Working in student ministry can be difficult. It is a high calling to shepherd students and lead them to the Lord. For the last 29 years, Brody has worked in student ministry. In this episode, Brody shares a few things he’s learned during that time.
We hope this episode will be encouraging for those of you who are leading students in any way. For those who aren’t, we hope you’ll be faithful to point others to the Lord daily.
References:
Please leave a review on Apple or Spotify to help improve No Sanity Required and help others grow in their faith.
Click here to get our Colossians Bible study.
Working in student ministry can be difficult. It is a high calling to shepherd students and lead them to the Lord. For the last 29 years, Brody has worked in student ministry. In this episode, Brody shares a few things he’s learned during that time.
We hope this episode will be encouraging for those of you who are leading students in any way. For those who aren’t, we hope you’ll be faithful to point others to the Lord daily.
References:
Please leave a review on Apple or Spotify to help improve No Sanity Required and help others grow in their faith.
Click here to get our Colossians Bible study.
Welcome to no Sanity Required. Coming up in March March 7th, 8th and 9th we have our annual iron-on-iron conference, and this is a conference for people that work in student ministry. But I think it's a whole lot more than that and I think there's a lot broader application and as far as what this is as a resource, I think people that are parents, people that are parents of small children preparing to raise teenagers, or if you're already in the thick of it and You're raising teens, this would be a cool ministry opportunity for you as a dad or a mom. If you're a college kid working with your youth group, if you're a Sunday school teacher in a more traditional type church Atmosphere, then I think the iron-on-iron conference would be great for you. I wanted to to turn your attention to it and encourage you to get on the snowboard website or the app and look at what you know, what we have to offer there, and kind of get a feel for this conference. It's it's a conference that's that's free for anybody works in student ministry, but even for someone that's paying to come, just as a parent or a person that's wanting to get more Training and equipping to potentially work with students, and a volunteer basis. It's super affordable, so much less expensive anything else we do. So consider it, want you to consider it.
Speaker 1:What I want to do today is have a conversation that goes back to last year's iron-on-iron conference where I talked to our.
Speaker 1:I talked to the attendees about the some things I've learned in 28 years of student ministry for 29 years now. We're now at 29 of my personal ministry life, so snowboards 27 years old this year and and I had actually Three years of ministry prior to that. So I'm coming up on 30 years of student ministry. So some things I've learned that I hope will be helpful and keep in mind, some of this stuff we're gonna talk about today, not just from a student ministry perspective, but even from a parenting perspective. So for parents, for people working with students, for College kids that are considered maybe serving at SWO or have already served at SWO and looking at plugging into your local you know the student ministry at your local church I think a lot of resources here Just want to share some things that I've learned In the last almost 30 years of student ministry that I think could be applied in a in a lot of different ways. So thank you for listening. I hope this is resourceful and helpful for you. Welcome to no sanity required.
Speaker 2:Welcome to no sanity required from the ministry of snowbird wilderness outfitters. A podcast about the Bible culture and stories from around the globe. All right, so this?
Speaker 1:this, this, this conversation that we had recently here at snowbird about the upcoming iron on iron conference prompted me to, to want to, to want to do this and Also, I've got on the schedule a sit-down conversation with my 18 year old daughter, laili. She's my third child and we're gonna have a conversation Just about staying Christian through your high school years. What does that look like? And I'm excited about just talking about the father daughter partnership or the parent kid partnership that you can forge, and we want to have a conversation where I hope it'll be helpful, helpful For you, those of you who are parents. I'm looking forward to that, but I wanted to to today, in this episode, I want to take some time and just consider some principles of ministering to young people. This could be as a parent, this could be as a coach or a teacher. This could be. You know, I got a brother who's a career educator, a couple cousins they're career educators. I got a sister that's in in a children's ministry. Um, any of those contexts, things I've learned and observed, and I think this will be very helpful.
