Almost a year ago there was a need for a new youth worship leader, and therefore I was thrust into a whole new world. I thought, “I’ve led worship for years. This’ll be easy!” Famous last words.

I committed to a year of serving in youth, leading worship and leading a small group for the junior & senior girls.

I was so stoked at first, excited to make some much needed changes and see the students grow in not only their music abilities, but in their hearts for the Lord. And then things got real. I realized that leading worship for women’s retreats, church services and special events was filled with pats on the back and praise for a job well done. Youth worship had none of that. I remember thinking, “This is harder than leading worship in jail! At least the incarcerated are happy to see me!”

Something happened that I wasn’t expecting. Something that takes great humiliation to admit. It didn’t happen right away, but it was slow and sneaky. As I was winding up cords and turning off lights all by myself after service, I thought, “Nobody even notices what I’m doing. Nobody appreciates this; youth ministry is a thankless job!” While that may be true at times, I let this momentary discontentment in my heart grow like a cancer, and I lost sight of what I had set out to do. It changed from an opportunity to a burden, from a blessing to a chore. This tumor of doubt grew to a point that it started effecting the way I responded to the Lord and those I had set out to serve.

Youth ministry is like a picture of organic farming.

I’m not really an all organic, non GMO, raw milk drinking mama…but bear with me as I paint this picture. In order for a plant to thrive, the soil needs to be tilled; the seed needs to be planted, watered, warmed by the sun, and weeds need to be tamed. And at just the right time, that plant will flourish. When serving young people, sometimes you till, sometimes you plant, water, warm or tame weeds, and none of that is wasted. All of it leads to a healthy, nourished and fully mature plant that will bear beautiful fruit.

How hilarious it would be, if with every seed a farmer planted, he announced, “I’m planting a seed! Just planted another one! Oh look, now I’m WATERING a seed! Aaaaaand I just pulled a weed, yay, me!” Sounds silly, right, but it’s the same as me wishing that someone would come up and congratulate me on a job well done. I was saddened by how deep I had let that bitterness sink in and only by acknowledging it before the Lord was I refilled with that passion I started with, but now reborn with a new excitement! I get to be part of the growing process, what a privilege!

Have you been in a place where you were so excited to start a new ministry or church or small group?

It was SO clear in your mind how things should go, until they didn’t, and then things got blurry and boring and burdensome. In the words of Ice Cube, “Check yourself before you wreck yourself.” Don’t lose the vision just because it didn’t come to fruition as fast as you wanted it to. Zechariah 4:10 says, “Don’t despise the small beginnings.” Be faithful in whatever you have been called to do, knowing that the timing of the fruit isn’t up to you, but God! Do your part then sit and watch Him work!

Recently, I was asked to be one of the speakers at a retreat for millennials where the theme was “Legacy.” The definition of legacy that was put forth was: something transmitted by or received from a predecessor or from the past. In my experience, legacies are born out of relationships and moments that leave a mark and make an impact. As I prepared for my message, it caused me to think back on two men who shared moments with me and gave me opportunities that have left a legacy upon my own life and ministry to others.

A LIFE-CHANGING CONVERSATION

Richard Cimino was my high school pastor during my senior year when I attended Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa. It was a conversation with Richard over lunch one day that changed the whole trajectory and focus of my life. Richard lovingly said to me, “Rob, do you know what your problem is?” I was taken off guard but curious as to what he was about to say, so I responded, “No. What?” Richard proceeded to tell me that my problem was that Jesus was only a part of my life and not the center of my life.

Those words cut me to the core. I knew he was right. I definitely was a Christian and loved Jesus, but my life and priorities were divided like slices of a pie between school, friends, family, playing baseball (which was a major passion), my job and Jesus. Sometimes Jesus was a big slice, but at other times He was a small slice. The Lord showed me that He wanted to be in the center of my life and that all those other things needed to revolve around my relationship with Him. It was that conversation with Richard that would be the catalyst for what would happen a year later when I was in college on a baseball scholarship, and the Lord called me to quit playing baseball and pursue full-time ministry.

OPPORTUNITIES TO SERVE

Richard gave me my first opportunity to serve in ministry, as a leader in the high school youth group at CCCM. At first my role was just to help out in practical ways and to try to spend time encouraging kids the way that Richard encouraged me. Eventually it led to teaching Bible studies, leading home groups and co-leading the Sunday night youth gathering at the church.

However, it was Brian Brodersen who gave me my first opportunity to teach a Bible study. Shortly after the Lord called me to quit playing baseball in college and to focus on serving Him, Brian asked me if I wanted to take over teaching a lunchtime Bible study that he had been doing at University High School in Irvine, California. I told Brian that I didn’t know how to teach a Bible study. He told me that God would show me and to take a step of faith. So I did.

After my morning classes at college, I cruised out to the high school and basically shared with the students what God had been showing me in my morning devotions. Surprisingly, the students liked it and asked me to come back! I taught that Bible study every week for the rest of the semester. The students at University told some of their friends at Woodbridge High School about the study, and they invited me to come and teach a Bible study at their school as well. So all of a sudden, I was ministering to a group of students at both of those schools, even though I really didn’t know what I was doing, and God was blessing it. At the end of the school year, both groups wanted to keep meeting and suggested that they combine over the summer at a house on Thursday nights. So now I was driving to Irvine on Thursday nights to meet with over 60 high school students in a house. I still didn’t know what I was doing, and looking back on it now, I am sure that I taught some things that were heretical! But God was moving and working in spite of me, and through me, all because I was available and Brian gave me an opportunity.

