somethingyou've been looking for, go to
growyouryoutministry.com andcheck it out for more details.
All right, let's get back to theepisode.
All right, so number three iswho you are is much more
important than what you do.
And so this is like theimportance of character in
(14:21):
ministry.
Um, not always just chasing thatsuccess, that number, that goal,
and not losing yourself in theprocess.
Because I mean, we've talkedabout this before.
We've heard tons of storiesabout pastors who were wildly
quote successful, yet they losteverything.
They lost themselves.
(14:41):
Like, I mean, maybe some of themlost their soul.
I a lot of them repent and arejust broken and come back.
But, you know, the success andidentity are at like odds with
each other, you know?
And so who you are in ministryis much more important than what
(15:02):
you can accomplish.
So never losing yourself.
We always go to John 15 withthis.
What does he say?
Like 15 times, Chris Brown.
Remain.
Yeah, remain.
Remain, remain, remain, remain,remain.
My friend just got a tattoo ofthat.
Remain.
And it's remaining in Jesusourselves, not just being people
(15:25):
who point others to the gospel,and we're not experiencing the
transformative power of thegospel ourselves.
But that is like one of thequickest ways to just be dry in
ministry.
Chris Brown always says, like,you're doing the work of
ministry without the power ofthe Holy Spirit.
(15:47):
And he's like, and that's areally dry place to be, you
know, if you start to loseyourself, um, lose your
character.
So, like another thing he says,uh, we should just have him on
this episode because all I'mdoing is quoting him.
But he says, When I end myministry career, he's like, I
really don't want to end with anasterisk next to my name.
(16:09):
Yeah.
Did I say that right?
Is it asterisk?
SPEAKER_01 (16:12):
Asterisk.
Oh man, I don't know.
I always just say asterisk atthe end, so it should be
asterisk.
SPEAKER_00 (16:23):
Um, he says, I don't want to finish with an asterisk
next to my name.
Good enough.
And he's like, he's a dad, hehas three kids, you know,
they're grown now, but he says,I always wanted my kids to look
at the way I did ministry and beable to love the God that I
serve and love the church that Iwork at, and not think, well,
(16:47):
they took my dad away, or if ithadn't been for ministry, you
know.
But doing it in such a way thatyou finish well someday and not
that, like, oh, remember thatguy, oh yeah, he was really
good, but remember that, like,you know, some scandal or some
failure or some, you know, thingthat like kind of it's like,
(17:10):
yeah, but you know, kind ofthing.
So keeping your soul intact, youknow, when Jesus says, What good
is it if you gain the wholeworld, yet forfeit your soul or
lose your soul?
And so I think sometimes,especially this is like the
double-edged sword of ministrysuccess, is because when you
start to see success or growth,or you can kind of start to your
(17:36):
character comes under a testeven more because it can start
to make you think you're reallysomething, you know, or that you
don't have to play by the rulesanymore, or you're somehow an
exception, but keeping thathumility of being able to see
growth, but also remain humble.
(17:58):
And that's totally a work of theHoly Spirit, which goes back to
the thing we were talking aboutfrom John 15.
Remain, remain, remain, remain,remain in Jesus, you know, for
the entirety of your ministry.
You answer to him first.
Yes, he's going to ask you howyou stewarded his gift of
ministry, but first andforemost, you're gonna have to
(18:19):
answer to him for yourself, foryour life.
You, you know, you are more thanjust a junior high or high
school or college ministry.
Like you are a follower of Jesusfirst.
So you cannot neglect or losethat, or else what do you have?
Like at the end of the day,like, who cares if you could
(18:39):
lead a ministry if you werecompletely disconnected from the
one the ministry was for?
But it's crazy how that can justslowly creep into um, you know,
we've brought up the bookAccidental Pharisee before by
Larry Osborne, who's another oneof our pastors, but that's one
of the best books I ever readbecause nobody sets out like
(19:03):
Pharisee, yeah.
I like that title.
Right.
It's like you just kind of endup there by accident and you
think you're doing the rightthing.
You think you're really makingGod proud by the way that you're
living and doing, and see, I'mtaking care of business, you
know, but all the while, likewhere he says, your lips honor
me, but your heart is far fromme.
(19:25):
Terrifying, you know.
I think every Christian needs toread that book.
