Latest / Student Ministry: What They Don't Teach You / Episode #7 - Stop Building a Ministry Around Yourself
Transcript
- Episode #7: So Brandon, I'm sure you're like me, every time I talk to people or when I have like mentors talking to me about ministry, they said, Hey, if you ever leave your place. Your ministry doesn't need to fall apart because you left. Have you heard that before? I've I've heard that plenty of times. I've seen it and I'm terrified of that very thing. I know because, in the moment when you're in it, when you're doing ministry, you think maybe hopefully that this is a good system, but you really only find out whenever you leave to go to wherever God's calling you to see how that ministry's thriving. And hopefully it's still moving. But if it collapses because you left, that ministry was built on you. not a foundation of the church, where you've equipped the church. And so I I've I've only been, I've only left one church to come here. I've been here for 10 years. So I haven't really got to experience that. How have that how did that go for you when you left where you were to come to Mississippi? Yeah, the the same thing for me is, you know, is that we you build something and you people who really love the people in the ministry, you want it to succeed. You know, you don't want it to fall apart. after you leave. And so I I think we've been in ministry long enough that we've seen so many horror stories of that very thing happening. Or I've you know I've heard so many horror stories of people with who are great great personalities and very charismatic, all different things. You know, they go somewhere and they build a ministry up and it's doing great. Hundreds of hundreds of people there and then they go on to the next place and that ministry that they built just kind of crumbles. And man, I I am terrified of that very thing happening. And so I think I oftentimes I'm constantly thinking about if God called me away tomorrow, would this ministry be okay? And so I'm constantly trying to evaluate my ministry off of that question is that if I'm going tomorrow, will this thing be able to thrive will I'm gone? And the obvious key to be able to to have a ministry that's sustainable outside of your personality and your gifting is to equip other people. Right. Ephesians four twelve, equipping the saints to the work of the ministry. Our job is to not come build a big program that is wrapped around our cult of personality that we're really cool and we're really awesome, and then that students are coming for us. If that's how it's built, that's when the ministry crumbles. But our job is to come alongside, equip students and adults to be able to do the ministry, where we make jokes around here all the time that if a bu if I got hit by a bus, you know, in just a little bit on my way out, they could still have church Wednesday night. They need to find somebody they need to find somebody to preach the gospel. but a student could do that. We have students that do that all the time. But literally the way that our church is set up, and we'll maybe dive in a little bit about student leadership teams and adult teams, but the way ours is we have students that greet on on Wednesday nights. So as you're walking in, students are greeting you. whenever we start our countdown at six o'clock. We have a a team of students that are on our media team. We have a student, his name's Lewis. Shout out Lewis. he's incredible. Lewis basically can run our entire media department. so they they have students that are starting the countdown, they're setting the Spotify playlist to play when the countdown's going. Whenever the countdown's over, we have a game team that comes up on stage, which is two students. They lead the game time. students are in the back making sure that the music's going up and down right for the game, that it's loud whenever they reveal the answer and it's quiet when it goes down. They have students that are running the slides for worship. For the games, we have student that's running the lights. Whenever it's a correct answer, there's a button that says correct lights. The lights go crazy. they're running all of that. When the game team's done, they send it to the video announcements where the video announcements is a team of students that created the videos. They edit it, they shot it, they did all of it. They literally send me the final copy of it. I just have to put it in Pro Presenter. once that's over, the student leadership or the student band comes up. Students completely lead worship. And and then whenever all that's done, then we get into the Bible study, which is led by me or a high school pastor, in our different times. But students lead all of that. Now, are they doing every aspect of that? No. I'm helping with the game team. Our high school pastor does helps with the worship team. We both kind of oversee the media team to make sure that they're good. So there's still oversight in these things, but these people are able to lead the ministry without us, which is what I feel like is what healthy ministry should look like. and so what does that look like for where y'all are? Yeah, I I think the biggest thing as you talk to all that, the the thing that I got from all that is understanding that our job is to equip the saints to do the work of the ministry. You know, I think a lot of times we forget that our main motivation should be that one day these students are going to be the leaders in their Church as adults. Okay, for sure. This is the time to teach that. A lot of times we like to baby students and we get mad at them for not being able to function as adults, but it starts now. you teach a kid how to serve now, how to lead now, so that when they get older, they are they know how to do that. And so by doing that, you also are preparing them to say to have ownership and know how to do things so that if you do get hit by a bus tomorrow, they're not sitting there saying. They're not saying what now? What do we do? I don't I don't know how Blake did everything for us. as I was thinking about what you're saying, I think a lot of times the trap happens, Blake, because you know, when you're a student pastor, you start off most of the time. Very rarely does a student pastor just get a job, their first student ministry, and they're