Are You Trying to Grow?
While I was watching Food Inc. a few weeks ago I had a very peculiar thought… And no it wasn’t I can’t believe I’ve been eating that food… But that one of the farmers they were interviewing, made a comment that as farmers began looking to grow (the size of their farm, make more money, etc.) they stopped looking at the product they were making and the people who were to be the end consumers. Then I realized that as Youth Pastors we are more often than not tempted to try and accomplish this same thing… At so many churches there is either explicit (hopefully not) or implicit expectation of growth. And there becomes this stigma that if your youth group isn’t growing exponentially then you are not a “good” youth pastor. This in turn adds an added pressure or stress to grow… So growth becomes silently more important than the spiritual health of your students. And to get more students coming each week we slowly start teaching “softer” topics and not pushing buttons, and as a result we give students what they want instead of what they need. To the detriment of their spiritual development.
This needs to change CNN recently had an article posted on their homepage about the rise of moralistic therapeutic deism (the idea that God basically wants you to feel good about yourself by being a good person). The thought behind the article was that more and more teenagers are practicing this unauthentic Christianity. Yes part of this trend is based on parents and their lack of living the authentic Christian life in front of their children, but I believe part of the blame should rest heavily upon the shoulders of Youth Pastors. I believe wholeheartedly that there needs to be attractional elements to our ministries. But at the core we as Youth Pastors need to make sure we are being just as foundational as we are attractional. Because the bottom line is this entertaining Youth Pastors beget students who want to be entertained, but praying Youth Pastors beget praying students. If we as pastors began to pastor our students instead of trying to grow our group what would happen? Would we see a drop in attendance? Maybe? Or would we see a rise in fervency?
Maybe we would actually see our group grow because we are training them how to lead their friends and their schools to Christ… But then again what do I know? I’m just a twenty-seven year old youth pastor…