It's it's one of those thingsthat it's not like for those
people, you know, it hits veryclose to home, especially for
those of us that work invocational ministry.
We can very easily becomepharasidical.
SPEAKER_01 (19:43):
Yeah.
So um a lot of people haveargued that, you know, when it
comes to like extreme, I don'tknow if you can necessarily use
this youth ministry as amicrocosm of this, but maybe.
But when you you have extremewealth or extreme fame, how it's
like, I don't know if humanswere meant to have that because
I don't know if you can, forexactly what you're saying, it
(20:05):
will slowly creep in.
You know, let's just take money,for example.
If you all of a sudden won thelottery and you had, you know,
500 million dollars in the bank,you might start thinking things
like, This waiter's taking toolong.
I, you know, I don't have towait for this.
You know, like these minorlittle things that might become
like irritations, like I couldbuy this restaurant, you know,
like I shouldn't have to waitfor anything.
(20:25):
And that might be a horribleexample, but like those little
things that makes a lot ofchanges how you view other
people and how you look atyourself and what you deserve,
or things like that.
And the same would be true offame, like kind of this do you
know who I am?
Right, you know, like someonecuts in front of you, it's like,
Do you have any idea who I am?
Right.
(20:45):
I don't know.
SPEAKER_00 (20:46):
It's like well, and when other people treat you like
that too, sometimes it can'tlike builds you up, and you
think this is how I'm supposedto be treated.
Like, I still sweep the floor,and you know, sometimes people
will grab the broom from me,like, what are you doing?
And I'm like, What do you mean,what am I doing?
I'm cleaning up.
SPEAKER_01 (21:03):
Maybe you're doing it wrong.
SPEAKER_00 (21:04):
Maybe that's it.
They're like, What are youdoing?
What are you doing?
SPEAKER_01 (21:07):
That's not how you sweep.
SPEAKER_00 (21:09):
Lizard, but it's like, I'm not special, you know.
One of my leaders, you know,he's always like, No, like I'll
do that.
You can't, and it's like, yes, Ican.
I can do the dirty work, I canserve, I can, you know, I can't
always lift really heavy things.
I always pull a muscle, but Ican definitely clean and sweep
(21:30):
and you know, do all that stuffright along with everybody else.
Like, there's no, like, guys,we're all on we're all serving
together.
Nobody is special, especially inministry.
Like, that's the verydefinition.
It's serving, you know.
And as soon as we think we'retoo good for it, like we might
(21:50):
be creeping into the Phariseecamp, you know, and in terms of
our heart posture, anyways, andbeing really careful about that.
That's a good point.
So, uh, number four, and lastly,have the right audience.
And we talked, we touched onthis, you know, in one of the
other ones.
But Larry Osborne, this is justa Larry and Chris show.
(22:13):
Um, one of the best things heever said about leadership is he
said, you have nothing to proveand no one to impress.
And that is like so jarring,especially for like a young
youth pastor, because we feellike we have everything to prove
and everyone to impress.
And it's very like you're likegritting your teeth and white
(22:36):
knuckling both of those thingsbecause you want to be
impressive, you want to proveyourself, you want to show that
you can do it.
But again, it goes to who is ouraudience?
Like, you're not gonna standbefore your boss someday, you're
not gonna stand in front of youryouth group or their parents
someday.
The question will be, how didyou love?
How are you faithful?
How did you steward manage andtake care of what I had given
(22:59):
you?
Did you do that faithfully?
I don't think Jesus is gonnaask, like, what percentage did
you grow?
I mean, the parable of thetalents does show that we he
wants us to multiply, but Iwould tend to think that would
be like the gospel, like, youknow, like not keeping it to
ourselves.
(23:19):
So preaching the gospel, theywho have ears, let them hear and
like let the gospel do the work.
And then that growth happens.
So if it happens for the rightreasons, then I think we are
making him really proud.
You know, if we're just able toget more bodies in the room, I
don't know that that's reallywhat he's looking for.
(23:40):
But if people are growing andcoming to know Jesus and that's
how our numbers are growing,like, then that is fulfilling
what he's asked us to do.
And Chris always says, you know,we work for the applause of
nail-scarred hands to hear, welldone, good and faithful servant.
You know, and I think when westart to look at our ministry
(24:01):
through that lens of like, I'mgoing to give an account for it
someday.
