Lee Iacocca is not a household name, though as an automotive engineer he developed the concept for many well-known cars, such as the Ford Mustang. He does, however, have one of the more well-known quotes in American history: “Speed of the leader, speed of the team.” In other words, an organization’s health and production largely depend on the ability of its leader. Nowhere is this concept truer than in pastoral ministry—especially youth ministry, where kingdom workers invest in shaping young impressionable minds.
While there aren’t many statistics that measure the spiritual health of a youth minister, the ones we have aren’t very promising. A Josh McDowell study revealed that 68% of youth pastors struggled with pornography, with 21% indicating that it was a current struggle. A Fuller Institute study showed that 39% of youth workers regularly feel isolated (hence the pornography struggle), and that 55% experience moderate-to-high levels of burnout. These statistics reflect a lack of soul care. One of the mistakes I made early in ministry was not prioritizing my own soul while trying to meet the expectations of students, their families, and church leadership. Here are three things I learned along the way.
Maintain Regular Spiritual Disciplines
We preach to our students about the importance of developing healthy spiritual disciplines, but how disciplined are we in this area? It’s imperative to regularly read the Bible and have quiet times outside of sermon preparation. When you preach, you look for what God has to say to your students. When you have a quiet time, you look for what God has to say to you.
Even better is to study a passage devotionally before studying it hermeneutically to prepare a sermon. If, for example, you are preaching on Hebrews 12, exhorting students to focus their lives on Jesus, ask yourself these questions: “How good am I at throwing off all that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles? What distractions keep me from following God the way I should? Do I really see Jesus as the author and perfecter of my faith?”
It’s so crucial to make this a regular habit, even if it cuts into your ministry time. Our downfall begins when we neglect this habit. My car can drive 380 miles, but only if it has a full tank of gas. God can accomplish a lot through you in ministry, but only if you allow him to fill you up through dedicated times of prayer and studying God’s Word for yourself, not just for those to whom you preach.
Find A Bunker Team
In a study of 246 pastors who fell into some kind of moral failure, Dallas Theological Seminary professor Howard Hendricks found some commonalities. Chief among them was that none of these men had any kind of real, personal accountability. If 21% of ministers admit to a current struggle with pornography, it’s most likely that they don’t have any meaningful accountability relationships.
That may not be your struggle, but without accountability, we will suffer spiritual decay no matter how strong we think we are. We all need a bunker team—people who will be with us through thick and thin; people who know us and love us well enough to tell us the truth. I regularly meet with another local pastor. We can ask each other any question, no matter how invasive, and gently speak truth into each other’s lives, no matter how uncomfortable. We all need people like that to thrive as youth ministers.
Bunker partners typically fall into three categories. First are tactical partners. These are people inside or outside your church who help you solve ministry-related problems, like dealing with a difficult family. Second are relational partners. It’s best if they are outside the church. They help you make sense of and manage the relational challenges in your ministry and church leadership. Third are personal partners. These people help you grow in your personal spiritual walk and family life. It’s also not a bad idea to add a therapist into this category. The more people you have in these areas of your life, the more fruitful your ministry will be.
Set Appropriate Boundaries
Looking at the statistics mentioned earlier from Fuller Youth Institute, burnout often indicates that youth ministers don’t set proper boundaries to care for their own souls and, by extension, their students’. Two important boundaries need to be set. The first is with church leadership and those in your ministry. Many churches can have unhealthy expectations of youth ministers without providing them proper resources. Some churches can expect the minister to be a magician with unlimited energy and strength. It’s important to be gentle but firm about needing time for soul care. If you tend to your soul, your church as a whole and the youth ministry will be healthier.
The second healthy boundary youth ministers need to set is for themselves. The church may be supportive, but a leader’s energy and ambition to change lives, while admirable, can lead to burnout if not kept in check. We are not our students’ savior; Jesus is. He loves them more than we ever could. He died on the cross to save them; we didn’t. We are just witnesses who testify to what he has done for them. It’s so easy to lose perspective and think that we are supposed to save them.
There is always going to be another dysfunctional family to fix, another wayward student to pursue, another hurting teen to counsel, and another program that needs attention. That shouldn’t keep us from spending quality time with our family, getting enough sleep, making time for exercise, and spending time preparing nutritious meals—the current youth group diet won’t cut it, sorry! And it definitely shouldn’t encroach on regular quiet times and meeting with accountability partners. Healthy boundaries are essential to spiritual growth.
We Aren’t Superheroes
We are not invincible, nor are we superheroes. However, we do serve someone who exceeds those categories. He makes superheroes look weak by comparison. The God of ages has called us into relationship with him and to take a front-row seat to the work he plans to do in our students’ lives. Scripture says that “we have been given this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us” (2 Cor. 4:7). He wants to work through us, though we are imperfect. But in order to be a fruitful vessel, we have to make time to seek him and allow him to care for our souls.
In his new book, 10 Mistakes I Made in Youth Ministry, Steve Eatmon shares some of his mistakes to encourage the next generation of youth pastors to learn from his missteps so they can lead young people with wisdom and grace.
