 Alright, welcome once again for the Youth Ministry course. I thank you all for joining, I hope you all are doing well, good to see you. Let's quickly pray and we'll get started. Father we thank you for this time, we honor you, we want to say we are privileged to learn from your word just so we can be effective, faithful leaders, pastors of the college you've placed over our lives. Holy Spirit Minister to us I pray, in Jesus' name. Great, okay thank you, hope you all are doing well. Life is all good. Let's continue from where we left off. We've covered till chapter 4, that's the organizational aspect of Youth Ministry. I think in the week before the last week, we kind of looked at quite extensively or in detail I should say the importance of the organizational aspect of Youth Ministry right, how to plan the number of different teams involved and the importance of having a core team from the role of the senior pastor to the role of the youth pastor and the expectations and the commitments expected of a core team members right and all of that is what we kind of looked at but just to quickly run through from what we saw from the first class is we try to understand who the youth are you know the world gives put the youth in different age categories we kind of came into agreement, I think it depends on the demographic and also the country that you're in and how what age group is considered as the youth and that's all fine it's okay but then we saw the importance of youth ministry in the church why should there be a youth ministry in the church and most of you said that they are the next generation leaders of the next generation etc but we also saw that the importance of the bible talks about impacting or teaching the word of god to the next generation right so we saw all of that and now we are in a chapter five so that is where we're at at the moment and so here we look at a few challenges this chapter is titled challenges in youth ministry now in this chapter we're going to look at the challenges a youth minister faces and the youth are facing as well okay so we're looking we're going to look at two different perspectives okay so ministry is challenging if you don't know about that let me wake you up to reality ministry is challenging to leaders pastors etc but when it comes to the context our context and this is based on my observation okay some of the challenges that I faced that I kind of put myself through and also I have observed from having conversation with many youth pastors and leaders the first challenge that a youth leader or a youth pastor faces in a ministry when they are new to ministry or is impatience impatience okay so and I it is understandable right so what that means is you know you're coming in you're just being appointed as a youth pastor or a pastor you know whatever and you and you want you want to come in with all guns blazing it's like yes I'm going to change everything I'm going to change the world from day one and you know so you want all the changes to happen yesterday so but what that and why and I'm again very thankful that I was thankful to so many other leaders in my life mentors pastors who've taught me the important of being patient in ministry and through the changes right so one of the things that I learned was to look at the youth ministry okay I'm intentionally using youth ministry because this is the course that we are studying but and I'm pretty sure the principles apply to every other aspect of ministry it's very important that as leaders that we look at youth ministry as a marathon and not a hundred meter dash now I'm not sure how many of you are athletes or took part in athletics in during your school days or college any athletes by the way a part of any runners like no no no pastor I was not a runner long jump high jump relay hundred meter dash 200 meter dash anyone no one was part of athletics I was but I'm one of those people who literally hate the word patience but age is teaching me I used to go for a hundred meters that's awesome Collins yeah I think so I mean the thanks for sharing that I was also a hundred meter dash a sprinter in school and in college is so what's a hundred meter dash is just hundred meters you know whoever runs a hundred meter and I think Usain Bolt still has the world record for that is the fastest man to run a hundred meter dash and I don't know what other records he has so there's a hundred meter dash and then there is a marathon right a marathon that can start with the minimum of five kilometers and then I don't know the longest the longest I have heard a marathon can be is 40 kilometers that means they are running for 40 kilometers right and whoever comes first you know wins wins the the marathon so why am I bringing that example or a parallel is an athlete who is who takes part or who's a a sprinter trains very differently to an athlete who is a marathon runner so a person who is a marathon runner trains his or her body very differently you know to get their lungs stronger they will train in a higher altitude because the oxygen is less they will push themselves to you know just run and and run and and run and just so that their body gets used to that severe you know pressure that you put the body under with running like a 40 kilometers or so and so and and similarly ministry we need to look at it that way you know we need to build patience you know what happens is when we are impatient it usually results in a disappointment or discouragement and you know you're coming in all guns blazing and you're not impatient you're not patient you know to see through the seasons