I remember years ago, some kidsgetting mad at me because they
were up to all kinds of illegalshenanigans.
And I told them, hey, yourparents have gotta know this, or
else I'm going to tell them.
And they like couldn't believeit.
They thought I had betrayedthem.
(24:23):
They were so mad at me.
And I was a young pastor.
SPEAKER_01 (24:25):
Never taking accountability for what they
did.
SPEAKER_00 (24:27):
No, never.
And I said, and I was a youngyouth pastor, and I remember we
were at winter camp and theywere being so mean to me because
they were mad at me uh forcalling them to account.
And I remember telling theringleader of the group, I said,
you know, I said, you can be madat me if you want.
(24:50):
I said, I don't answer to you.
I answer to God on this, and Iknow this is the right move.
So if you want to be mad, bemad, but I don't answer to you.
And they never came back.
But I was really proud of myselffor just like not caving to the
(25:11):
pressure of a 12-year-old beingmad at me about something that
I'm like, hey, and it wasn'tlike I'm kicking you out of
church.
It was just like, hey, we can'tpretend this isn't happening.
We need to get help here andaccountability.
So yeah, I don't know where theyare today.
Hopefully, they're following theLord, but it's hard to make
people upset with you andremember, no, I'm working for
(25:36):
the applause of nail scarredhands, not French tip hands, you
know.
SPEAKER_01 (25:43):
I like uh Chris's quote on that a little bit
better than yours.
Yours may still be a work inprogress.
SPEAKER_00 (25:48):
It's okay, whatever.
Um, it makes sense to me, youknow.
SPEAKER_01 (25:53):
And in a situation, that very specific situation.
SPEAKER_00 (25:56):
Yeah.
So there is more stuff that Iprobably wish I had known sooner
in in ministry, but those arethe four for today.
SPEAKER_01 (26:04):
Yeah.
And if you want to go deeper, weactually have an episode that we
did a long time ago that Ibelieve was five things I wish I
knew before come becoming ayouth pastor.
So make sure you check out thatepisode.
SPEAKER_00 (26:14):
I wonder what I said.
SPEAKER_01 (26:16):
Well, there's only one way to find out.
SPEAKER_00 (26:18):
So click on the link below.
All right, I'm following.
SPEAKER_01 (26:22):
This is the community comment of the day.
This comes from Christy Johnsonwho says, I love this episode.
So many awesome ideas, theleader cards, the boxes, the
deep end table.
Thanks for sharing all thedetails.
This came from the youth groupnight or the full tour of our
youth group, obviously.
SPEAKER_00 (26:39):
So thank you, Christy, for that.
SPEAKER_01 (26:41):
And we appreciate you guys watching and listening.
And we'll see you next time.
SPEAKER_00 (26:45):
And today we're gonna talk about uh four things.
Oh, four things.
Uh, you know, four.
Uh that um okay, number three.
You are much more important.
Or sorry.
SPEAKER_01 (27:03):
Nope, you're not important.
Nope.
Today we're talking about four pieces of advice that
I wish I had known sooner inyouth ministry.
SPEAKER_01 (00:17):
Welcome to the Ministry Coach Podcast, where we
bring you weekly tips andtactics to help you fast track
the growth and health of youryouth ministry.
My name is Jeff Lascola, andthis is Kristen Lascola.
SPEAKER_00 (00:29):
You sounded different on that intro.
Like you were being veryintentional with your words.
SPEAKER_01 (00:36):
Time to enunciate.
SPEAKER_00 (00:38):
Jeff Lascola.
Well, Jeff Lascola, today we aregoing to talk about four pieces
of youth ministry advice I wishI had known sooner.
SPEAKER_01 (00:48):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (00:48):
And now it's too late for me, but it might not be
for you.
So listen up because this isimportant.
Well, and there are things thatI feel like I've learned along
the way, uh, especially fromChris Brown.
He teaches me so much.
He's our senior pastor.
And we meet as a studentministries team twice a month.
(01:12):
And every time I just am like,where would I be without all
this advice?
Nowhere.
And one thing he reminds us of alot, and this is my number one,
is that don't take youthministry success, successes, or
failures personally.
