I pissed off people with this one too!

This is something I wrote on a Youth Specialties message board. I got pretty beat up for my remarks. Oh well, the Lord said I would be persucutied for sharing the truth, just didn't think it would come from other youth workers. Here it is.

I shaved my goatee today. Who would have thought that this gesture would be considered a thumbing of the nose at the “system.”

Being the newest youth pastor in a small Midwest town has given me a short chance to observe my new cultural surroundings. Only knowing a hand full of parents and students (I’m working at a mid-sized church) allows me to attend the homecoming football game practically unnoticed.

They were all in attendance last night. Every character portrait that can be painted of a youth minister was at the game. In the past couple of weeks I had met a couple of these youth workers, but after fourteen years of trying to network with other youth workers, some just stuck out to me like a soar thumb. There was the non-married, middle-aged, female associate pastor of a mainline denomination. She was sitting in the parent section ignoring the game while talking to three soccer moms from her ministry. There was the nice, married, middle-aged guy from the almost large non-denominational church. He stood in the walkway between the bleachers and the field, as to get maximum exposure to both students and parents walking by. I saw the young, twenty-something, unmarried, female Para-church worker proudly sporting her organizations name and logo on her t-shirt, sitting smack dab in the middle of the student section.

Then towards the end of the third quarter I over heard a little girl say something to her mom. She said, “Look mommy there’s pastor Jimmy (name changed).” I didn’t have to look to see where the girl was pointing. Up the center isle walked the iconic arc type of the modern day youth pastor. I had heard about this guy from my senior pastor, who had been very jealous and bitter about this pastor’s churches success and ability to woo parishioners from our body. Pastor Jimmy with his slight muscular build wore khaki cargo pants and a button-downed shirt that had the hometowns team logo embroidered on left pocket. His hair was trimmed short with a slight fade running into his inch and a half long sideburns that poointed to his well trimmed goattee. He maneuvered himself into a seat next to his senior pastor. He shook the hands of several well dressed middle-aged men sitting in the senior pastor’s section, made some obviously humorous remarks, patted his senior pastor on the back, and left this group. Making his way past the student section he was stopped by some of his students. When they introduced him to their friends he would promptly hand the student his business card, presumably with his mega-church’s (over 1500 would be considered mega around here) youth ministry information on it. I continued to follow his progress as he moved toward the concession stands where this act was repeated several times, but now with middle school students.

Now before I get slammed by people saying, “the body is made of several parts”, you need to understand at one point or another in my fourteen almost fifteen years of youth ministry I could have been painted in anyone of those portraits. I have been all those people. My point in writing this is to draw our attention to the fact that we have been marketed an image of what we are to be as youth workers. It could be our denomination, the Para-church organization we work for or even, dare I say, YS in it’s publications, conventions or associations promotes an image of what a youth worker should look and sound like. I admit to being the worst offender of buying into the hype. So I’m shaving my goatee.

The other night a friend in ministry was trying to motivate me in attending NYWC in Dallas. He asked, “When was the last time you went.” Well it’s been four years since I went to a NYWC and I don’t see myself going anytime in the near future. When I responded to his question he said, “You are over due.” Why is NYWC the magical cure for what ales me in ministry? Why do I have to sit in ten seminars for my experience to be validated as “continuing education”? Why aren’t we getting “fed” while we are doing ministry? Where I’m at in my walk and ministry life I don’t feel like being around a couple thousand goatees and backpacks.

What if? What if a hundred of those who were planning on attending NYWC this fall, all planed on going to Grenada on the same week to help with the clean up. No national speakers, no video production company trying to sell you their latest product, no goatees, just a hundred people living out the word of God.

So, to quote Tom Cruise for the movie Jerry Maguire, “Who’s with me? Who’s coming with me?” What could be a stronger leadership statement to the students we work with than for us to use our time away from them to serve others? Serve without anything to gain expect for each of us to get closer to God.

I think Yac would have liked for us to start painting a new portrait of what YM is or at the very least recognize that master piece of artwork God paints of us is never finished.