Tucker Bryson said he’s still pretty fresh at the game when it comes to youth ministry.
“I’ve been in this role at First Baptist Church Centre for almost two years,” he said. “There have been plenty of times when I’ve had a lot of questions about how someone with 10 years of experience would handle something rather than someone with less than two years of experience.”
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So earlier this year when Josh Meadows, student ministry strategist for the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions, announced that he was starting the Newish Leadership Network for fairly new youth ministers, Bryson jumped on the opportunity.
‘Not on an island’
“To be in a group of ministry leaders in the same season has been very encouraging to me because it reassures me I’m not on an island,” he said.
He said it’s also great to get advice from more experienced youth ministers who join the bimonthly Zoom calls to talk about different topics.
“Two calls ago now, we had a youth pastor who’s been in the game a little longer get on to talk about summer planning,” Bryson said. “He said something that I needed to hear — he told us not to use summer as a break but as a bridge into some excitement about the fall because students are so accessible during the summer.”
Meadows said the vision behind the Newish Leadership Network started when he began thinking about what he needed when he was just starting out in ministry.
Learning in good times, tough times
“We have a lot of guys who are being hired younger,” he said, “and I was just thinking, ‘How can we equip them and get them connected to other seasoned student pastors who have learned hard lessons and learned in good times and tough times?’”
Meadows started getting the wheels in motion for the network, and not long after, Ben Edfeldt, director of the SBOM office of collegiate and student ministries, approached him with a similar thought.
“He said, ‘What if we had a network where we can equip them and raise them up to be amazing at what they do?’ And I said, ‘I’m already on it,’” Meadows said.
The network started in April and will go through October, then next year Meadows will start with a new group.
Edfeldt said the network is “one of the cooler things we’re doing.”
“I think there’s a world of potential for them to learn some skills to serve in their church in a more impactful way,” he said. “There’s a lot of help in how to be a well-rounded student minister.”
For more information, visit ymlink.org/newish.
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