So I think there's he alwayssays, like, when we take our
(01:33):
ministry very personally,there's this temptation that
when something is a success orgoes really well, we can't help
but swell with pride.
And then now we have this prideissue because we see it as an
extension of me.
Look at what I did, and it justspeaks so highly of me.
(01:55):
But on the other side, thereason why that's dangerous is
because if something didn't gowell and is a failure, that can
very easily lead to like thisministry depression where you
second guess everything andyou're kind of in a mopey mood
because you think I'm just notcut out for this or I messed up.
(02:17):
And to kind of take it one stepfurther, I think it's like how
we define successes and failuresin ministry largely seems to,
since the dawn of youth ministrytime, have to center around
numbers.
Like, and I think that's likethis weird metric we can't seem
(02:38):
to shake, like in the youthministry world.
And while we've done episodes onthis before, that numbers do
tell a story, they just don'ttell the whole story.
Numbers aren't everything, andso we can think, okay, it was
successful because a lot ofpeople came.
So, regardless of what happened,I'm working with a youth pastor
(03:01):
right now whose ministry hasnever been bigger and never been
more unhealthy.
SPEAKER_01 (03:07):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (03:08):
And I've been through that as well, as like
your numbers skyrocket, andeverything comes along with that
that you can imagine.
Um, right now we're healthy, butI remember maybe three years
ago, we just had a class thatwas dragging us through the mud,
and it was just so hard to get ahandle on the health.
(03:32):
And so numbers don't alwaysequal health.
And people say, well, healthythings grow.
Well, and then I always comeback with, well, so does mold
and mildew and gross stuff, youknow.
People like get really sick fromthe mold growing in their home
under unbeknownst to them.
So it is a sign, but what signis the growth?
(03:55):
And so um, we can't take it sopersonally.
Like, here's a better questionto be asking, and this comes
from Chris Brown.
Thank you, Chris.
Is was I faithful?
So the question is not, did dida hundred kids show up or 200
kids, or am I the biggest youthgroup in town, or am I bigger
(04:16):
than the church that I'msecretly competing with, but I
would never admit it, or theyouth group in my own church I'm
competing with and don't want toadmit it.
But the question is not, am Ithe biggest and am I the best?
Because at the end of your life,you're not gonna stand in front
of your youth group.
You know what I mean?
Like you're not going to give ananswer to them.
(04:39):
You're going to give an answerto God.
So the question on his mind issimply, were you faithful to
what I've given you?
And we're going to talk a littlebit more, maybe about what that
looks like.
Like, okay, well, how do I knowif I'm faithful or not?
That'll come later on in thisepisode, but I think that is a
(05:00):
better question than how manypeople came.
It's like, well, was I faithfulto what God called me to do?
Because that is ultimately whoyou answer to.
So, number two, I wish I hadknown this sooner in youth
ministry, and there was no wayto know this until I was on the
other side of the growthmountain.
(05:23):
But the Bible says it, and it'strue, you reap what you sow.
And then, kind of like thesubtitle underneath that is and
sowing takes a very long time.
I think way longer than youexpect.
And I think that a lot of youthpastors aren't prepared for
(05:44):
that, of how long the sewingtakes.
You are digging, you areplanting, you are fertilizing,
you are weeding, and you don'tsee anything of substance and
maybe a little sprout here andthere, but you keep toiling
away, toiling away, toilingaway.
And eventually the growth comes,but it takes years, not months.
(06:10):
And so I think people are like,want to put a little miracle
grow on something and be like,okay, where's this growth
everyone was talking about?
It's like, no, it could take adecade.
Like, I mean, it really could,depending on what you're
starting with and how you'restarting.
And, you know, we get a lot ofemails from a lot of really
(06:32):
small youth groups, which isfine, but a lot of them are the
very first youth group theirchurches ever had.
If you're the very first youthgroup your church has ever had
and you're not building uponanything, you're not taking over
for someone, I guarantee you,like growth will happen.
It just might take a while.
(06:54):
And really getting like theculture down of like, what is
what is this ministry?
Like, what are we known for?
Like, what does it mean to be apart of this ministry?
And that will take years.
So think about the the ministryyou want in 10 years, or the
ministry you're hoping to berunning in 10 years, is the
ministry you're building today.
(07:15):
It's not gonna just all of asudden pop up out of nowhere,
but it's like the hard work thatyou're putting in now.
