So I was reading a book the other day that was talking about the “heart” of the matter when it comes to student ministry… and they said it was to “love God and love students.” I couldn’t agree more… except they didn’t say anything else about it. So I thought I would pull that statement into the student ministry world a little bit more 🙂 So here we go:
It is the student pastor’s responsibility to cultivate an environment among the volunteers in the student ministry of Loving God and Loving Students. You must do both to be effective in student ministry.
LOVE GOD
First and foremost, we must love God. Above being a student pastor… we are a worshipper. Above being a student pastor… we are a child of God. Our student ministry must flow out of a genuine love for God in our own lives. If we are not passionate about God… why would we expect our students to be?
LOVE STUDENTS
This is what we do, right? We need to have a genuine, compassionate, appropriate love for teenagers. We also need to show our volunteers how to do this. I don’t know about you… but I need to be reminded from time to time that THIS is why I got into this in the first place.