Call for backup

Hello all, Greg here again.

Someone once made the observation: “The U.S. government will hand over the keys to a billion dollar jet to an 18 year old… but we [in the church] don’t let them serve communion.” What a poignant observation. In my position here at LeaderTreks, I spend a lot of my time on the phone with Youth Pastors. They will often share with me their struggles and frustrations with ministry.

A major frustration I often hear is that Youth Pastors feel a lack of support. Unfortunately, Youth Ministry is often treated like the kid brother to Big Church. Now, I’m not picking on Sr. Pastors or Elders or anyone else. The truth is, Youth Workers do what they do because they have a very specific burden for the youth of this country… we can’t expect everyone to share that burden.

We at LeaderTreks understand the heart of a Youth Pastor. In fact, if you were to ask us who our main focus in ministry is, you might think we’d say students. But no… we exist to serve Youth Pastors and Youth Leaders.

Let’s think of a Youth Pastor’s job for a second: They have to program the weekly youth events (Sunday morning, Sunday evening, Wednesday evening), they program camps and retreats, they plan mission trips (the site, vans, food, teams, work, ministry, etc.), they meet with students for prayer or counseling, they spend time with students outside of those events (sports games, graduations, birthdays, funerals, weddings, etc.), they connect with parents, many have volunteers and interns to pour into, they write sermons, and on top of ALL of that, they have responsibilities to the church like staff meetings, ‘pastor on call,’ etc., many of them are part-time or volunteers themselves and have another job on top of that… not to mention their OWN families.

Even more, many Youth Pastors are being awoken the the idea of Student Leadership Development. They are hearing and seeing what can happen when we equip students to be leaders…world changers!

We know that the job of a Youth Pastor is difficult (albeit rewarding) so we seek to support them in any way we can. The thing we do best is Student Leadership Development. That’s why we’ve created a new curriculum designed to give Youth Pastors a full-year Student Leadership Development plan.

Leadership 365 was written knowing that Youth Pastors see the value of Student Leadership Development but don’t always know where to begin. Click Here to download a sample. If you’re not a Youth Pastor, pass the sample along to them.

…And while you’re at it, buy him or her a cup of coffee and just say thanks for fighting the good fight for our youth.