So let's go back and answer thequestion that we posed in the
first one.
Well, what does faithfulnesslook like then?
It's how you steward a fewthings or manage the gospel,
your people, and your resources.
(07:37):
And I'm reading this book rightnow by I think the author's name
is John Burke.
And he wrote a book calledImagine Heaven, which is all
these near-death experiencepeople that he vetted in a very
interesting way.
Like they weren't money hungry,they weren't fame hungry, they
weren't writing books.
(07:58):
He said a lot of them actuallyhad a risk involved with sharing
their story, like whether theycame from a different religious
background or they were part ofacademia, and that was kind of
like okay, weirdo, or uhsomething like that.
So he's writing this secondbook, or he wrote it, I'm
reading it right now, calledImagine the God of Heaven.
(08:20):
And there's this veryinteresting theme that kind of
goes through both books, andthat the whole anytime anyone
has this, and this is not in theBible, so whatever, take it with
a grain of salt.
I'm not gonna put my he evensays he doesn't plant his
theology on any of this, it'sjust interesting because a lot
(08:41):
of the stories are very similar,like crazy similar.
So he's like, there's gotta besomething to this.
Anyways, the question, which isbiblical, that God wants to know
from a lot of these people thathave to give an account of their
life is how did you love?
And these people said that whenthey were kind of in this
(09:01):
in-between, like in going intothe afterlife, they would have
this life like flashback, kindof like, you know, when they say
my life before my eyes, but theysaw their life in totality, and
they said a sense they were ableto have that they couldn't have
here on earth was they couldsense how they made the other
(09:24):
person feel.
And I thought that was sointeresting.
And like God's question foreveryone was, how did you love?
Like that was like the main goalfor from him to everyone for
their life.
And some lady said, even when itcame to like the animals in her
life, like it was kind of thisquestion, how did you treat
(09:48):
people?
How did you treat things?
How did you treat animals that Ihad put in your care, that I had
like crossed paths with you on?
Like, how did you love?
And kind of to bring that backto what we're talking about with
youth ministry is like, how arewe stewarding this ministry?
Well, that answers the questionof faithfulness.
(10:10):
How do we treat the students inour ministry?
How do we handle the gospel?
How do we handle the truth?
How do we handle the resourcesthat we've been given?
And it's always easy to say, Iwish I had more money, I wish I
had more stuff, I wish I had abigger church, I wish we had
more students coming, I wish Ihad more leaders.
Okay, well, we don't we allthose are obvious, but how are
(10:34):
you managing what you have beengiven?
Are you loving it?
Are you multiplying it?
Are you caring for it?
Because the question at the endof our lives will be how did we
care for what he's given us?
And so thinking about that inyouth ministry, instead of
always looking for more, more,more, what I wish, what it's
(10:55):
just okay, what's right in frontof me.
And we were on a coaching callthe other day, and one of the
members of YMGA, our course, shewrote me an email.
She's like, I love when you saidlike steward the heck out of
everything you have thatinspired me so much.
Alyssa, thank you.
And I was like, Yeah, and andthat's what ministry is is like
(11:16):
looking at what is right infront of you and going for it,
like stewarding the heck out ofit.
So, because like that hard workdoes pay off, you know,
eventually, excellence and whatwe do and how we manage things
is rewarded in this life and inthe life to come.
Like our ministry, our life,it's being noted, it's being
(11:40):
recorded.
Our like everything we do, itdoesn't just amount to nothing.
It is even those days where youfeel totally unseen, you feel
like your work is in vain, youfeel like it was just another
frustrating night.
Like Sunday night, we had anevent, and I just found myself
(12:01):
here I am again, waiting forthis last kid to get picked up.
And the parents are over 30minutes late, and then we're all
exhausted, and here we go again,you know.
And I just thought, like, man,that was such a missed
opportunity.
I could have really been like,hey, like, what's like tell me,
you know, like got to know thatkid on a better level instead
(12:21):
just like griping about likehere I am and I'm so tired and
why are we?
SPEAKER_01 (12:26):
Try to call them again?
SPEAKER_00 (12:27):
Like, are they on their way?
How close are they?
You know?
And I I don't think I stewardedthat moment great, because I was
so like over it, like, why everytime?
