We hope you’ll join us in Chicago for Rooted’s annual conference October 23-25, 2025! Our theme this year is The Church in Acts. Our prayer is that by looking back at the major themes of the early church, our modern churches will be encouraged to look forward with renewed boldness, perseverance, and confident optimism for the next generation.
Dear Youth Minister,
My husband is also my pastor. Most Sundays after he preaches, we walk to the back to greet people and I whisper: great message. Then we turn to converse with our congregation.
What I really mean by great message is this: The Lord used your words to help me repent, obey, and delight in him. Though I might have stepped into the service worried about this or preoccupied by that, I have now spent an hour and a half upon the Great Surgeon’s operating table. My heart was able to receive the surgery God designed for me because I had come to the gathering through which he works mightily—the local church.
The same is true for the teenagers in your ministry. They need the local church and all God does through the church, more than they need a social club or another checkbox on their to-do list.
Youth minister, you regularly proclaim the good news of salvation through faith to your teenagers. You pray for your youth even as you teach them to pray with and for one another and the world. And you diligently labor to teach them what the church is and how they are a part of it.
A People, Not a Place
Your work helps teenagers understand that church is not a place, but a gathering of God’s people to worship and be nourished. We want our students to grow in love for the Word that convicts our flesh. We must teach our teenagers that fellowshipping with other believers will build us up spiritually, growing us in Christlikeness. We are to patiently, lovingly, bear with one another (Eph. 4:2), teach and admonish one another (Col. 3:16), and stir each other up to good works (Heb. 10:24). This all takes place in the gathering of the local church.
A House of Prayer
The local church is also a house of prayer. Life can be crushing for our youth. At church, we pray for our broken, sin-soaked world, for missionaries taking the gospel to the nations, for the salvation of our neighbors, friends, and families. As we gather, we also pray for our church to be strengthened and unified, faithful, and a pleasing aroma to God. And finally, we pray for our own hearts to remain steadfast, even as we are so prone to wander.
A Pleasing Aroma
Youth minister, maybe you are discouraged today. It is hard work to lead students not to the shallows but to those places where their hearts can be transformed. But it is an honor that God has chosen you to be a church leader who teaches and proclaims the excellencies of our Lord to the new generation. Your work might seem small, often unseen, but rest assured: God sees and is pleased that you are pouring into youth (2 Cor. 2:15).
As you continue leading teenagers to love Jesus and love his church faithfully, remember that we are the Church. We are children, teenagers, adults spanning all ages—sinners saved by grace. The Church is a people, a body of believers, a sacred institution whom Christ died to ransom. According to Jesus, the gates of hell shall not destroy it (Matt. 16:18).
A Call to Press On
To echo the words of the apostle Paul, may I urge you to press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus (Phil. 3:14)? As you pour yourself out in ministry to the youth of your church, wait patiently and see what the Lord will do in his time.
May God be glorified.