Speaker 1:And and I want to start by telling a story about, had a conversation with a lady a couple years ago and her son was praying about what ministry move to make. He would just finished up his. He finished his undergrad, he was midway through seminary and as he was wrapping up his seminary, um, he's praying about, um, what, what the next move would be, and he was considering an offer to serve on staff at a church where he had interned and it was a church where it was a church where they've got like one pastor, but a bunch of campuses and the pastor preaches from one campus, but then it gets streamed onto the screens at these other campuses. And I'm not here to argue the merits or the pros or cons of that. That's not not what this episode's about. Maybe, maybe we'll do an episode on that. Yeah, I think we will.
Speaker 1:Multi campus ministry what? What does that look like? But that's not what this is about. This is simply about this guy saying he had an offer to be an associate or assistant campus pastor, and so I said, well, what does that mean? And she said, well, I don't know, but the, the campus pastor, would be training him up to become a campus pastor when they plant another campus.
Speaker 1:But then, the more we talked, I realized, well, he's not gonna be preaching and he's not gonna be preaching or teaching guys been to four years of college and then and I don't know what his undergrad I think his undergrad was from like all burn or somewhere like that, and it was in a secular field of study, you know, like business or business management, something like that and then got called him into ministry. So he was in seminary getting his seminary training and In that um, he was, you know, obviously preparing, learning and preparing how to teach and preach and study and instruct from the scriptures. And then he gets into this thing where this job opportunity opens up, where he's not even going to be the guy preaching, he's not going to be teaching, he's going to be an assistant to a guy who's basically an assistant. And there's nothing wrong with starting like that where you're way down the order, you know chain of command or whatever. But I just encourage sure he talked to your son about being a student pastor, because I think student pastors have one of the most incredible opportunities to shepherd, to lead, to instruct, to teach the Bible.
Speaker 1:We're in the process right now of reworking some stuff at our church and our student pastor is moving, is moving back to his home state, his hometown. His wife wanted to be back close to family, and so they're going to make that move, and so we're in a process of, you know, getting a new guy, and I can tell you that that we're looking for someone. We're sitting down having conversations with some folks and one of the things we're talking about is the importance of weekly teaching the scripture. Being a student pastor, you get to teach the Bible every week, but, I would say, being a parent, you get to teach the Bible every week, or at least give instruction and thoughts and insight. Being a, being a boss, being a supervisor, being a business owner, being a teacher, a coach, you have opportunities to invest in people week in and week out. It's an incredible opportunity, and so, anyway, I'd encourage this mom to talk to her son about hey, have him consider that, if he's listening to your suggestions, and I would encourage him to look at being a student pastor. Go to a church where, and right now, y'all, I'm telling you I've got there are six churches right now asking us for recommendations for student pastors, six Plus we're looking for one for our church. That's crazy. There's a there's a wide open door of opportunity for young guys that are looking at getting into ministry right now to go serve in student ministry. It's an incredible opportunity, but I want to share with you and I think that I wanted to tell that story to set this up because I want to talk about what I've learned in almost three decades of ministry. A lot of conversations with young dudes prepared for ministry have those conversations, often conversations with young student pastors, and so, anyway, some things that I've learned along the way.
Speaker 1:First, let's just go down this list. Little things are big things. Little things are big things. I think it's important to do the little things well, and you can apply this to any part of life. But little things are big things when we talk about ministry, and particularly student ministry. Little things like knowing a kid's name, learning the names of their family members, knowing what grade they're in and what their school schedule is, you know, taking notes and remembering that a kid had a test last week and being able to say, hey, how'd you do on that? You know those are things that I've learned. Those are things that that are pretty small in effort but make a big impact.
Speaker 1:I don't know how many times I've known someone's name and they're shocked by that and they go. You know, you know my name. Like that's the little thing to learn somebody's name. People say I'm terrible with names. Nope, not an excuse. You don't get to have that excuse. I'm terrible with names to figure it out. Come up with a way to you know. So, just learning people's names and their stories. And little things are big things.
Speaker 1:Remember details. When somebody tells you something, remember the details. Remember a guy came to snowbird a couple years ago and he had he had had his ACL, something done with his knee, I don't know, I think it was ACL. And I asked him about it and he said man, I can't believe you remember that. And it had been like three years since he had been at snowbird and I said hey, how's your knee? Last time I saw you, you're going to go, you know you're in a brace and you're in a have ACL surgery and he was very blown away by that. It kind of caught me off guard. I was surprised at how surprised he was, but it reminded me that those little things really do make a big impact. They really do make a big impact. So little things are big things.