And then, you know, like youthink, oh, maybe you'll get out
of the car and say, like, sosorry, thanks for waiting, but
you know, no.
And so in those moments, like,are we looking at okay, how do I
(12:51):
steward even the irritationsreally well?
Is this an opportunity?
I got 30 extra minutes with thiskid.
Maybe God wants to do somethinghere.
30 long minutes on a Sundaynight at 8:30 when I'm
exhausted.
So yeah, not my not my finestmoment because you know, I was
(13:14):
not seeing the big picture.
Yeah, but uh hopefully nexttime.
Uh something to look forward to.
Because there will be a nexttime.
Totally.
Totally.
Hey friend, I just wanted tointerrupt this episode for a
second to let you know about anawesome opportunity for you and
your youth ministry.
So last year we launched ourcourse and coaching program
(13:36):
called Youth Ministry GrowthAccelerator, and the response
has been amazing.
So we've helped tons of youthpastors grow the size and health
of their youth ministry, and wewant to invite you to be a part
of that as well because maybeyou're just sort of feeling
stuck in a rut, maybe you don'tknow what to do next, maybe you
just have a vague plan in yourmind of what you're doing, and
(13:58):
you want some real help to getyou from where you are to where
you want to go.
So if that sounds like somethingyou've been looking for, go to
growyouryoutministry.com andcheck it out for more details.
All right, let's get back to theepisode.
All right, so number three iswho you are is much more
important than what you do.
And so this is like theimportance of character in
(14:21):
ministry.
Um, not always just chasing thatsuccess, that number, that goal,
and not losing yourself in theprocess.
Because I mean, we've talkedabout this before.
We've heard tons of storiesabout pastors who were wildly
quote successful, yet they losteverything.
They lost themselves.
(14:41):
Like, I mean, maybe some of themlost their soul.
I a lot of them repent and arejust broken and come back.
But, you know, the success andidentity are at like odds with
each other, you know?
And so who you are in ministryis much more important than what
(15:02):
you can accomplish.
So never losing yourself.
We always go to John 15 withthis.
What does he say?
Like 15 times, Chris Brown.
Remain.
Yeah, remain.
Remain, remain, remain, remain,remain.
My friend just got a tattoo ofthat.
Remain.
And it's remaining in Jesusourselves, not just being people
(15:25):
who point others to the gospel,and we're not experiencing the
transformative power of thegospel ourselves.
But that is like one of thequickest ways to just be dry in
ministry.
Chris Brown always says, like,you're doing the work of
ministry without the power ofthe Holy Spirit.
(15:47):
And he's like, and that's areally dry place to be, you
know, if you start to loseyourself, um, lose your
character.
So, like another thing he says,uh, we should just have him on
this episode because all I'mdoing is quoting him.
But he says, When I end myministry career, he's like, I
really don't want to end with anasterisk next to my name.
(16:09):
Yeah.
Did I say that right?
Is it asterisk?
SPEAKER_01 (16:12):
Asterisk.
Oh man, I don't know.
I always just say asterisk atthe end, so it should be
asterisk.
SPEAKER_00 (16:23):
Um, he says, I don't want to finish with an asterisk
next to my name.
Good enough.
And he's like, he's a dad, hehas three kids, you know,
they're grown now, but he says,I always wanted my kids to look
at the way I did ministry and beable to love the God that I
serve and love the church that Iwork at, and not think, well,
(16:47):
they took my dad away, or if ithadn't been for ministry, you
know.
But doing it in such a way thatyou finish well someday and not
that, like, oh, remember thatguy, oh yeah, he was really
good, but remember that, like,you know, some scandal or some
failure or some, you know, thingthat like kind of it's like,
(17:10):
yeah, but you know, kind ofthing.
So keeping your soul intact, youknow, when Jesus says, What good
is it if you gain the wholeworld, yet forfeit your soul or
lose your soul?
And so I think sometimes,especially this is like the
double-edged sword of ministrysuccess, is because when you
start to see success or growth,or you can kind of start to your
(17:36):
character comes under a testeven more because it can start
to make you think you're reallysomething, you know, or that you
don't have to play by the rulesanymore, or you're somehow an
exception, but keeping thathumility of being able to see
growth, but also remain humble.