have a hundred kids. You know what I mean? It's normally it's you at a small church or as a volunteer, whatever, and you with like five or ten kids. And so you have to do everything. You are the The social media guy, you are the worship guy, you are the pastor, you are the welcome team, you are everything. And I think it it creates this mindset that I have to get it done or it won't get done. And as you grow and as your ministries grow, it's very hard to shake that. I know for me, it was just like, it's easier for me just to do it myself than to try to train somebody else up. And so as you're saying all these things that you're doing, That requires time to train these students to do these things. It retire it requires trust. And I think a lot of times pastors get into the fall of the the pit of I can just do it by myself, I'll do it all on my own. And what you end up creating is just a bunch of people who are just showing up and becoming consumers. They're not helping, they're not growing, they just are just consuming content, they're consuming the experience, but none of them are learning how to be the hands and feet of Jesus and knowing how to serve. And so I'm I I think the you have to change your mindset as a as a student pastor. If you want this thing to be bigger than you, then you have to make sure that you are training people up to do what you do, and not just doing it. And you got to put the ego to the side. I think a lot of times too, you want we want the pats on the backs, right? If I you know, I want everybody to say, Man, look how good Brandon's doing, look how good he's doing preaching, look how good he's doing running his ministry. And the more the the more you give away. the the less pats on the back you'll get. And a lot of times, I think a lot of people don't like that. And and it becomes selfish if we're being honest. And ends up happening is when they leave, because what they're not doing is they're not thinking about the ministry after they leave, right? I'm here, I'm running this ministry, but then God calls me somewhere else and you're just thinking about you. Well, what happens to the the people that you leave behind? What what about the the lives that you've tried to change you leave behind? And so I love the way you put that, man. All those different pieces that are happening is because you've learned a long time ago. It ain't about me, man. It ain't about Blake getting the pats on the back. We get excited for training kids up. I help a lot on production on on Sunday mornings and stuff like that. That's my training ground. Like I got kids. I want to learn how to work cameras. Kids I want to learn how to do all these tech things. That's my time to spend time with them and teach them how to do it. So that one day when I'm gone, they know how to run that without me being around. And so yeah, man, I I I love Everything that you said about that. But it's just spending time, taking the the time to teach kids how to do these things, teaching your leaders how to do these things, because in your mind one day you won't be there. If that's next month, if that's 10 years down the road, have you equipped these people to run this thing when you're gone? Well, and I know you're you're earlier you were talking about, I mean, if you only have 10 students, you may not be able to do it. But I would say, man, like I I when I was at West Side, so that was a church in Nacky. When I first started, they had eight kids. And I remember we were running about 1520 consistently, and I started to build a l leadership team. And so it looks vastly different than what it does here at First Baptist Halton. But what I did is I I had a student, her name was Sarah Johnson. and so Sarah loved to do slides. And so we didn't have Pro Presenter, we didn't have any of that. So she made PowerPoint presentation. And so she would, and we didn't have a worship team at that time, we played YouTube videos for our worship. So we would she would find the YouTube video, she would have the lyric video put up. And then she would also make slides to go with it. And so she would do that every single Wednesday night. She showed up and she had it ready. She hooked it up to the T V. She made sure she took tr control of that. I had students that I would tell them, Hey, I want you to lead games tonight. And I would show them how they lead games. In a student ministry of fifteen, we had little bitty opportunities for them to lead to take ownership because and I think it's so important because what happens is when students take ownership, they begin to want to invite people to be a part of that. And Wednesday night If Wednesday night is just, hey, I'm showing up to just see what Blake has stored for us, they're not going to want to invite people. I mean, they may if you're a really big personality, they're like, Man, I want my friends to come be a part of this. But when they start buying in and they're on a prayer team and they're on a greeter team and they're on and you give them opportunities to serve, this is now a part of their ministry that they're a part of. They want people to come be a part of it. And so I I would say even if you're sitting here listening, it's like, bro, I got five kids, give away opportunities to lead, whatever that is. Give them opportunities and I'm telling you, you're gonna see dividends of that, of them wanting to invite people. And anyway, I just the whole theme of this podcast, this episode is to stop building ministry around ourselves. And the way that we do that is identifying areas of things that I can hand off. Do you have to make the coffee every Wednesday night? You might, but you might not. You might can find somebody that that's their thing. You know, whatever it is that you can find to hand away, that doesn't mean you're being lazy, that doesn't mean that you're not caring about the ministry. It's equipping people to do the work of the ministry. And so that's to me the point. Yeah, I think another part that we didn't even touch on yet, which probably the most important part. We talked a lot about the practical things, but even just teaching your kids how to be disciple makers, right? That's the most important part. A lot of really gifted communicators attract large crowds. Yeah. And their ministry basically becomes