You climb a big hill together and see that thousands of people are there in front of you – all of them hungry.
Jesus turns to you and says: “So where are we going to get food for them all?”
One thing’s clear. Jesus has decided he wants you to help respond to this need.
But it’s an impossible challenge!
The shops are closed, and even if they weren’t you don’t have anything close to enough money!
What do you do…?
Freak out & run away
Grab some butcher’s paper and a marker and try really, really hard to think up some genius solution
Feel super guilty that you can’t deliver on what’s required and decide you’re a failure
Overwhelmed by the task in front of you?
Ever looked at what God’s called you to do and felt completely overwhelmed?
It can be easy to have one of the above 3 responses.
I LOVE how Andrew responded to that impossible challenge on the hill that day.
He grabbed a young boy’s lunch (with permission!) and just showed it to Jesus.
He had no idea what Jesus would do with it. Andrew had not come up with a solution.
He just pointed the lunch out to Jesus and had faith that he might be able to do something creative and wonderful with it.
And he does!
Be encouraged today.
It’s not our job to do the impossible – we don’t need to come up with miraculous solutions.
But there is so much power when – like Andrew - we just bring stuff to Jesus in prayer - calling stuff to his attention, having faith that he might do something miraculous with it.
Are you ready to be a part of The Salvation Army’s mission?
The Salvation Army has a rich history of wanting to serve the lost, the last and the least. William and Catherine Booth’s vision for The Salvation Army involved God’s people treating not only a person’s soul, but also they physical and material needs.
In this series, you’ll look at some inspirational quotes and stories from the Booth’s, and get a greater idea of what their vision for the Salvos was.
It is our hope that this generation of young people will be motivated and willing to step up and out radically in mission, following in our founders footsteps.
During my time in Central & North QLD Division I was blessed with amazing leaders in both Majors Rodney & Wendy Walters.
These guys get it. They love God (you can see it) and are all about people.
One thing Rodney & Wendy taught me exceptionally well was ‘Pastoral Leadership’.
Rodney and Wendy have the biggest hearts when it comes to people.
As they are leaders of leaders, they would always put their officers and ministry workers first, they saw it as a high priority to invest in to them, love them, listen to them, cry with them, laugh with them and simply do life with them. They sure did this for me and I constantly saw them do this for others. Just like the good shepherd who knew his sheep well, they knew their people well.
I clearly remember a particular Thursday Night after a huge week. I had just found out some news that rocked me pretty hard and was quite overwhelmed by everything.
Rodney and Wendy had a crazy week of travel themselves (Wendy just drove 8 hours that day) yet they saw ‘their people’ being so important that they trekked out to Yeppoon – half an hour away from the comfort of their own home to meet with me late at night to just sit and listen to how I was going, to pray with me, to simply journey with me through this.
They didn’t just stop there, they offered to take some of my work load and look at some ways to make it possible for me to be around family in that time.
A great leader is one who loves the people they serve.
It’s a leader who listens to them, journeys with them and empowers them to be all they can be in Jesus!
I honour Rodney & Wendy as great leaders in the faith.
I truly honour them as phenomenal pastoral leaders.
I look at their leadership and the way they minister and think to myself – I want what they’ve got!
Who is it you look up to? What is it exactly that the leaders around you do really well?
I encourage you to learn and apply the things that leaders around you do really well.
In the lead up to last weekend I was invited to a couple of different events. It is often the case that one weekend can be really quiet and the very next has 6 different parties competing for each other. My temptation has been to hit the ‘maybe’ button to facebook event invites in order to buy myself some time and think about where I would really like to spend my evening. It seems like a nice thing to do, after all I haven’t said ‘no’ so I am showing that I care about them right? Wrong.
I am sure every youth leader knows the frustration of working towards an amazing youth camp or youth group event, promoting it well and sending out invites just to sit back and wait…and wait…and wait for rego forms to come back. We’d rather hear a ‘no’ early on than worry about whether we are going to meet our quota.
‘Maybe’ can mean a bunch of things. It might mean ‘no’ or ‘I need to check my calendar’ or ‘I’ll wait and see if I get a better offer’. Whatever it means to the individual it is noncommital and frustrates an event organisers planning. I feel challenged this week to let my ‘yes be yes and my no be no’, to choose an event and commit to it wholeheartedly.
If we expect our youth group members to register early for events and to stick to their answers then we better model the same thing. Get rid of ‘maybe’ this week. Choose not to think of what else you might miss out on. Enjoy being where you are.
