Chris Kidd: A call for 20 somethings in youth ministry to be humble

A call for 20 somethings in youth ministry to be humble

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

In the latest email from Simply Youth Ministry there is a fantastic article by Josh Pease on being a 20 something in youth ministry. I read it, and then read it again, seeing so many different things I could take from the article. Very challenging, very thought provoking, here is a bit from the start:

I don’t know why they hired me. I was an over-confident, 23-year-old college grad with a pretty impressive resume, well impressive for someone going into journalism or political science. The “they” was a growing church in Texas that was running over 2,000 people on Sundays that needed an associate student pastor.

I had next-to-no experience in student ministry, but less than a month after I graduated from college, I found myself sitting in my own office, with my own nameplate, collecting a very generous salary. I should have been overwhelmed with gratitude. I should have been humbled by the church’s faith in me.

Nope.

However, I did get in an argument ... with the senior pastor ... over one of my radical, “change everything” ideas ... in front of the entire staff ... at my very first staff retreat.

Hi, my name’s Josh, and I’m an idiot.