(17:58):
And that's totally a work of theHoly Spirit, which goes back to
the thing we were talking aboutfrom John 15.
Remain, remain, remain, remain,remain in Jesus, you know, for
the entirety of your ministry.
You answer to him first.
Yes, he's going to ask you howyou stewarded his gift of
ministry, but first andforemost, you're gonna have to
(18:19):
answer to him for yourself, foryour life.
You, you know, you are more thanjust a junior high or high
school or college ministry.
Like you are a follower of Jesusfirst.
So you cannot neglect or losethat, or else what do you have?
Like at the end of the day,like, who cares if you could
(18:39):
lead a ministry if you werecompletely disconnected from the
one the ministry was for?
But it's crazy how that can justslowly creep into um, you know,
we've brought up the bookAccidental Pharisee before by
Larry Osborne, who's another oneof our pastors, but that's one
of the best books I ever readbecause nobody sets out like
(19:03):
Pharisee, yeah.
I like that title.
Right.
It's like you just kind of endup there by accident and you
think you're doing the rightthing.
You think you're really makingGod proud by the way that you're
living and doing, and see, I'mtaking care of business, you
know, but all the while, likewhere he says, your lips honor
me, but your heart is far fromme.
(19:25):
Terrifying, you know.
I think every Christian needs toread that book.
It's it's one of those thingsthat it's not like for those
people, you know, it hits veryclose to home, especially for
those of us that work invocational ministry.
We can very easily becomepharasidical.
SPEAKER_01 (19:43):
Yeah.
So um a lot of people haveargued that, you know, when it
comes to like extreme, I don'tknow if you can necessarily use
this youth ministry as amicrocosm of this, but maybe.
But when you you have extremewealth or extreme fame, how it's
like, I don't know if humanswere meant to have that because
I don't know if you can, forexactly what you're saying, it
(20:05):
will slowly creep in.
You know, let's just take money,for example.
If you all of a sudden won thelottery and you had, you know,
500 million dollars in the bank,you might start thinking things
like, This waiter's taking toolong.
I, you know, I don't have towait for this.
You know, like these minorlittle things that might become
like irritations, like I couldbuy this restaurant, you know,
like I shouldn't have to waitfor anything.
(20:25):
And that might be a horribleexample, but like those little
things that makes a lot ofchanges how you view other
people and how you look atyourself and what you deserve,
or things like that.
And the same would be true offame, like kind of this do you
know who I am?
Right, you know, like someonecuts in front of you, it's like,
Do you have any idea who I am?
Right.
(20:45):
I don't know.
SPEAKER_00 (20:46):
It's like well, and when other people treat you like
that too, sometimes it can'tlike builds you up, and you
think this is how I'm supposedto be treated.
Like, I still sweep the floor,and you know, sometimes people
will grab the broom from me,like, what are you doing?
And I'm like, What do you mean,what am I doing?
I'm cleaning up.
SPEAKER_01 (21:03):
Maybe you're doing it wrong.
SPEAKER_00 (21:04):
Maybe that's it.
They're like, What are youdoing?
What are you doing?
SPEAKER_01 (21:07):
That's not how you sweep.
SPEAKER_00 (21:09):
Lizard, but it's like, I'm not special, you know.
One of my leaders, you know,he's always like, No, like I'll
do that.
You can't, and it's like, yes, Ican.
I can do the dirty work, I canserve, I can, you know, I can't
always lift really heavy things.
I always pull a muscle, but Ican definitely clean and sweep
(21:30):
and you know, do all that stuffright along with everybody else.
Like, there's no, like, guys,we're all on we're all serving
together.
Nobody is special, especially inministry.
Like, that's the verydefinition.
It's serving, you know.
And as soon as we think we'retoo good for it, like we might
(21:50):
be creeping into the Phariseecamp, you know, and in terms of
our heart posture, anyways, andbeing really careful about that.
That's a good point.
So, uh, number four, and lastly,have the right audience.
And we talked, we touched onthis, you know, in one of the
other ones.
But Larry Osborne, this is justa Larry and Chris show.
(22:13):
Um, one of the best things heever said about leadership is he
said, you have nothing to proveand no one to impress.
And that is like so jarring,especially for like a young
youth pastor, because we feellike we have everything to prove
and everyone to impress.