Speaker 1:Next, student ministry is not junior varsity. I think there's a, there's a sentiment and a mindset sometimes that. Well, if I'm, I'm just quote, unquote, just the youth pastor. Remember my father in law telling me about when he was a student pastor in the late 80s and early 90s that I think it's just late mid and late 80s that someone would call the church and he was on staff at a church where it's just him and the secretary and the lead pastor and the secretary worked like 20 hours a week. So there were times where he would be in the church, he would answer the phone and someone call and say I need to talk to a pastor and he'd say well, I'm a pastor, I'm the youth pastor, I'm the student pastor and so I need to talk to a real pastor.
Speaker 1:It's like you know, I need to talk to the varsity, the letterman pastor. Whatever Student ministry is not JV Student ministry is is so dynamic and constantly changing because you're not going to be able to get through it. It's constantly changing because you can't keep up with styles and I mean even even the words people use. We're joking at the table the other day about how the word brough and bro gets used. It's to the point now where girls say it all the time. When I was a kid, guys would use the word bro and and it was narrowed down pretty much to just male athletes would use that. It's a mainstream word and then you know, but it won't be forever and there's words that get used. We were laughing the other day about phrases that come and go. A phrase right that I think and hopefully is on its way out as the phrase low key. I want to do X, y or Z or a low key want to go get some pizza, low key. A low key took a test yesterday online. It's. I don't even know that I'm using in the right context there, but it just changes constantly. You know, if you try to keep up with that stuff and some dudes are good at keeping up with it, but most people are not you can't do a student ministry is hard because it's a moving target, even in the vernacular he use. But it's so critical because it's the most formative, life, molding and shaping period of most people's lives. And so it's not JV. Student ministry is simply student ministry. It's not sub adult ministry, it's it's ministry period and it's very important and it's very critical and it's very needed. And I would challenge you that if you are not plugged in at your church and you're trying to think about where you could plug in, student ministry would be an awesome place to do it. You'd be intimidated maybe at first, but just know this that kids see through everything and they know when somebody cares about them. And if you show up every Wednesday and and and for starters, you just show up and just be there and you will, you will make an impact and, in God, will give you favor with students, all right, next on the list.
Speaker 1:Every human is created in the image of God. Some of learning ministry and I haven't only done student ministry. You know a lot of student ministry, a lot of adult ministry, pastoral ministry, counseling ministry every human's creating the image of God. I bring that up because I think it's important to recognize that, because it helps us to understand that when I'm looking across the table at someone I'm trying to help someone with with, you know, a life situation, a circumstance they're dealing with, a trial they're going through, I just kind of remember this as an image bearer of God. Or when I'm, particularly when I'm frustrated with somebody maybe it's man work, you know, trying to work through this is frustrating me. Well, I'm not doing a good job of extending grace. Just remember, this person is created in the image of God and so God's highest purpose and calling for this person is for them to be conformed to the image of Jesus, for this person to be conformed to the image of Jesus. That's the goal. That, that's that they would become a crushed follower and be saved by grace through faith, and then be sanctified or conformed to the image of Jesus.
Speaker 1:Every human is created in the image of God, every single person. There's that. What that reminds me is that there's infinite and intrinsic worth and value to, to an end, every human being. Next, every human is in need of the saving power and grace of the gospel. Every person needs Jesus. Everybody that's born and breathes air needs Jesus. There's no exception to that. Every human is in need of the saving power and grace of the gospel. Next, no one's ever so far from the power of the cross that the power of the cross can't reach him and change him. Think of the Apostle Paul on the road to Damascus, where he's persecuting, executing, putting to prison and putting to death Christians. I mean, he has committed his life to destroying the movement of the cross, the movement of the Church of Jesus Christ, and God saves him. It's a powerful conversion story. No one's ever so far from the power of the cross that the power of the cross can't reach him. The gospel has the power to save and it's the greatest power that we know.