of changes slowly introduce changes one by one and whatnot but because you don't see the changes happening or you don't see the culture that you want to create happen you know it's a what what tends to happen is you get disappointed you get worn out you get discouraged and you restart going into a complaint zone it's saying okay the senior pastor does not doesn't understand my vision oh man the core team doesn't understand my vision nobody understands the vision nobody understands the culture that I want to set and all of this will happen in within one week or a month you know some of us think okay I've been a youth pastor for a month and that is enough for me to be patient no no no it doesn't happen that way you know I'll probably share a beautiful a book it's by Doug Fields called the first two years in youth ministry and that book has helped me a lot and it's the two years is like the basic foundation of everything else that you will build on after and so it's calling us to be patient for two years and to just understand the culture understand the vision setting things right communicating well etc etc right and this is a very biblical in a sense that you know God just did not give the promised land to the Israelites overnight it was a gradual conquest right they had to take one city at a time one city at a time they had to take one tribe of the Canaanites at a time right and so that's how it is right it's you know we have to be patient and you know and in this journey what it and what I have learned and what it does is it builds your character it builds your integrity it builds your passion it really tests the waters right okay are you really zealous about this right you know one of the things that I believe in as a worship pastor now at APC you know one of the things that I see with the young people in the team and also myself when I was younger is that if there was a new song out there that was released or launched we want to do it immediately in church right oh man Michael W. Smith just releases I'm talking about my day in age you know early 2000s mid 2000 and if there was a song that Michael W. Smith would release that's the song we're going to do in church we're going to introduce it because he did it and nowadays we have so many other teams and churches worship teams you know releasing songs on a regular basis and great songs and you know young people want to do that immediately and I have a principle call it the cool off period okay so if there's a new song that a you know better elevation what a maverick hill song you know they've launched it they've released it it's a great song awesome let it cool off does that song still stay around after all the hype of the launch and release you know and if that song still hangs around still lingers around after a month after it was released or even a week after it is released week is still too short but then and that's what I like to call it as a cool off period is a month or two or even three months to just see how the world has received that song and and see if it's still applicable you know if it's if it's a good song if it's powerful it will linger around it will stay around and then we introduce it to the church and so and that kind of tests their patience you know and it's what I call it as the cool off period and so now whatever plans that you have it's okay that you don't have to come in all guns blazing and say these are the changes I want to make movement be patient you know we have to run the race with endurance right Hebrews says and so endurance is a word that is associated with the marathon runners right they have to endure they have to run they have to run they have to run they have to run and run and it's the same thing with a Christian walk isn't it a Christian life as a pastor as a leader especially is we have a long way to go we have a long way to go what's the hurry right we are here to stay right we have a long way to go and so what is important is that whatever we do is to do it with faithfulness with integrity and excellence right and being patient helps us and I think this is one of the challenges that triples most of the young pastors or young leaders because of impatience they prematurely give up on ministry are you all with me is this making sense yeah do you agree disagree okay we are we are thank you Collins right so that's the first challenge right I have actually in the north side mentioned my embarrassing real life story but but yeah I mean like I mentioned I was a sprinter in school but then there was a time when they had a like a five kilometer marathon guys just five kilometers you know and and they said okay this race is going to come on the tv and all of that there's going to be all this news channel going to capture us and so I was right there in the front there were like some hundred people you know now who who are participating in this marathon and I was right in the front and they said on your mark get said go I took off like a sprinter right in the front and the camera caught me and I was like hey okay so 200 meters I lasted 200 meters oh five kilometers marathon after that I ran out of gas you know I was like oh gosh I think this is a wrong idea where's the water and I didn't even I did not even finish the race I did not finish the race and it was only five kilometers all because I did not I wasn't trained uh you know to be a marathon runner and so patients are relying on God waiting on him to lead you in ministry is going to give you the endurance uh you know to run this race faithfully okay all right cool so that's the first challenge that