A TRIP TO THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD

Another way that Brian left a lasting mark on my life was when he took me on my very first missions trip overseas. We went to Eastern Europe in 1989, right after the fall of communism. It was an incredible experience. One afternoon during the trip, I was able to lead a group of about six young men to Christ and then throughout the following week, a friend and I met with this group twice a day to disciple them. We met in the morning before school and then we met up in the afternoon, when they got out of school. By the end of the week, that group of six guys had grown to 30 teenagers who were hungry to know Jesus. It was a church in the making! When it was time leave the kids and head back to the United States, I told them that we would bring someone back who would continue to teach them about Jesus and help them grow in their relationship with Him.

Two weeks later I was on a plane with a young man named Mike Harris, who I knew from Richard’s high school ministry. Mike was a surfer kid that loved Jesus and had a gift in music and evangelism. By the end of a week back with the kids, things exploded, as over 100 young people were gathering every day to come and hear Mike preach the word and play music. That gathering would turn into what became Calvary Chapel Suboticia Yugoslavia.

Personally, that experience led me to never look at a city the same again. Now, when I go to any city in the world, my first reaction is always to have eyes to see what the Lord is doing and to ask Him what He wants to do in that city and if He wants me to somehow be a part of it. That shift in my heart and mind toward missions took place because someone gave me an opportunity to do something that I had never done before and to be used by God in a way that I didn’t think was even possible.

You see, the impact that Brian and Richard had on my life has inspired me to give young men and women, whom I have encountered over the years, an opportunity to be used by God. I have had the privilege of seeing many of them go on to do great things that have far surpassed anything that I have ever done. That, to me, is a tremendous joy! Sometimes I think we can overcomplicate serving God. I was taught that God is not looking for ability but availability.

I believe that we who are leaders in this season need to look for those in the generation behind us who love Jesus, who are available and who desire to serve Him, and give them opportunities that will allow God to blow their minds. It might look messy, and they may not get it right all the time; but we can inspire them to go for it and rejoice with them as God blesses. In doing so, we will leave a lasting legacy!

In a movement that is about 50 years old like ours, it’s one of the pressing issues of our day:

How do we keep the younger generation in our churches?

I recently watched a controversial video of a couple pastors interviewing a few women who grow a strain of medical marijuana that does not induce a high. In the video there was a shocking statement: “Our traditional religions are losing our young people. They are not making commitments to religion like we did 30 or 40 years ago. So I feel like it’s on us to develop new religions that will attract the young people.”
Now before you start pulling your hair out and start scouring the Internet for the link, I think this outrageous statement points out something very interesting. It seems that there are some people who are more interested in introducing youth to a reinvented religion than the resurrected Christ, as long as they can keep them around.
Now, my guess is if you’re reading this article, you are probably not growing marijuana, thinking of a giant water slide baptism or asking Coldplay to do a concert in place of your Sunday morning gathering. More likely you are thinking in terms of brewing better coffee in-between services, changing your outdated lighting system, redoing your website, and/or trying to figure out how to use social media for ministry. All of these things are well and good, and for some of us, necessary (especially better coffee). But what if there are other internal and more vital changes we can focus on in order to put Jesus and His majesty at the center of our corporate worship and community with young people?
Here’s one thing that sticks out to me that requires no expense out of the church budget except time:

OLDER MEN and WOMEN, take time to personally invest in the lives of young people.

Four years ago, I remember telling a man I highly respect in our church that I was looking for some deeper discipleship and asked if we could get breakfast. He’s in his 50’s, and I was about half that age. I remember him looking me in the eye and telling me, “Alan, I’ll be honest. I don’t think I have much to teach you.” That statement caught me off guard. I assured him that a man who has been married a couple of decades has plenty of things he can teach a younger man like me. Still, he found it hard to believe.
It’s been said that every Paul needs a Timothy, and every Timothy needs a Paul. In the age of the Internet, where people can access all kinds of good and bad information at their fingertips, millennials desperately need an older godly generation to guide them. The problem is that many older people don’t feel “cool” enough to speak into the lives of younger people.

As a youth pastor, I love having parents involved as youth leaders.

Sadly, what often holds them back is their fear that teenagers will not want to talk to them due to their age. They don’t wear clothes from H&M or Urban Outfitters. They don’t know what a hashtag is or what “lit” means. They feel alienated and unrelatable, outdated and uninspiring. However, what I’d like to point out is that we don’t need parents to be cool or relatable per se. We just need them to be parents.

In 2013 it was reported that one out of every three children in America live without their biological fathers, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Since I am only about 10-15 years older than our teenagers, I won’t ever be a father figure to them. I can be an older brother, but we need godly men and women to be examples to many hurting youth. Twenty-somethings who are struggling with their identity and calling need mentors to give godly insight. Young people who are in the infatuation stage of an unhealthy relationship need biblical counsel from those who have seen many walk down the wrong road. Teens who suffer the loss of a loved one need the sensitivity of a seasoned saint to mourn with those who mourn.

Many of us are familiar with the story of King Rehoboam, who: “…Rejected the advice which the elders had given him, and consulted the young men who had grown up with him, who stood before him (1 Kings 12:8). In my opinion, we could use a lot more mentors and a lot less church growth experts.

So, maybe you’re reading this article as a pastor who has been planning with your team on how to reach the next generation.

Perhaps something to pray over is how to plan an event or organize groups that will foster these kinds of discipleship opportunities. Maybe you’re a young person and have been desperately longing for a mentor. I pray you consider asking a well-respected member of your church to grab a burger with you. Maybe you’re an older man or woman and have a burden to see young adults come alive in Christ. Pray about joining the youth ministry or even just asking a twenty-something across the church pew if you can pray for them.

As my pastor Lloyd Pulley said this past weekend regarding exterior improvements that we are looking to make, “It’s not about the coffee, it’s about the connection!” Stylistic improvements and advancements can be well and good, but they should only serve as an excuse for us to gather together, so we go deeper in our relationships, and ultimately, in our walk with Christ.