Speaker 1:Next on the list, again, no particular order Find yourself, lose yourself. That's something that I've got written in a lot of places and that comes from something I heard a lot of. You know that I really enjoy and appreciate the teaching ministry of Alistair Begg and I should say the writing ministry, but when he's talking about sermon prep, the last thing, when he goes out to deliver a message, he talks about finding yourself and losing yourself. In other words, be yourself. I think he says be yourself and lose yourself. Be yourself and lose yourself. I wrote find yourself and lose yourself. So the idea is, just figure out how God wants to use you for who you are, as you are, while growing you more into his image. He doesn't want to leave us as we are, but be yourself and then lose yourself. Be yourself in that you're not trying to be somebody else, you're not trying to be the cool dad, the cool mom, the cool youth pastor, the hip guy, the trendy person. Just be yourself. You know, we were laughing the other day.
Speaker 1:If you know my wife, if you've been here and you know my wife, she is cool and hip well before her age, like beyond her. I don't know how you'd say that, but like she doesn't look or act her age and she can pull it off. Like she dresses really cool. She's got kind of her own fashion, but it's like very fashionable. She's very trendy and cool and but at the same time it's not like conformist. She's not wearing what everybody else is wearing, but she's just got a real cool style and flavor. She's just herself, whereas we've all been around people who I've. I've cut way back on how much I travel and speak because we're so busy at SWO here and a big part of my itinerant traveling and speaking ministry was to try to grow the ministry here to get more exposure and speak at conferences and on the road and get more people coming here. And we're there now. So we're we're we're trying to keep up with the growth here, but I uh, it always cracks me up when I'll be.
Speaker 1:Some of this happened last year. I was speaking at a conference, actually a year before last, and it was a very prominent worship leader and this guy was super popular. He wrote some of the biggest names in worship music over the last 25 years, biggest names as in titles and really faithful dude Gosh. He's faithful. I really enjoyed getting to know him a little bit. I'm not going to say his name, but he's like older than me and he's got he's trying so hard to wear the style of not even the style of like the day, but more like, I think, the style of what younger musicians wear, and so he's got these really skinny, you know tapered pants that just squeezes calf and ankle and knee and then like they're low hip riders and he's got a really tight button up shirt, but he's got the same thing me and everybody else. I already just got a little spare tire around the midsection, so he just looked funny. I had a funny hairdo Just trying too hard to look to look cool.
Speaker 1:Just be yourself, figure out who you are, be that person. Just don't care how stylish you are or aren't. They care that you care and then just lose yourself in the ministry of the gospel. You know, as a mom or a dad. You don't have to be the cool mom or the cool dad. Just be real and be true to yourself and who you are and then lose yourself in the sanctification process. Decrease so Jesus might increase.
Speaker 1:Okay, next, what we got here. Oh, I like this one. Commit to being inconvenienced. Commit to being inconvenienced in 2 Timothy, chapter 4. I almost started in fact I started, recording this episode by reading 2nd Timothy 4, 1 through 8, and I ended up not using it. You can go read it in your own time and I encourage you to do so. It's Paul's last words. Paul's last words are written to Timothy and Paul was executed not long after he wrote this, from what church tradition tells us. But in this he asked Timothy to come to him. He says I need you to come to me and bring me some parchment. You know he needed his Bible commentaries and his writings. I don't know, I don't know what his parchment is. He said bring me my books. And then so bring me my parchment and bring me a cloak, because it's the winter time is coming and it's already cold and freezing. Like this is real raw interaction between Paul and Timothy. But Paul is asking Timothy to come to him at a time where he didn't just jump in the car and drive somewhere, he had to go. You know he had to go.
