Beautiful! Praise be to God! Chap Clark once said, "you can always find another youth ministry job, but you can’t always find another family." 

Below is an old post I had written prior to leaving my former church. I love this church with all of my heart. It’s where I got my first start as a pastor. I’m especially thankful for those I served Christ with. I now look forward to the next few months of regrouping and rethinking what the Lord has called me to do as a pastor. I’m looking forward to some much needed time with family and friends. It’s most certainly refreshing to be in a pew rather than up front. I’ve already started conversing with folks about my future. In the mean time I pray for those I served, with hopes that the Lord will continue to move and work in their lives as well as mine and my family.

Well, I’ve almost finished cleaning my office. It’s the cleanest its ever been. 21 boxes of books. 5 boxes of files of seminary stuff and desk junk. All I need to do now is burn some files onto CD and organize my computer over the next week. I never thought it would be so difficult. I missed the class on how to cope with the grief that comes with leaving a church. This afternoon I watched a video of my candidating sermon three years ago this June. "Make it simple silly." My text was from I Thessalonians 2:8-9. My thesis was simple in that I told the church I would not only give them the gospel as best as I could, but that I would give them my life as well. With confidence I know I’ve given them the gospel and my life both. The hard part now is finding time for closure with some folks I’ve come to love. If anything I’m grateful for my first call as a pastor here, it’s where I officially began my ministry. How do you leave a church? How do you say good-bye even in the midst of the reality that it just didn’t work out for whatever the reasons are? I know for certain I don’t regret being called here. I don’t regret it one bit and I will take with me several hard lessons learned as a pastor that will only benefit my future in serving Christ and his church. I have one more week of tying up a few loose ends. Would enjoy your prayers. Especially for my family who is also grieving. One of the hardest days of my life was a couple weeks ago trying to explain to my kids why dad wouldn’t be going to church and why we were going to visit a friends church. Any of you pastors out there who’ve gone through transitions in ministry, I’d love your wisdom.

20 years. If I’m doing the math right I’ve been in some kind of ministry role when it comes to church youth ministry for close to 20 years. 16 of those years I’ve been in a paid youth ministry position of some sort. Over the last few years I’ve often wondered what if it’s time? Time to change the way I do things as a youth pastor. One of my role models in youth ministry at almost 60 years of age still serves in some kind of volunteer youth ministry role after working in youth ministry for close to 30 years. This guy is one of the reasons I still serve in youth ministry. He’s always preached a ministry of people in regards to youth work. Relationships. Being intentional. Going to the people. Not waiting to have them come to you. At least this is what I thought I was still doing.

These last few years have made me ask some questions though about being a youth pastor. What if the people you are serving, who had hoped for the "great programs," don’t see results? What if the heart you had for kids got sucked up somewhere into the clouds of programmatic over planning and church politicking and what if in the midst of trying to find the right "program," the need to please and make people happy burns you out?

I do know deep down inside there are those who care about their kids being loved and discipled. Although, I still get this sense that there are those who still hold onto their own past of how youth ministry was done and should be done and hope that their kids will experience this same kind of youth ministry that they had once experienced either as a kid or a youth worker volunteer?

I’m currently reading by Eddie Gibbs, Ryan K. Bolger’s Emerging Churches. The theme that keeps hitting me in the face is this idea that we do church all wrong. We spend huge amounts of time and money hoping that people will just show up. It’s not about programs anymore. It’s all about the people. I’ve even fallen into the program trap several times hoping that the people will just show up.  I think one of the most discouraging things every youth worker hears over the years is "we are frustrated that the church down the street has a bigger youth group." They’re doing all the right things to meet the spiritual needs of their kids." Why aren’t we doing what they are doing?" There might be a program or two that might work, but why is it that after so many years program based ministry still keeps raising its ugly head at the youth pastor? Why is it that there are people who are still holding onto this kind of model for youth ministry?