"You Got to Preach and Talk about God, Now I've Got to Go Poopie"

I asked my daughter what the best thing about being a youth pastor was and this is what she said..."You got to preach and talk about God, and now I've got to go poopie." This is absolutely true. As Youth pastors that is actually our greatest task, and should be our greatest joy. Unfortunately many times the other demands crowd out our true desire to preach the word and talk about God. It is so simple and so complicated. The 'professionalization' of ministry has often clouded the issue and point of ministry. I believe for this reason many ministers leave or "poop out" just like my daughter said, they start out wanting to preach and share God's word, and then suddenly we are "pooped out". I wanted to highlight three of the trouble areas that Youth pastors often neglect. They often lead to burnout, leaving ministry, even being fired, or having to leave ministry because they are totally burnt out. 

1. The first pitfall that most youth guys neglect is Family. Most youth ministers get their start in college or right after. In my experience they start out before they are married or have a family. So they don't know how to manage their lives when they finally get married and have children along with being a youth pastor. The thing that they had before they got married stays in its role as the more important thing. For instance in my own life I was in youth ministry long time before I met my wife had a family. Once the family entered into the picture I didn't know how to manage building, and spending time with family, and also being passionate and giving 100% for ministry. The hard part for me was before my family came, youth ministry was a big priority. But now that my family had started to grow it was difficult for me to step back from some of my responsibilities in ministry and to readjust my passions towards my family. 

Several things that helped me were to create clear boundaries. One of the main things that helped me was a parent who told me that wherever I was I needed to be there 100%. If I was home be there 100%. If I was at church be there 100%. If I was counseling someone be there 100%. This can be a challenge also in our highly mobile technology filled world. As a youth pastor we really have to turn the phone off when we are at home.

Another thing that really helped me was to make sure you take your family vacations every year. At the very minimum one week preferably two weeks out of the year. I recommend taking the two weeks altogether, and to prepare to not have any Church responsibilities in that time. Also take family retreats. Take your family with you to camp, also on mission trips or any other youth trips when it's possible.

2. Personal Devotion: I have seen over the years so many guys burnout because they neglected their personal devotion to Christ. Don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying that if you miss your quiet time once or twice a week that you're going to burn out. What I am saying is that you have to commit within your busyness of life to daily cultivate your passion for Jesus through worship, word, and prayer. When I was a young man in ministry right out of Bible college I went to be a youth pastor of a small church plant. In those two years I became a very good professional minister. I somehow had the false impression that I could cultivate my personal devotion through ministry. What a false and terrible assumption that was. I found out over those two years that I slowly faded away from my passion for the Lord, and into a deep cycle of sin, because I did not continue in my personal devotion daily through worship, word, and prayer. A question that always helps me calibrate my devotion is, "Do you have a living, humble, needy, celebratory, affectionate, meditative, worshipful, loving, and tender, communion with Christ?" If you can say no to any of these things, and you say its because, I don't have time, then make time, or you might be punching your ticket out of Youth ministry very soon.

3. Preaching the Word: another pitfall I see in youth ministry is that the youth pastor thinks he has to get too cute. Our ministry is the ministry of the word just like the church for thousands of years before us we don't need to get to cute and try to do slick programs and try to do anything else besides focusing on the ministry of the word. Guys who burnout in my opinion many times are burning out because they have to maintain this incredibly slick attractional model of ministry. If you are in maintenance mode over a very big large attractional youth ministry you could be headed for burnout. That is what happened to me and that is what has happened to so many of my colleagues over the years. I urge you right now reshape your ministry around the ministry of prayer, mission, and the word. 

My encouragement to you is if you find yourself on the verge of burnout, tell someone, and preferably not your wife. Don't dump this heavy burden on her only and always, that is not fair. Try to find someone with outside eyes with lots of wisdom, and talk to them. Ask them to help you. ask them to mentor you. These were so helpful for me when I needed to recover while in ministry. We all need healing, and recovery! We all need course corrections. And that is why we need "iron sharpening iron." 

Lydia, my 4 year old at the time. was at youth group with me a couple years ago. I had to go to another group to make a presentation. When I came back Lydia was crying and she said that she thought I had left her and was afraid. She said, "but I prayed to Jesus", when I heard this I started crying too. I asked her what she prayed and she said she asked Jesus to help her. And I asked, "did he help you", she said "yes He did I wasn't afraid anymore." Then she said she even thought about walking home. Maybe you also feel like leaving youth group and going home because you are close to burnout. We can, just like my daughter did, ask Jesus to help us, and he will!