Speaker 1:I was talking to somebody the other day about a situation that happened maybe, I don't know, maybe a year or two ago, like two years ago, I don't remember, I think a couple years ago but where I drove about five hours to meet somebody for coffee because I was so burdened for a situation they were in and you just got to commit to being inconvenienced. If you're going to be a parent or a teacher or a pastor or a life coach, it's not going to be convenient to do those things. You're going to get calls at the most inconvenient times. You're going to get asked to do you know? Think about, think about this in the context of parenting. Have you ever had to miss work or an important event or something big, because you had a sick kid, or because you had a disciplinary issue at home? Sure, everyone's had that experience. Now, excuse me, you're going to work in student ministry. You're going to work with kids, teens or small kids. There's going to be a lot of inconvenience, it's just how it is, but commit to it. So instead of going I worded that way because, again, this is some stuff I've learned in ministry rather than saying, hey, just know that sometimes it's going to be inconvenient, rather, the way I like to word it is commit to being inconvenienced. If I commit to something, I'm going to do it. So then, when the inconvenience arrives, it's like so I'm already committed to this, all right.
Speaker 1:Next, keep your grace bucket full. It's easy to be condescending or belittling. Keep your grace bucket full. In other words, always be ready to just pour grace out on people. People need grace, you need grace, I need grace. We got to be ministers of grace and so we can always be ready to give as much as we're ready to receive grace. Be ready to give grace, to pour that out on someone Next.
Speaker 1:Sometimes you just have to grit your teeth while people walk away. You got to trust the Lord that ultimately they're not walking away from you, they're walking away from the Lord. It's not just that they're walking away from the church, they're turning their back on Jesus and there are pictures of this in Scripture and I can tell you that I've had many, many, many stories like this in my own life in ministry, where people have turned away, they've rejected you, they reject the gospel. I could tell literally sadly. I could tell I could do an episode where we just went through. I could do pseudonyms. Maybe we'll do that sometime. I'm going to do pseudonyms and talk about people walking away.
Speaker 1:We did an episode several years ago when we I think the podcast was in its where we're only four or five seasons in now, but maybe, maybe season two, I think, maybe a season three. Anyway, we interviewed a young lady named Brittany Staples and we looked at her journey where she started to turn away and the Lord brought her back. But a lot of times people are going to just walk away and there's nothing. You plead with them, you bag them. I mean, you just pour your heart out into these people and then they turn and walk away and just gosh, man, it's so hard to let it go. There are times where you just got to grit your teeth and give it to the Lord and just know it's out of your hands. Just be an upward push, not a downward pull.
Speaker 1:Paul didn't care who got the credit, as long as the gospel was proclaimed, he said as much, as long as Jesus being preached, being upward push, like like, do everything you can to push and move the work forward. We're advancing the work and I don't care who gets credit for it. But I do not want to be the person that's creating dead weight. It's dragging others down, that's slowing down the ministry process. You know the mission is being slowed and inhibited because of me. I want to be a person that gets on board and helps. You know, think of the boat. You're on the ore and you're rowing. You know, think of a dog sled. One of those dogs is not pulling its way. You're a dog, you're in front of the sled, start pulling. So I think that's a good one. Don't don't worry about who gets credit, as long as the gospel is proclaimed, just do your part.
Speaker 1:Expect it to be hard. Expect ministry to be hard, family to be hard, marriage to be hard, work to be hard. The word toll is used in Colossians. The idea of fighting to the death is used in scripture, like Paul tells Timothy it's like, it's like I fought the good fight of a fault to the death, and he uses the word toll when he's describing it to the Colossians. He's like for this we toll and labor, so expect it to be hard. It's not going to be easy. It is not going to be easy.
Speaker 1:Next, have courage, have courage. And I wrote in my notes don't be a little punk, don't whine. And then I wrote in my journal don't be a couple of wussies. That's a quote from Nacho Libre. Those guys are a couple of wussies. So have courage. You need to. You need to be courageous. You know, think of Gideon. I'm reading Gideon to my middle son, my middle son right now, malachi. And in that story Gideon is like you know, I'm the least, but my family, my family's the least in our clan, our clan's the least in our tribe. I am like you know how in the world, why in the world would you choose me? And it's like don't whine, don't, don't make excuses, don't be a little punk. Just have courage. God's called you into this, so be courageous. And you know we want to balance courage with grace, but we've talked about grace. So have courage to say hard things, do hard things, go the distance in relationship with people.
