Who's Training Your Future Pastor?
This past weekend I attended the First Baptist JAX Pastors’ Conference, in FLorida, where I taught a breakout seminar. As I listened to men like Dr. Jerry Vine, Dr. Al Mohler, Dr. Jimmy Scroggins and others preach, I thought of how many people must have invested in their lives. Somebody helped them learn how to preach and someone even allowed them to preach that first sermon.
I am working with a group of boys at my home church (some are pictured here) as they are defining, developing and (in a week will be) delivering a sermon to one another before preaching it to an audience. This is something I have done for several years and it is incredibly rewarding.
Recently I was thinking of all the reasons I gave my wife for not wanting to commit to this ministry opportunity:
- I do not have time. (Neither did the people who invested in me.)
- It is hard to corral boys, get them to produce and meet deadlines.
- Boys often have a different agenda than we as adult leaders do.
Then I thought of some of the blessings:
- Every time I get together with the boys they energize me.
- I am amazed at how effectively these guys can be at sharing truth.
- I get real joy from drawing out the leader that is locked inside of them.
- They have something to say and I just have to help them discover it.
Some of the boys plan to share their sermon at our Word of Life Teens Involved events this spring. Others are just there to learn how to write a sermon and communicate the truth of scripture, which I think is incredible. It motivates me to see boys get excited over a passage and become passionate about communicating it. I love the look in their eyes when they know they are connecting.
Somebody at my home church, Ridgecrest Baptist in Birmingham, AL, invested in me so I guess these are some of their grand or great grandchildren. I am really not sure. But what I do know is that when they invested in me they probably never envisioned ministering to students in New York or other parts of the world. I think this is the way it is supposed to be and I trust that one day these young guys will keep passing the baton.