most of the leaders face the second challenge is time management time management is one of the greatest challenge for most of the ministers pastors youth pastors etc why because 24 hours is not enough for us 24 hours is not enough that's one thing and at least in Indian culture we don't like to say no or we don't know how to say no you know we want to say yes to everything any request everybody anybody asks okay hey uh Roshan can you do this like sure I'll do that I'll be there at four o'clock okay forgetting that I was having a meeting from 3.30 to four uh you know and uh and then exact you know there'll be another request hey Roshan can you lead worship from six o'clock you know for a couple of hours all right forgetting you know that it's going to take time to travel from one place to another place and whatnot so time management begins by just uh you know learning to say no that's the first thing uh it's it's okay to say no in a set priorities right um set priorities because if you don't manage your time your time will be managed for you okay I'll say that again if you don't manage your time someone else or a group of people will manage your time for you uh and so it is very important that uh you know you learn to manage your time uh if you have to read a book uh you know deep work by Cal Newport is one of um uh it's a it's a good book uh to read and how to prioritize your time and to stay focused on the task that is at hand right um you know what I remember talking about this in worship ministry is as a worship pastor um you know I'm part of the pastoral team at APC I'm part of the staff as well at APC right and so that means there's so many other teams there's the IT team media team um what are the teams do we have accounts um multiple teams right and they were there we all work out of one office and then obviously there are going to be interactions with other people and someone is going to randomly going to ask for help isn't here you know if you're free can you help me out with this can we go down and bring this equipment up are you free or can you go this and get this done uh you know an account team might require me to go get a check and whatnot so as a as a good friend and as a as a good colleague I should say uh it's uh you know I feel like okay how do I say no to this person if I say no what if that person feels bad you know uh and and there has been many instances like that where I have learned to say I'm sorry I'm in the middle of something at this moment and so what I'm doing there is I'm prioritizing my work my task because if I don't finish it I'm going to get a firing email from my boss my boss is not going to be worried about you know he's not going okay if I tell him to know I had to help the accounts team to get a certain check if I do that both of us are going to be under fire because the boss is going to ask okay why did the account team ask you to go and do this and why did you have to say it and what matters to me is your work okay so you see the ripple effect so to speak okay I'm not sure if I'm making sense but and so it's okay to say no it's okay it's very it's as much as as long as it is good to uh you know help your colleagues it is very important that you prioritize your work it's not a selfish thing it's just wise okay so you prioritize your work you get it done and then you can you know think about solving world peace okay uh and so uh when I was the worship pastor and the youth pastor um you know for four years the way I would approach my day is the first half I would only focus on youth ministry guys the as pastors the work really doesn't end okay the work doesn't end when you go back home at 5 p.m you are going to get calls for house visits you you know all of that will be there but this on paper the way I would look at it is uh 9 a.m to 1 p.m I would focus on youth ministry and then from 2 p.m to 5 p.m worship ministry just to get an understanding and idea so and then after that I'm a little flexible and whatnot so this is the way I would manage time and so I would encourage you to uh you know manage your time really well and the third challenge um you know that the youth ministers or pastors face is discouragement discouragement a constant discouragement okay it could be abrupt like the nature of discouragement is abrupt it could be um you know it could be lack of respect from your team members or from your colleagues um sleep deprivation because of a newborn baby I have listed all these points because this is the phase the season that I was in okay uh you know uh and the list of points that caused me to be discouraged okay lack of respect uh sleep deprivation that I'm Ethan was only eight months old my first born uh conflict and confrontation uh miscommunication and misunderstanding uh too many calls and emails to return to uh criticism constant criticism uh isn't this is I want to be clear that it's not constructive criticism it is uh destructive criticism uh and then youth who are difficult to like um core team not cooperating failure to please everyone failure to please anyone uh and when you receive an email of disappointment uh from whoever from a parent or your boss um your colleague etc etc um all of this is something that you will you will have to face on a regular basis as a pastor what are you guys thinking I want to know is this all real uh do you think it's real uh yes no maybe okay thank you has anyone experienced any of these things at least one of those points from the list of points that I mentioned which one's a little bit all of it huh yes Collins go ahead yes pastor just like any