Why'd you stay?
I've been in ministry at my church for seven years.
One thing I love about having been in the same context for a while is that alumni from my ministry are starting to serve with me as adult leaders.
One of those leaders was a senior my first year at my church. That year was, in a word, ROUGH.
Recently, while hanging out around a campfire, my teens asked this young leader about what our youth ministry was like when she was in it.
She shared how she'd had a different youth pastor each of her four years of high school and talked honestly about how those constant transitions impacted her class and contributed to the difficulties we faced that first year.
After hearing about how hard that year was, several teens asked for my perspective. One said, “That sounds awful. So why'd you stay?”