hey, students, go out and get your friends to come hear me. Right? And that that's the problem because there is no culture of discipleship that you're teaching your students to go be and and share the gospel and build relationships. You're just saying, hey, go get them and bring them to me. If you get them to me, I'll give them Jesus. And that's why I see a lot of not just student ministries, but like a lot of churches have they struggle with that. This group, his pastor's great communicator, charismatic. He leaves church dismant dismantles because. There was no healthy infrastructure of small groups, no healthy infrastructure of serving, teaching your people to go out and and and and preach the gospel and do all different things. It was all built around this one person. And when that one person is disconnected from the organization, it all falls. And so I think another important part as if you as student pastors, if you want your student ministry to be successful, even when you're going, are you equipping these kids to to share the gospel? Are you teaching these kids how to build Healthy accountability groups, all different things. Because, one thing that I tell my leaders in our meetings that we have a couple of times a year, I think three years ago was probably when I finally got to the point of realizing, okay, this thing is not built around me anymore. Right. And that was a huge accomplishment for me that I felt like if I left tomorrow, that we've built our our culture around our small groups, around our community, our youth, our our small group leaders. are the are these people or the people pointing to our kids. And yeah, they come and and they you I still connect with them and they come and hear me preach, but it's not around Brandon. And I know that because there's oftentimes I don't I'm not even preaching. I'll give it to somebody else. I want my students to preach. I want my my interns to preach. and and the there's no drop off. Nobody's coming asking, Brandon, are you preaching tonight? they're there because of their friends. They're there because of the relationships they've built and their small groups, not because they just want to come hear a great sermon from me. Because we you've heard this a million times, Blake. most people don't even remember the sermon they heard two weeks ago. You know what I mean? we're we're giving them little nuggets and we're moving the needle. But there's not most of the time my one sermon every week is gonna just change this kid's life. And pastors, I I hate to be the bearer of bad news. I know that you feel like that one sermon is gonna be end all, be all. It's not, man. You preach fifty plus times a year, and that's like and we're like There's value in that, but it's not if you think that you are the end all be all when it comes to your ministry, you are setting yourself up and setting the kids up for failure. And so the quicker you can learn, hey, I've got to make sure this thing is healthy outside of me. I'm teaching my kids how to how to be the pastors, right? How to be the ministers, all those different things in their in their kids' lives, in their friends' lives. That's when you're going to see success long after you're gone because you have trained them up. To basically fly the coop, right? And so when when I'm gone, they can still handle themselves. And that's what we want as a parent and also as a youth pastor. That's how how we want to look at it. And I and I know we're about to wrap up, but I just wanted to kind of add this. And something that that helps me see that we're doing ministry well here is that I love it whenever our seniors graduate, they go off to college and they come back around Christmas time, around the time right now, and they say things like, Man, I feel weird at church because I'm not serving. I feel weird just going to sit and not she says I'm I'm looking for places to plug in. I'm looking for things to do. I'm like, Yes, you're getting it. Like what we did is actually making a difference. You I don't want you to be comfortable just to go sit and not plug in, not to lead something, not to I mean there is a season where you probably need to go and get poured into and yes, that's yeah, part of being a church, but like you're not called to just come and sit. And I love that that's students because we're building these teams and because we have these things that they're being a part of. They want to go and be the church outside of student ministry. And anyway, Brandon, what's your last thoughts as we wrap up? No, excuse me, man. I I think as we, as we, as we've grown in ministry, you know, constantly ask yourself, pastors, if I'm going tomorrow, and be honest, how does this thing last? Does this thing continue to grow and is sustainable outside of me? And if that answer, if you're being honest with yourself and the answer is no, then we got work to do. if you were gone tomorrow, because if if it's if it's tomorrow, if it's three years from now, if it's ten years from now, however God has you there, one day you're going to be gone. You know, like we're I mean, even if you're there until this is the last thing you do until you retire or whatever, but one day the ministry is not gonna be you're not gonna be there. And so you want it to be successful outside of you. And if you're doing that, you have that mindset, you're also training them up so that when they graduate, they are healthy and they know what to do outside of that. So make sure you're just always constantly evaluating and asking, is this thing revolving around me? And if I'm the center of it, then that's a problem. And always think about how I can hand that off so that if I'm going tomorrow, this thing will be successful without me. Hey man, well, thank y'all for tuning in this episode. We're wrapping it up, and we will come back with episode eight. And the title of that one is going to be Vision is Easy, Culture is Hard. So, y'all come on back. We'll explain how you can build a culture. We've touched a little bit on it now on this episode, but we'll kinda build a little more. How do you build a culture? Not just from a stage, say, Hey, here's the vision of what we're doing, but how do we actually live that out and build a good culture in our student ministry? We'll catch you all the next week. What? What?