other venture of leadership it we are not dealing with things as leaders we never deal with only things we deal with people and humans are an advanced form of the animal kingdom if I may use that science word they their hearts involved their thing there are so many things involved and as a leader our work is to first of all pass through all the evidences around in case of an issue and we keep our mouth shut but um our mouth is open then we defend that decision to the last drop of our blood right so that's why we are so quiet especially me because you were just work you are just passing through land mines as far as you understand thank you pastor yeah yeah thank you Collins yeah um so all of this is very real isn't it um you know you know one day you're feeling like you're the best pastor in the whole world the next day of you're questioning yourself as if you're even having any impact in your ministry because you're discouraged right and so all of this is real um you know and and discouragement should not cause you to give up on ministry because learning that it is part of it you know one one one scripture that I'd like to refer to is in first Samuel chapter 30 verse 5 I think it and if you read about the life of David from first Samuel chapter 17 onwards 16 you can throw in chapter 16 first Samuel chapter 16 to all the way to chapter 30 if you study about the life of David there are ups and downs and ups and downs right and time comes where Saul is a jealous of David he wants to kill David because he was jealous and David did not do anything wrong and um and so and then David helps in saving a city a town and uh eventually you know they become the mighty men of David uh you know if the numbers grow to 400 or so but there comes a time when they are all attacked and and they blame David for that and they want to stone David the very person who saved them and it's it's all in those chapters 15 chapters you know it's it's wonderful when you go through the life of David in those 15 chapters and then this verse in first Samuel chapter 30 verse 5 I'm please correct me if I'm wrong it says but David found his strength in the Lord right David found his strength in the Lord and so it's very important that as we navigate discouragement as we go through discouragement that we find our strength in the Lord right and that is the hope that we have that he is our strength that even though we walk through the darkest valley he is with us he will comfort me right and and though some of the darkest valleys in ministry can be very dark because you feel like you are all by yourself uh you know sometimes even your family won't understand you the challenges that you're experiencing or why you're discouraged but in those darkest in those loneliest times uh you know we need to realize that he is with us and we need to find our strength in him every great uh you know bible character that we know of experienced this but they found their strength in the Lord right that's the spiritual aspect of it but the practical aspect what I would like to suggest I encourage you guys is find an experienced mentor to to nurture you to nourish you to walk with you right and I've just listed a few points on how you can find an experienced mentor because it is very important that you have someone whom you are accountable to spiritually right and so pray about it look for people inside and all outside the church look ask certain questions like okay who inspires me who encourages me who confronts and corrects and challenges me who do I respect and find someone you know like that to be your mentor it's very important right and having a mentor in my life personally has helped me grow spiritually and be accountable as well right another practical suggestion uh a pointer is um have a hobby okay find a hobby whatever it is flying kites it's okay whatever it is have a hobby I think it's very important to have something outside of the ministry aspect and what we would normally do day in and day out and just to have something to take your mind off it and to just you know to rejuvenate yourself to do something uh that you're not uh thinking of what you've been doing all day right I'm not talking about uh you know your quiet time or reading the bible that is given uh you have to do that but I'm talking about a hobby whatever it is running cycling swimming playing football cricket whatever it is painting um etc etc okay so have a hobby and make a personal commitment to last okay so that's the third challenge is a discouragement there is hope god is our hope let's find our strength in him and then another challenge uh is communication see because of miscommunication world wars have happened okay um so communication is important to say the least right um communication is more than passing along a verbal set of commands it's not just saying okay do this do this do that that's not uh that is part of communication but that alone is not communication right it is a skill they incorporate it is considered uh to be a skill and rightly so right a good communication is a skill uh communicating with your senior pastor uh you know keeping him updated on a weekly basis by weekly basis on what's happening with the youth ministry it's important you uh you know it's it is not a very good idea to not keep your do not keep your pastor updated on what's happening and in the ministry that you're leading right and also so now that's the one aspect of it remember um there's also your other audience which is the youth young people that you're leading right so there is no such thing as too much communication with your