I have a bad taste in my mouth….

I have been going through a lot the past few months. Lots of change, lots of money spent, lots of future plans. However those are all exciting, nerve racking, anxious, fun, but the problem is there is something that I have been putting on the back burner.

It took a blog post by Josh Griffin, the High School Youth Pastor at Saddleback, to really hit me in the face. The blog post was entitled Youth Pastors are great Fakers, needless to say by the title of the post, it caught my eye. The general consensus of this post is that after a survey, Josh found that a lot of Youth Pastors very rarely spend daily time in the Bible. That was a reality check, because if you ask me, over the past few months as I have been busier that I think I ever have been, I would fall into the category of not spending time in the Bible on a daily basis. I almost feel as though that I am not doing my job as a youth pastor admitting this. It’s one of those pieces of my job, my life to be more honest, that needs to happen. Right? I mean why on earth would I get up on stage, in front of students and adults alike and preach something that I don’t dedicate my time too?

There is something that struck a nerve in my stomach as I read this blog post last night, that made me want to change that. There is a need and a desire from the students that I have experience with is they want more substance. Maybe it is just the students that I have had encounters with, but for the most part it seems like the changing trend in Youth Ministry is that students want more and more substance. Not substance of practical life lessons, how to’s, or how not to’s. They want more substance of God’s word. They want more of God’s love, life and lessons in their lives.

Is that what you see if your students? 

So, if that is my experience and that seems to be where the trend of youth ministry is going, then shouldn’t on the top of our to-do list’s for every day, shouldn’t there be time set aside for our own relationship with God?

A good friend of mine helped me a lot in a conversation when I was struggling with this idea of study and journaling and personal prayer time. I was a big proponent of not wanting my study time to be regimented, scheduled or regular. I felt as though if I fell into a pattern that my study would become a habit, or part of the motions of every day life. For some reason, I wasn’t ok with that.

“Think about this, if your study/journaling/prayer time is part of your regular routine, wouldn’t that be more powerful than if you just throw it into your schedule every now and again? I believe in the power of routine and the power that having study/journaling/prayer in your routine is one power that can grow and be more meaningful down the road.” 

As youth pastors, we should be in the Word of God daily, weekly, monthly, yearly. We need to be in the word of God as much as we can. I heard once that ” preaching is an overflow of what comes out of the heart.” If the Word of God is not in our hearts, more than any of out other passions, then we are missing our mark.

Psalm 1: 

 Blessed is the one
who does not walk in step with the wicked
or stand in the way that sinners take
or sit in the company of mockers,

 but whose delight is in the law of the Lord,
and who meditates on his law day and night.

 That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither—
whatever they do prospers.

 Not so the wicked!
They are like chaff
that the wind blows away.

 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.

 For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked leads to destruction.

When do you schedule your time in for daily study? What works for you? What doesn’t?