My Philosophy and Strategy for Ministry
Greetings,
During this blog I will in a sense give my own personal philosophy and strategy for current and future ministry. God has called me to be a Shepherd over his flock but especially a Shepherd after his own heart. First I will in a sense give my philosophy and then start talking about some of what I feel is already on my future agenda as it relates to my future youth ministry. Since 2000, i've always had a sense of calling to be a Shepherd for God's people. All my life i've been told I had a gift and anointing to speak but it wasn't until 2000 that God revealed that I was to be a Shepherd for him, a leader and a lover of his people. I began being molded into this role in High school. God used me and my family to quickly lead all of my high school friends to Christ and to following that conmversion disciple, encourage, counsel and even discipline my friends all in a loving way throughout my high school expereince from 2000-2003. Now, God has revealed a bit more of the next few steps in life for me. I will graduate from VFCC with a PAstoral Minsitry degree and I intend to use it to be a Youth Pastor. Perhaps one day a Senior PAstor but for now I have no desire or leading to go in that direction. My Philosophy of my current and especially future role comes from John 21:15-17. Jesus asked Peter 3 questions. 2 out of the 3 were related to "Feeding" his sheep, feeding his children his word. The other question was if Peter would "take Care of my sheep". In a sense, Jesus was asking Peter to lovingly protect, guide and discipline his children. This is one of my favorite passages of scripture and i've always felt a specicial connection towards it. From this passage of scripture, it seems to be that a true biblical shepherd (Pastor or ministry leader) should do two things: Feed God's children with his Inspired word, and love his children (doing everything we can to befriend, love, guide, discipline and protecting his kids. From my expereince usually what happens is PAstors in many American churches usually get one these two aspects of being a Shepherd right. I've had some Pastors that are amazing at preaching God's word but are absolute jerk-offs who could care less about the teens and building relationships wsith them OR those who try to just hang out and chill but not feed them God's word. My philosophy is to try and with God's help master both of these aspects of the ministry and calling that God has placed on my life. This has always been my philosophy. Now, in terms of future Youth ministry strategy i'm still in the idea/planning stage but nevertheless I do have some ideas. My future youth ministry will be as loving an enviornment as possible. I desire to make the youth group room or facility look modern down to earth for an Americna teen and cool looking from the walls which could have awesome art and drawings and even some grafittti art to the furniture with hopefully can look cool and home-like. But not home like as in like your living room; more like your basement but cooler. A major emhasis that I will put on my volunteer helpers as well as the teens themselves is RELATIONSHIP building. I will try to plan activities accordingly that will help build relationmships and create a true family like environment where you can have fun, but be yourself and get fed God's word and truth. I desire my future youth group to be like a refuge from the stroms and temptations of the world outside. We will also try to keep track of new visitiors, give them cool things for coming and also follow up on them with phone calls. Also, hopefully the future yotuh group can have a drama team, aweszome band and een make short films and videos for fun. For me, preaching will always include God's word being center focus. I always like to use clips from famous films to illustrate the message. I do like using the Bible directly, quoting chapter and verse and all. Perhaps we will always have print outs of the message. I plan on also allowing student speakers to habe oppurtunities to speak as well as my future wife. And there will be Bible studies/small groups on several differnt topics. Perhaps one will be on growing in Christ, another for girl and their struggles (for my wife to teach), one for the guys, one on apologetics and one on sexuality. Of course, they wont all be at once. So, we shall see what comes. Pray for me and for my future. I think that about does it.
During this blog I will in a sense give my own personal philosophy and strategy for current and future ministry. God has called me to be a Shepherd over his flock but especially a Shepherd after his own heart. First I will in a sense give my philosophy and then start talking about some of what I feel is already on my future agenda as it relates to my future youth ministry. Since 2000, i've always had a sense of calling to be a Shepherd for God's people. All my life i've been told I had a gift and anointing to speak but it wasn't until 2000 that God revealed that I was to be a Shepherd for him, a leader and a lover of his people. I began being molded into this role in High school. God used me and my family to quickly lead all of my high school friends to Christ and to following that conmversion disciple, encourage, counsel and even discipline my friends all in a loving way throughout my high school expereince from 2000-2003. Now, God has revealed a bit more of the next few steps in life for me. I will graduate from VFCC with a PAstoral Minsitry degree and I intend to use it to be a Youth Pastor. Perhaps one day a Senior PAstor but for now I have no desire or leading to go in that direction. My Philosophy of my current and especially future role comes from John 21:15-17. Jesus asked Peter 3 questions. 2 out of the 3 were related to "Feeding" his sheep, feeding his children his word. The other question was if Peter would "take Care of my sheep". In a sense, Jesus was asking Peter to lovingly protect, guide and discipline his children. This is one of my favorite passages of scripture and i've always felt a specicial connection towards it. From this passage of scripture, it seems to be that a true biblical shepherd (Pastor or ministry leader) should do two things: Feed God's children with his Inspired word, and love his children (doing everything we can to befriend, love, guide, discipline and protecting his kids. From my expereince usually what happens is PAstors in many American churches usually get one these two aspects of being a Shepherd right. I've had some Pastors that are amazing at preaching God's word but are absolute jerk-offs who could care less about the teens and building relationships wsith them OR those who try to just hang out and chill but not feed them God's word. My philosophy is to try and with God's help master both of these aspects of the ministry and calling that God has placed on my life. This has always been my philosophy. Now, in terms of future Youth ministry strategy i'm still in the idea/planning stage but nevertheless I do have some ideas. My future youth ministry will be as loving an enviornment as possible. I desire to make the youth group room or facility look modern down to earth for an Americna teen and cool looking from the walls which could have awesome art and drawings and even some grafittti art to the furniture with hopefully can look cool and home-like. But not home like as in like your living room; more like your basement but cooler. A major emhasis that I will put on my volunteer helpers as well as the teens themselves is RELATIONSHIP building. I will try to plan activities accordingly that will help build relationmships and create a true family like environment where you can have fun, but be yourself and get fed God's word and truth. I desire my future youth group to be like a refuge from the stroms and temptations of the world outside. We will also try to keep track of new visitiors, give them cool things for coming and also follow up on them with phone calls. Also, hopefully the future yotuh group can have a drama team, aweszome band and een make short films and videos for fun. For me, preaching will always include God's word being center focus. I always like to use clips from famous films to illustrate the message. I do like using the Bible directly, quoting chapter and verse and all. Perhaps we will always have print outs of the message. I plan on also allowing student speakers to habe oppurtunities to speak as well as my future wife. And there will be Bible studies/small groups on several differnt topics. Perhaps one will be on growing in Christ, another for girl and their struggles (for my wife to teach), one for the guys, one on apologetics and one on sexuality. Of course, they wont all be at once. So, we shall see what comes. Pray for me and for my future. I think that about does it.
posted by Stephen Mitchell-Def. of Cool at 1:21 PM
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