Speaker 1:These next two, the next three I love Exhaust. I'm going to read you all three of these Exhaust yourself by working hard, exhaust yourself by playing hard and rest well. So I love that. Those three are really important for me personally. Again, it's personal Exhaust yourself, give yourself to the work, wire yourself out, work as hard as you can, don't be a slacker. Give it all you got and then take some time to go play hard. Whatever your thing is. Maybe maybe playing for you is video games, maybe playing for you is some sort of hobby where you're working with your hands. I got a good friend, josh Schwarting. He's a just a phenomenal ministry asset in the public schools here in Cherokee County and Josh's thing, when he's playing hard, he's doing woodwork. He has a shop and he loves to get out there and make stuff.
Speaker 1:So have that thing that you go do to kind of unplug. You know, for me I love, I love to shoot, but I love to try to take my bolt action rifle or my bow out. You know the things that are the tools that I hunt with when I can't go hunting, because I would say my favorite thing to do as far as playing hard is to go hunt big game. But that's a pretty big endeavor and most days you don't get to do it. But I like to go out for an hour and just shoot my bow or shoot my one of my hunting rifles and practice at distance. But what it does is it kind of unplugged you or, like for me, reloading where you're, you're reloading your own ammunition. It's something that requires full attention. And we're talking to a guy one time that had gotten his pilot's license and he loved to go out and fly. He would just, he would rent the plane for an hour and go up for a you know 40 minute flight. And he said, when I'm in that plane, you know it's, it's a couple hundred dollars well spent because I'm completely unplugged from everything and basically it demands my 100% attention and it kind of clears headspace for you. And then that third one rest. Well, make sure you get enough sleep, make sure you get enough downtime for me throughout the day. I've got moments I just pull away for 10, 15.
Speaker 1:Think about if you did shift work at a plant. Okay, think about a factory. When I was growing up I've mentioned this before. I grew up in a mill town, canton, north Carolina, and the factory just shut down last year, which is crazy because it'd been open over a hundred years. But you know, that was if you work your eight hour shift. You had a 15 in the morning and 15 in the afternoon, and then you had your 30 at lunch, so a total of an hour of breaks. You know you're there Eight hours or nine hours, but one hour of that is is your break, so you're resting throughout the day. Kind of take that mentality. It's not just do I sleep well at night?
Speaker 1:but, do I take time to rest and unplug for five or 10 minutes here and there and reboot. You know I'm a big proponent of the power nap, so about every afternoon I put my feet up, lay my seat back and just take a quick power nap. I might lay down. If it's a pretty day, I'll just lay on them. Today, at six degrees Six zero six, that's right. Um, but the sun's out, so I might sit in a window facing the sun and let it hit me in the face and just rest and just just be smart. Um, next, this one's huge for me, Physical training and exercise is of some value. Paul says that. He says physical training is, you know, or exercise is of some value. So he's recognizing that there's value to think it's good because it's like don't become overly obsessed with this. It doesn't need to be the thing that motivates every aspect of your life. Don't become obsessed with, you know, body image, or you know if you're, if you're going to be a.
Speaker 1:If you're going to train for a marathon, give it your all, go hard, but just know that's not the most important thing in life. Right, I think that's the way you'd say that it's good, there's value in it, but it's not the most important thing in life. So, um, but I think what you could say is there does need to be a physical training regimen to your life. If all you're doing is sitting at a desk or you know your job doesn't require you to move around, or your youth pastor, that, um, if most youth pastors are moving around because you're, you know different activities and you're playing knockout or Gaga or you're you know if you're older and you're like I don't do that anymore but you're still, you know it's, it's a, it's a fairly active um job.
Speaker 1:So, but recognize all of us need to recognize there's a need for physical exercise and training. There's some value in that and I know that for me, if I'm doing that, I have more energy, not less. You know you're more motivated. It's just good for your mind and body. Next, be consistent. Yeah. So when I say be consistent, I give you an example.
