In 2008 I read the book Family Driven Faith by Voddie Baucham. As a 25 year old single church planter, I bought into the Family Integrated Model of ministry hook-line and sinker. Like every ministry model or theological convert I became obnoxious. All youth and children’s ministry is wrong and un-biblical and blah blah blah. To be fair, I still believe in a form of the Family Integrated Model. Our church is committed to a variation of that model. That said, my “Cage Stage” days are over.
In 2010 I got hired as a Pastoral Intern/Campus Pastor of a Multi-Site church. At that time I was still very much anti youth ministry. Enter Tim. He was the church Youth Pastor. He was patient with me. I grilled Tim on multiple occasions: “Give me statistics. What is the percentage of your former students that are still loving Jesus and connected to the local church? Youth ministry is simply not working.” Looking back I am astonished that Tim was as patient with me as he was. What was his response to my questions? He said: “I can’t give you statistics. I can give you names.” That was my light bulb moment! Names are always better than statistics. My friend Tim and his wife Maria live by 2 Tim. 2:2 “and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.” Tim kept giving me names of students that he personally discipled. Those students he mentioned, he assured me, were loving Jesus and making disciples.
God used Tim to help me be more faithful to the Bible. God used him to set me on a path of re-learning what pastoral ministry and life as a Christian is all about. The question that started marking my life was “Who are you discipling and who is discipling you?” Thankfully I now have an answer to those questions. Do you?
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