I feel pretty confident that you have heard the St Francis of Assisi quote:
“Preach the gospel at all times, using words when necessary”
and the phrase “practice what you preach” many, many times.
Today I came across the suggestion that the phrase should instead be: ‘preach what you practice’.
I like it.
Jesus says something along the same lines in Matthew 7. He says: “who preachers are is the main thing, not what the say” (Matthew 7)
The most powerful preachers I have ever heard are those who are living a remarkable Christian life and are clearly preaching with total integirity, preaching things they passionately live out every day of their lives. Ronquillo has suggested that:
“Preaching what you practice is really a testimony to celebrate what God does through your life. Preaching what you practice is preaching/ teaching with experience behind it. Preaching what you practice pushes you forward to experience more of God, in order that there is more to preach/teach”
(Ulysses Ronquillo)
It pushes you to forward to experience more of God, in order that there is more to preach/teach.
A helpful different way of thinking about it I think.
We live in a world of comparisons where we gauge how well we’re doing by observing how well others are doing. It’s dangerous scale we often use in youth ministry too; it’s easy to look at what others are doing and rate ourselves by comparison to their success.
We all know that there’s not a “1 size fits all” when it comes to ministry but deep down we think that we would be more successful if we looked a little more like the youth ministry down the road.
Here are 3 truths to keep in mind next time you’re tempted to buy into that thinking:
** God measures success, not us. He does it by looking at the heart, not the numbers.
** Diversity is beautiful. God loves how weird your young people are.
** We need each other. It’s called the Body of Christ.
There are many thing’s that I learnt after leaving the hectic city of Sydney to the peaceful surroundings of Yeppoon.
Before moving to North QLD I held close to me a busy schedule.
As many of you would know being a Youth Pastor can be very demanding at times. I still always felt as though people always wanted more and more of my time. Some would say I was burning the candle at both ends.
The above photo (taken just around the corner from where I lived in North Queensland) reminds me of 2 lessons that God taught me:
1. In the stillness you will find me:
For so long I was caught up in ‘doing’ and ‘achieving’. I was so caught up rushing from one thing to another that I would become so distracted. It meant there was limited space for God to speak. I clearly remember looking over the ocean and feeling Holy Spirit say “just be still”. Major Wendy Walters (Divisional Leader) worked with me on this. We set some practical things in place that I found helpful and still do today:
no answering emails / Facebook of a morning until I spend time in the word
set aside time during the day to refocus and refuel
2. Discipline isn’t a dirty word:
I actually discovered that trying to be a hero living off 5 hours (or less) sleep a night wasn’t good for me, nor was it healthy!
A discipline I set in place (and still try to live by) is going to bed at a decent hour.
I have found that by doing this I work far more effectively during the day because I have a clearer mind and energy to function. I also need to escape the demands of people and projects to reflect and refocus.
It’s OK to have free space in your calendar.
Jesus did this well, he would often escape the crowds and the ‘busyness’ of it all to refresh, refuel and spend time with the Father.
Bill Shorten, member for the Labor Party, has come under some serious fire this week for this interview. I am convinced he is an intelligent man to get where he is today but unfortunately this interview has him coming across more like a confused lemming than a free-thinking advocate of the nation.
Choosing to support whatever his leader says while having no idea what his leader has said seems crazy, at least if you are being questioned on national TV, and in my mind it raises some serious questions for ministry.
Isn’t his approach noble? Aren’t we called to wholeheartedly support our leaders? Shouldn’t we be prepared to back everything our pastor says?
I believe that I should be prepared to exercise a blind faith in God and that it can be good to put faith in your leaders. It does become a problem though when I lose capacity for independant thought. I have noticed the temptation for me to blindly follow the leader comes as I hear an inspiring preacher. If everybody is moved by what they are saying it must make it worthy for repeating next time I preach right? Yes of course it is so long as ‘following the leader’ is more important than having a valuable, truthful contribution.
I have often heard young people given the message that “even if you were the only person on the earth Christ would have come just for you and died for you”. This sure sounds nice and I have been tempted to spout it myself without questioning whether I really believe that, whether there is Scripture to support it and where that statement sits within my theology.
Let’s support the leaders in our life. It doesn’t mean we have need to be parrots. Smart leadership honours others whilst holding an informed opinion.
That’s a question we’re asking ourselves all the time, so we started a blog to collect our thoughts and hopefully include you in the conversation too.
We – Claire, Nate, Shandri and Matt – work together at The Salvation Army’s Territorial Headquarters in Sydney, Australia, and are responsible for supporting and resourcing Salvation Army youth ministries throughout NSW, QLD and ACT.
