Remembering My Youth Pastoring Days

Many of you may not realize it but I spent the first 10 years of my ministry as a Youth Pastor in West Milton, OH. The first two years I was the Summer Youth Intern as I finished college. After graduating I became the full-time youth pastor at the same church for the next 6 years. I never intended to go into youth ministry but I absolutely enjoyed it and found it greatly beneficial in preparing me for my years as a Senior Pastor. It has been said that youth pastoring isn’t difficult because you only need to speak on the three topics that interest youth:

Sex
The End Times
Sex in the End Times

Seriously, one of my favorite parts of being a youth pastor was our yearly retreats. I found nothing in youth ministry more valuable then our youth staff being able to take our teens away for a full weekend and develop deeper relationships with them away from all distractions. The spiritual progress we made in the lives of these teenagers at our retreats was second to none.

I am glad to see that our Director of Student Ministries, Doug Kegarise, and our Jr High Director, Jeremiah Kleylein, also see the value of youth retreats and have planned two for this winter. If you are a parent of a teenager here at Grace Church, I strongly recommend that you do everything within your power to see to it that your teens attend one of these Grace Student Ministries’ Winter Retreats.

The Jr High retreat (Grades 7-8) will be held Friday, January 30 (8 p.m.) through Saturday, January 31 (5 p.m.) here at the church. It will be a combination retreat & lock-in with swimming, games, activities and sessions with worship and great teaching on what the Bible says about sexual purity! The Guest Speaker will be Bob Karwowski who has worked at the Evangelical Free Church of Hershey as the Coordinator for Worship with Youth and Adults for the past 5 years. He is passionate about serving the Church and leading others in a lifestyle that honors and glorifies our God. Bob is looking forward to challenging our Jr. High students in the area of purity! The cost for this retreat is just $15 and is due by January 18.

The Sr. High Retreat (Grades 9-12) will be Friday, February 20 (5pm) through Sunday, February 22 (1:30pm) and will be held at Camp Joy-El in Greencastle, PA. This will be a high-impact weekend packed with fun activities, loads of memories and spiritual challenges focusing on sexual purity. The guest speaker will be Mark Artrip who is the High School Pastor at Grace Church of Powell, OH. Most of our students will recognize him from Momentum Youth Conference and have heard him teach in break-out sessions there. Mark is passionate about seeing teens walk with Jesus and will be a great addition to our weekend. The cost is $80 and is due February 1.