core team um or or the youth in itself is if it's a culture that you're trying to set um you know it's very important that you have multiple channel of communication like i've given a few examples like newsletters emails website updates uh text messages social media etc etc right so communicate often communicate clearly and if you think if you know that communication is your weakness and so do something to get better at it do a course you know there's so many free courses that's available on how to get better at your communication so do that so that's another challenge and then intimacy with God you know we we we we do so much of God's work uh in the name of God but we forget to give time to him maybe get so busy doing his work right from morning till evening and whatnot but we forget about our personal walk with God and this challenge is very real the number of pastors and leaders experience this right and so i want to encourage us as we are leading people as we are pastoring people and know as much as long as no matter how busy we can get because it is possible that we can get very busy do not neglect your intimacy with God your walk with him that is what's going to fuel you to uh and and and cause you to last right see through all the discouragement and give you the wisdom to be patient okay um so those are all the challenges that a leader faces um any questions so far okay um because if there are no questions we'd like to move on to the next section we will look at some of the challenges that the youth are facing in this day and age okay um right so would you mind sharing or telling me what are some of the challenges that the youth face in this day and age please come on guys i'm sure we all have interactions with young people so what are some of the challenges that you have observed that the youth are going through what they face peer pressure yep peer pressure technology usage mental health issues yeah inconsistency okay do you mind uh uh expanding on that point abu inconsistency and uh i think that sorry abu uh can't can't hear your voice very well it's very faint and breaking i hear me now yes yes we can thank you thank you pastor so in my area here so the major problem that we are facing in terms of utc inconsistency they ask them to come to any program even when we come to you uh sar i want to start this program as we want us to uh to be those to guide us so when we when we're we're about to start all your program is on you see some of them that's engineer the program we just you know see them just even you yourself that you want to carry them along you'll be disappointed why you are the one that we brought um bring about this uh bring this idea and i join you with the idea in order to to build you home but with time you see them you know see them the hearts uh they organize the prayer meeting so out of eight maybe each of them organize the prayer meeting on that day that we need to pray on that prayer day you see two or three so the next one you see another three so the three that came in previous that come in the first in the first day you know appear on second day so that is how we are facing the challenges here so inconsistency they don't they don't i don't know how to put it i don't know what they are doing so if they start anything they will continue doing it so i think that's a challenge worldwide in terms of getting consistent even consistent volunteers for that matter right yeah uh lack of guidance yes Collins go ahead you see pastor i wanted to say something about consistency lack of consistency as a leader when you really set with your team you set rules and regulations to follow you become after the rules are being set and discussed and then passed then a leader become a cat a cat is one of the animals which literally does not respect the nature of the rat whether it's pregnant whether it is breastfeeding whether it's young it eats all cat all rats that comes their way so once the laws have been set a leader should be blind to whosoever is involved just you must administer the law once you straighten up the discipline in the team then everything is going to be smooth but when you start say using black holes on some and such and other people that this one you know he explained it to me he didn't make it on time then you're literally going to lose the whole bunch thank you sir oh yeah thanks Collins yeah i think so we can kind of agree that inconsistency or consistency is a challenge uh among other things so our peer pressure uh as Zillatoli mentioned is very real in fact we even did a um a topical study on peer pressure um if i'm looking at bubble examples and whatnot technology usage that goes without saying uh yeah and mental health issues yeah um so you know let's just start off uh you know by talking about it um so while while doing my own research on what are some of the main causes for mental health among young people um in this day and age in this generation two things stood out uh two things was uh and i mean i'm sure there are more now to the list but one is the amount of choices the young people have uh in this day and age right uh we'll just talk about that now um now in my day and age i just not too long ago at least just 15 years 18 no no okay 20 years ago uh if i wanted to buy a bike um there were three options for me to choose from three good ones that you know um for a college student when i was a teenager or you know just a young young adult 19 year old um that's when you know 2005 is when i got the bike there were just three major bikes that was appealing to all the younger generation back then now