STUDENT MINISTRY: Healthy Student Ministry: The Worker & The Lord
If you look back through your old issues of the Baptist Trumpet, you will find a series we did concerning signs of a healthy student ministry. (See Nov./Dec. 2022 and Jan./July 2023 issues in Trumpet Archives at BaptistTrumpet.com/archive.) In total, we covered seven indicators that your student ministry is headed in the right direction. Those indicators are incomplete if you don’t look at the person leading your students. Can your student ministry succeed even with an unhealthy leader? Yes, because God is ultimately the One in control. However, a truly healthy student ministry will have a healthy student ministry leader.
Before discussing what this healthy leader should look like, we need to define something. As a group of churches, we believe the role of pastor should be held by men only. Words matter, so for the sake of this discussion, we will be referring to the head of our student ministry programs as the student ministry leader. We are blessed by many women who invest in the lives of our students in BMA churches. They give of their time and energy in paid and, more often, unpaid roles. These women are incredibly valuable to our ministry to students, but most of these people would never think or wish to be called a pastor. With that understanding, it is important to look at what makes these people healthy leaders, whether they are men or women.
The healthy student ministry leader must be a Christ-follower. I know this seems like an obvious statement to make, but our world is full of good-intentioned people who want to see our young people succeed. These people care deeply for the next generation and want to give back but may not know Jesus. That simply won’t do. A healthy student ministry is led by someone who not only knows Jesus but is growing in their relationship with Him. In I Cor. 11:1 (ESV), Paul writes, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.” I don’t claim to be the spiritual giant Paul was, but I do need to be able to say something similar to my students. If I don’t have a relationship with Jesus, that is impossible to do.
Why is this important? As a parent, I can’t imagine putting my students in the spiritual care of someone who doesn’t know Jesus. That simply doesn’t make sense. Our parents need it, and our students need it. Can you imagine a student ministry leader trying to teach a group how to get close to someone they don’t know? I can’t. And because of that, the topic might never be covered. There are plenty of other topics that would get neglected because the student ministry leader has no working knowledge of a personal relationship with God. It makes me think of my taekwondo training. I would much rather learn from someone who trains than someone who simply learns from a book. While our Book is the best, I would much rather learn about Jesus from someone who is working out their faith with Him.
If you are looking to start a student ministry or evaluate the current ministry in your church, make sure your leader knows Jesus. That is the starting place. Then, make sure that leader’s relationship with Jesus is growing. A great personality and charisma are not enough. A healthy student ministry leader must know Jesus.
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Dan Carson
BMA Youth Department Director Dan Carson writes a weekly column titled, Student Ministry Matters, through which he inspires, challenges, and informs BMA of Arkansas churches and church staff about all things pertaining to student ministry.
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