And it's very like you're likegritting your teeth and white
(22:36):
knuckling both of those thingsbecause you want to be
impressive, you want to proveyourself, you want to show that
you can do it.
But again, it goes to who is ouraudience?
Like, you're not gonna standbefore your boss someday, you're
not gonna stand in front of youryouth group or their parents
someday.
The question will be, how didyou love?
How are you faithful?
How did you steward manage andtake care of what I had given
(22:59):
you?
Did you do that faithfully?
I don't think Jesus is gonnaask, like, what percentage did
you grow?
I mean, the parable of thetalents does show that we he
wants us to multiply, but Iwould tend to think that would
be like the gospel, like, youknow, like not keeping it to
ourselves.
(23:19):
So preaching the gospel, theywho have ears, let them hear and
like let the gospel do the work.
And then that growth happens.
So if it happens for the rightreasons, then I think we are
making him really proud.
You know, if we're just able toget more bodies in the room, I
don't know that that's reallywhat he's looking for.
(23:40):
But if people are growing andcoming to know Jesus and that's
how our numbers are growing,like, then that is fulfilling
what he's asked us to do.
And Chris always says, you know,we work for the applause of
nail-scarred hands to hear, welldone, good and faithful servant.
You know, and I think when westart to look at our ministry
(24:01):
through that lens of like, I'mgoing to give an account for it
someday.
I remember years ago, some kidsgetting mad at me because they
were up to all kinds of illegalshenanigans.
And I told them, hey, yourparents have gotta know this, or
else I'm going to tell them.
And they like couldn't believeit.
They thought I had betrayedthem.
(24:23):
They were so mad at me.
And I was a young pastor.
SPEAKER_01 (24:25):
Never taking accountability for what they
did.
SPEAKER_00 (24:27):
No, never.
And I said, and I was a youngyouth pastor, and I remember we
were at winter camp and theywere being so mean to me because
they were mad at me uh forcalling them to account.
And I remember telling theringleader of the group, I said,
you know, I said, you can be madat me if you want.
(24:50):
I said, I don't answer to you.
I answer to God on this, and Iknow this is the right move.
So if you want to be mad, bemad, but I don't answer to you.
And they never came back.
But I was really proud of myselffor just like not caving to the
(25:11):
pressure of a 12-year-old beingmad at me about something that
I'm like, hey, and it wasn'tlike I'm kicking you out of
church.
It was just like, hey, we can'tpretend this isn't happening.
We need to get help here andaccountability.
So yeah, I don't know where theyare today.
Hopefully, they're following theLord, but it's hard to make
people upset with you andremember, no, I'm working for
(25:36):
the applause of nail scarredhands, not French tip hands, you
know.
SPEAKER_01 (25:43):
I like uh Chris's quote on that a little bit
better than yours.
Yours may still be a work inprogress.
SPEAKER_00 (25:48):
It's okay, whatever.
Um, it makes sense to me, youknow.
SPEAKER_01 (25:53):
And in a situation, that very specific situation.
SPEAKER_00 (25:56):
Yeah.
So there is more stuff that Iprobably wish I had known sooner
in in ministry, but those arethe four for today.
SPEAKER_01 (26:04):
Yeah.
And if you want to go deeper, weactually have an episode that we
did a long time ago that Ibelieve was five things I wish I
knew before come becoming ayouth pastor.
So make sure you check out thatepisode.
SPEAKER_00 (26:14):
I wonder what I said.
SPEAKER_01 (26:16):
Well, there's only one way to find out.
SPEAKER_00 (26:18):
So click on the link below.
All right, I'm following.
SPEAKER_01 (26:22):
This is the community comment of the day.
This comes from Christy Johnsonwho says, I love this episode.
So many awesome ideas, theleader cards, the boxes, the
deep end table.
Thanks for sharing all thedetails.
This came from the youth groupnight or the full tour of our
youth group, obviously.
SPEAKER_00 (26:39):
So thank you, Christy, for that.
SPEAKER_01 (26:41):
And we appreciate you guys watching and listening.
And we'll see you next time.
SPEAKER_00 (26:45):
And today we're gonna talk about uh four things.
Oh, four things.
Uh, you know, four.
Uh that um okay, number three.
You are much more important.
Or sorry.
SPEAKER_01 (27:03):
Nope, you're not important.
Nope.
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