{"id":404,"date":"2012-12-18T11:58:32","date_gmt":"2012-12-18T16:58:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jonathanbrooker.com\/?p=90"},"modified":"2014-01-15T22:27:01","modified_gmt":"2014-01-15T22:27:01","slug":"the-hardest-most-rewarding-ministry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jonathanbrooker.com\/2012\/the-hardest-most-rewarding-ministry","title":{"rendered":"The Hardest & Most Rewarding Ministry"},"content":{"rendered":"

This Sunday I get the opportunity at my church to speak in our morning services. I don\u2019t know about other youth pastors out there, but I still get people who ask me if it makes me nervous to speak to a larger adult crowd. My honest answer: \u201cNo!\u201d<\/p>\n

Behind my answer is my belief that youth ministry is one of the hardest areas of ministry one can do. I\u2019ll relent and not say it absolutely is THE<\/em> hardest. But I\u2019d like to give a couple reasons why I think it\u2019s up there.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

1. The drama.<\/strong> It is categorically and stereotypically expected<\/strong> of this particular age group to be dramatic. Boyfriend-girlfriend drama – family drama – school drama – work drama – Facebook drama. Teens are the kings and queens of this stuff!<\/p>\n

2. Their brains aren\u2019t fully developed. <\/strong>This actually is part of the reason for the last point. And to be very clear, I\u2019m not saying this in a mean way. They really, scientifically aren\u2019t. So although this group of people will deal with adult-sized issues, they don\u2019t yet have adult-sized cognitive skills to always (or maybe even often) deal with them.<\/p>\n

3. They\u2019re easily distracted. <\/strong>We live in an ever-increasingly busy world. You can do more today from a cellphone than you could 10 years ago with a stationary desktop. Today\u2019s teens have more distractions available to them than any other generation before them.<\/p>\n

4. They\u2019re honest, rudely honest. <\/strong>If you do something they don\u2019t like they may not know to be polite about telling you or even letting it go. Most of the time, they\u2019ll just say what they\u2019re thinking. They don\u2019t always know how to polish up their thoughts and so you can get some pretty raw ones at times.<\/p>\n

5. It requires a lot of and sometimes crazy hours. <\/strong>Youth ministry, real youth ministry, is simply not a 9-5 job. Why? Because sports games, musicals, counseling sessions, late night phone calls, and certainly lock-in\u2019s don\u2019t fit neatly into a 9-5 time frame. Any youth pastor will tell you that the ministry hardly ever stops when they \u201cclock out\u201d for the day.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s for many of these reasons that I believe it\u2019s easier to speak to and sometimes work with adults. They\u2019re more likely to play nice, even if they have to fake it. They\u2019re less likely post on Twitter about how boring your message is if it\u2019s not exactly what they want. And they\u2019re less likely to ask you to give them an all-nighter for fun<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

But let me quickly tell you why I think this ministry is the most rewarding ministry and why I love what I do.<\/p>\n

1. \u00a0You get to impact people when it matters most.<\/strong> Plenty of research shows that the teenage years really are some of the most important in our development. The brain isn\u2019t fully-functioning yet, but it\u2019s getting there. And the decisions and habits that are made during this time often echo through the rest our lives. How incredible to be a part of spiritual leadership during that time!<\/p>\n

2. \u00a0You get challenged.<\/strong> When you know you need <\/em>to keep your audience\u2019s attention because it\u2019s short and easily lost you work hard to make your message stick. When you\u2019re working with teen drama you\u2019re challenged consistently in how to deal with conflict in the best and most godly way. And when you get honest feedback that\u2019s not \u201cnice\u201d you get the opportunity to decide whether to get bitter or better. Youth ministry consistently challenges me to get and be better.<\/p>\n

3. \u00a0You get to change the future.<\/strong> In youth ministry the next generation is not being formed into the church of the future. They\u2019re the church of the present. But they are <\/em>being grown and equipped to be the leaders of the church and society of the future. Youth workers get to do something about what our future will look like in our churches and in our country by the ministry they bring to those teens.<\/p>\n

Clearly, working with youth carries some of the most awesome responsibility that I can think of. That\u2019s why I\u2019d like to conclude by tipping my hat, giving a round of applause, and just generally going wild for those people out there who are giving their lives to this cause. Keep making the difference! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This Sunday I get the opportunity at my church to speak in our morning services. I don\u2019t know about other Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonathanbrooker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonathanbrooker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonathanbrooker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonathanbrooker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonathanbrooker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jonathanbrooker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonathanbrooker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonathanbrooker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonathanbrooker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}