i'm glad i don't have to pick a bike because there's like so many choices uh it's overwhelming okay uh and so and there and the choices are overwhelming the younger generation uh in this day okay let's just do a quick check okay uh if i were to ask you guys this question i want you to tell me which would be easier okay i want you to pick uh i want you to pick five best uh five best shampoos okay i don't know why is shampoo basically i want you to pick five best shampoos uh and here's the thing choice one i want you to pick five out of 500 shampoos or and the second option is pick five best shampoos out of the 10 shampoos which is likely to be less stressful right uh i i would say you know picking five best shampoos out of the 10 is going to be less stressful okay versus 500 because it's just too much information to process uh time consuming right um etc etc and so that's the kind of a similar situation the young people are in this is okay uh what do i do and i've just put an image there says okay do i become an entrepreneur or an employee which career path do i choose which college do i go to etc etc and the young generation nowadays also have the luxury actually to take a year off uh and you know and tell their parents i'm going to take a break i'm going to find myself go to the mountains travel and just and then get inside if i said that to my parents um yeah sure you want to find yourself here i found you you know go do yeah now so that's one of the leading causes uh choices that's the number of choices that's there for the young people that's leading to mental health that's one of the challenges and the other one is loneliness now among peer pressure and among this technology and social media um you know they might have they might be connected you know virtually to hundreds if not thousands of people uh but still feel lonely right uh they could be standing in the crowd part of a crowd be or be part of a group of 20 people 10 people uh you know but still feel left out still feel lonely and so because of that fear what happens because of the fear of being rejected uh you know they begin to do things so that they can be uh accepted by their peers by their colleagues right by their friends etc and so um loneliness is real and um happiness is portrayed is what is seen on social media um right um an individual might be going through completely uh you know something very dark and you know they might be experiencing all of this negative things but on their social media page everything will look flawless from their display picture to their constant updates on whatsapp status or instagram status uh whatsapp status uh instagram status uh facebook etc and and whatnot right and and what that causes is for example let's say an individual or a couple for that matter let's take that um you know they're posting pictures that they are traveling the world they're you know they're they're awesome and whatnot and at the same time there's another couple or another individual who's looking at who's following uh their profile and seeing okay you know wow look at their life it's so amazing you know that they get to travel they're having fun they're having the best food because of all the food pictures they're posting I don't understand but uh and they have and they feel the need to tell the world let the world know that which airport they are in and uh you know how many people are there in the airport and which flight they are taking you know and so all of this information is out there and there's this person who's uh who's feeling lonely and broken and experiencing all this uh you know say depression and whatnot um they constantly feel more depressed because they're comparing their life to the others because of social media are you following so these are all very real challenges um right um so mental health loneliness um their barometer of happiness etc and then also time um there's a list of challenges that I've mentioned yeah but time 24 hours is not enough uh young people are very very busy these days um you know I think it's it starts off from them being uh I mean even parents these days when you look at children uh they want to again I'm sorry I'm constantly comparing my childhood to this day and age because um and I grew up in the 90s the 90s absolutely rocked it was the best time to grow up okay you had the best worlds of both you know go out play in the sand play marbles get fall down get hurt uh etc and also at the same time we had the introduction of video games and all of that right um that was what summer vacation was for during my time but now summer vacation okay dance class after dance class swimming class okay after swimming class okay uh what football class coaching after that badminton coaching after that whatnot and so parents feel that 24 hours is not enough and then because of what has been instilled into the child as they grow up into a teenager and a youth now they think that okay that that is not enough they need to do more they constantly need to be doing more and so and which is why uh the results uh you know it's very hard to getting young people to youth meetings nowadays I would say is because they see that okay is that really worth it for me to go because I could give that one hour for all the other things that I want to do so if I if I'm going to give my one hour to this youth meeting is it really worth it because I don't have the time that's the question young people are asking and that's a very real challenge okay I just realized that the time's up we'll take a quick break and we'll continue okay all right see you in a bit