Speaker 1:Um, the other day, uh, give it, give you an example of inconsistency and how what happens is inconsistency frustrates other people. So the other day, um, watching Um one of my daughters basketball game juju eighth grade basketball game and it's a close game and you know always very careful to say the ref cost you the game Cause there's. You know, if you have zero turnovers and zero misses and you lose by one and the ref had one bad, really bad call that took a basket away from you, then you could say the ref cost you the game. But nobody goes through the game with zero turnovers and no miss shots, right. So our team lost by one, my daughter's team lost by one and but they had way too many turnovers and a bunch of missed layups and free throws. So it's their fault, they lost. But in the last minute of the game the ref made three back to back to back calls that basically took away six points from us and gave six points to the other team and we lost by one. And so it was frustrating because the ref had not the the two refs, one ref in particular. She had not called that those calls, she hadn't called it that way the whole game. She was inconsistent.
Speaker 1:And it was frustrating because you're trying to figure out cause, cause refs call. You know, some refs call fouls more strictly, others let you play and bang a little bit. So you got to kind of figure out how's this ref going to operate. Once you know, then you, okay, we'll play in those parameters. But if they're inconsistent it just really messes you up, and that was what was happening the other day.
Speaker 1:And so that's when you get the parents that are screaming, red face yelling, you know, but just be consistent, either be consistently good or consistently bad, but either way, at least we know what we got. You know, well, in ministry we got to be consistent. Let your life be consistent with your message. Let your message. Be consistent with scripture, knowing that you're going to need that grace bucket that's full to be dumped on you and on others at times. But you can strive for consistency. You know you're not, you're not going to be perfect, but you can be consistent in consistency, like inconsistent inconsistency, as a parent will spend a kid out. You say one thing, do another, or you don't.
Speaker 1:You don't, you know yeah you don't do what you say you're going to do, and that'll mess a kid up?
Speaker 1:It really will. You've got to be consistent, I've got to be consistent, we've got to be consistent as parents. And then I think you can personalize that consistency in my personal study life. I'm reading the Bible. You know, we did an episode in the long go about. If you don't read through the Bible every year, don't feel guilty. But there needs to be a consistent pattern of reading and study. This year I am reading through the Bible and so right now my consistent pattern is that every day I want to get up and read four or five chapters of the Bible. Then there's some days where I'm going to dive into some deeper study. But the most important thing is to establish a pattern of consistency, and prayer and study and the way you cultivate relationships should be consistent.
Speaker 1:Next, be faithful. Be faithful. Just be faithful with the opportunities God puts in front of you, with the conversations and relationships God puts in front of you, with the responsibilities as far as like teaching. Be faithful to the scripture, the responsibilities you have in terms of relationship building. Be faithful to the way that Jesus has told us to love others. Just be faithful with what opportunities that God's given you and know that you're going to make some mistakes, but and that's where being faithful and consistent Well, you're not going to get it right every time, but if you are faithful to the Lord and to the people he's called you to minister to and you were consistent in your pattern of life then everything's going to be just fine and God's going to use you exponentially. All right. So I'm going to wrap it up here Keep your eyes on Jesus, because not only are people going to walk away and you're going to feel the rejection of those people walking away, but people are going to fall into sin, or they're going to run headlong into sin, they're going to smear the name in face of Jesus and you're going to struggle and face discouragement.
Speaker 1:You're going to have people in your life that discourage you, that don't lift you up and encourage you, but you dread being around them, or they're like oh man, I got to deal with this relationship. You're going to be discouraged. To just keep your eyes on Jesus, be faithful, be consistent and know that Jesus will never let you down. And when it comes to pouring your heart and your life out into others, the Lord is going to be with you. He'll never let you down. He's going to use you in ways that you can't even imagine. I'll make you this, uh, simplify this whole half hour episode into I mean going well over half an hour.
Speaker 1:Now Let me let me condense it Be consistent to spend time with the Lord every day, time and prayer time in his word. Keep your eyes on Jesus, be faithful with the opportunities he's given. You Know that some days are going to be hard and some days are going to be not so hard. Some days are going to be filled with life altering experiences and some are going to be days where you make memories that are. They bring a smile to your face for decades to come. You never know when God's going to put someone in your life that you're going to have an opportunity to impact with the gospel. You should be faithful and be be consistent and may the last words on your lips when you come to that dying day I don't know when that'll be for you and I don't know when it'll be for me but if we run our race, we fight our fight, we strive faithfully, then maybe we can say what the apostle Paul said to Timothy second, timothy four, the last recorded words we have from him the Lord be with your spirit, grace be with you, love. That that's what it came down to for Paul to write these words to Timothy and to say the Lord be with your spirit, grace be with you, god to be with you and abide with you, and I want you to feel his grace, and that that would be the message that we live and speak to others. If we do that, it's going to be all right, it's going to be good Hope. It's an encouragement.
