some things i miss about youth ministry

i am a reluctant church planter. i didn’t want to leave youth ministry – i think it’s the greatest thing going. in fact, GOD would have had a much harder time convincing me to be involved in a church plant if it had not been for finding a few models of church government that would allow me to be more directly involved within the youth ministry of the church than the traditional “senior pastor” model. my goal is once the church is started to be able to be as involved within the youth ministry as i was at the previous churches that i was a part of when i was their youth minister. i just think that youth ministry is the real deal and therefore the thought of giving it up is very difficult for me.

with the above said i do realize that i will not actively be involved within a youth ministry again for several years. the reason for this is pretty simple – we most likely won’t have any adolescents other than my own for several years. i’ll do youth ministry things with adam and noah, and love it, but that’s more about parenting than anything else.

so here are a few things that i will miss about youth ministry for the next several years:

• road trips – it doesn’t matter what the trip was for (a mission trip or a fun trip) getting to the destination and back was almost always one of the best parts of any event. incredibly significant things usually happen within a van (and vans are better than charter buses for this).
• middle school junk food – the middle school guys always had the best snacks and they were usually willing to share. everyone else may run from the middle school guys room but i love it because i know someone is always going to bring something i really like.
• random questions – there is no other situation within the world where the questions can range from the death of a loved one or friend to a scene in last week’s “simpson’s” episode (actually i’m showing my preference there because it would probably be a scene from last week’s “family guy” episode)
• random connections – i love the fact that it’s okay within youth ministry to combine the somberness of a prayer labyrinth with a water balloon launcher. nobody sees these as incompatible.

of course, there is much more that i will miss but that’s all i feel like writing about right now.