Few would argue that student pastors have a tough job. Providing spiritual instruction and building relationships with teenagers is challenging on the best days, and student leaders can feel ill-equipped to handle the many different situations that come at them from week to week.
Knowing others are in the trenches of student work with you can help, said Scooter Kellum, youth ministry strategist for the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions (SBOM).
That’s why he’s excited about the Alabama student ministers network — an effort to connect staff members and volunteers who work with youth so they can support and encourage each other in the work of student ministry.
“Having a group of people that we can spend time with and know that we’re not doing this alone can make a big difference,” Kellum said.
Around the state some student leaders have already found encouragement through informal networks at the association level. Their meetings tend to be casual and relaxed, often involve lunch or dinner and provide an opportunity to just talk.
“Sometimes it’s good to be challenged,” Kellum said. “But sometimes it’s good to be able to get away and talk and just be heard.”
Kellum hopes to replicate that general template through regional luncheons. The luncheons will bring student ministers and leaders together to talk, share ideas and resources and connect with other leaders in their area.
The luncheons will not be just for paid church staff members though, he said. In fact the idea is to connect with those leaders who often feel they are working in isolation.
“A lot of our youth pastors are volunteer, bivocational or part time,” Kellum said. “We want to emphasize community instead of competition and talk about how they can work together.”
A vision
When Travis Seagle, minister of students and education at Coaling Baptist Church, became associational student ministry director for Tuscaloosa Baptist Association, he had a vision for a similar type of cooperation among student leaders.
Seagle has served bivocationally for most of his ministry and knew most trainings and conferences were geared toward full-time staff members.
“We purposely created our network so meetings were during supper not lunch and we used associational funds to do training close by,” Seagle said.
“It’s been a fantastic opportunity for a lot of churches who can’t pay to send their bivocational minister to a training,” he said. “They can send their youth minister and a spouse, and we even gave some scholarships for them to go to other conferences and trainings.”
Seagle said the Tuscaloosa Baptist Association student ministers network has helped student leaders move beyond “45 minutes of dodge ball and 10 minutes of Bible study to something that has a Kingdom impact.”
Kellum hopes the statewide network will help student leaders in other associations do the same.
“Youth ministers have a desire to reach out to the teenagers in their community, students in their church and those outside their walls,” Kellum said. “We want them to realize they have to be intentional and authentic and give teens an opportunity to experience community.”
That kind of cooperation will help both student leaders and their students as well, Kellum said.
“We’re finding that many of our students go to school together but go to different churches,” he said. “So if they could all go to an event together and see that person’s a Christian and that one too — they’ll see they have more things in common.”
Seagle is excited about the possibilities, but he stressed that the network will not be applying a “cookie cutter” approach to every area of the state. The goal is to help those who come, he said.
“As long as people see that there is a desire to minister to the student minister so [he or she] can be more effective, folks who have a genuine desire for their ministry to grow will jump in,” he said.
For more information contact Scooter Kellum at skellum@alsbom.org or 334-613-2280.
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