Speaker 1:29, almost 30 years of ministry Some things I've learned. I guess if there was a bonus, bonus content, a bonus content, a bonus message that I would give you, it would be this Now. Now I'm getting real personal, just coming from a conversation I'm in the middle of right now, where a person is making an accusation against another person, but they don't want to sit down and let the other person give an account or give an answer, and so I don't. There's two sides to every story. When you're trying to, when you're trying to help mitigate conflict and lead people, one of the hardest things in ministry is going to be when you get put in the middle between two people. That's where I've made the most enemies because I didn't choose a side or govern, mediate, whatever. You know the way one or both sides wanted. And just just remember there's two sides to every story and do your best when you're putting that situation as a parent or a or a coach or a ministry leader that you're having to try to help mediate and navigate conflict between two people, that man, that's one of the hardest things you'll ever do. And just try to be, try to be as faithful as you can be with that situation and remember there's two sides to every story. So when you're sitting there and you're hearing a kid pour their heart out to you and they're making accusations against a parent or someone else, just know the reason I bring this up is kind of honorable mention or bonus. For years you know we've done a lot of mandatory reporting on abuse situations and we've got hundreds of those reports. But I have found out that more times than not, the, the student's testimony is either exaggerated or embellished and they're making a good bit of it up Now. We still take them all serious every one, but we're slow to speak and respond. We work through it, get to the bottom of it, get pastors involved, parents involved. There's always more to the story than what just one person's telling you. Just remember that. I think that's helpful. That's the honorable mention bonus thing, because that wasn't in my notes, but that's something I'm in the middle of right now, so it's a good one. Alrighty, thank y'all for listening to.
Speaker 1:No Sanity Required and I'm excited. Again, I keep saying it weekend and week out I'm excited for this season of ministry. And then, before we go, just a reminder we've got our Iron On Iron Conference coming up March 7, 8 and 9 and it will be awesome. It's always so good. It's usually not as well attended as you'd think it would be. I'm usually just a couple hundred people here, but, man, it's so fun, so enjoyable. A lot of good conversation, networking, helping each other and sharing stories and ministry. So I hope you can make it to that. Even if you're not in student ministry, I think you'd get a lot out of it. If you're just looking for something to do Lead pastors, senior pastors or pastors of adult ministry I think there's a lot that would be applicable to you, moms and dads. We're gonna tackle how the cultural moment that we're in right now and how do you navigate those waters as a parent or as a teacher. I think it'll be super helpful. So let me encourage you to come. You can find out information on that at SWOutfitterscom under our retreats tab and that's the Iron On Iron Conference. Thank you all.
Speaker 1:Pray for me this week please. I'll be traveling heavy speaking schedule over the next six weeks. But then also in a week Little and Lely will be leaving the country to go visit Kilby, my daughter who serves with her husband Greg in East Africa, and ask for traveling mercies while they're on the road. On the road, while they're traveling, we flying over and they'll be gone two weeks. So pray for the three kids that will be left at home in my care. We'll have stuff like bologna and donuts, mac and cheese, hamburger help or tuna, helper hearties, biscuits. Go to Monty Albion three out of five nights. It's going to be awesome. Pray for us while we're here and pray for them while they travel. I'd appreciate it a lot. And then also I have a lot of travel in the next six to eight weeks. Really the next eight to 10 weeks. Lots of travel and preaching and speaking and teaching and sharing. And just got off the road this past weekend Awesome weekend. Yeah, much prayer appreciated and we'll see you next week.
Speaker 2:Thanks for listening to no Sanity Required. Please take a moment to subscribe and leave a rating. It really helps. Visit us at SWOutfitterscom to see all of our programming and resources. We'll see you next week on no Sanity Required.