How God Changed My Heart and Transformed Our Youth Group
It was just a simple eBook. I had downloaded hundreds of articles and eBooks over the years as a pastor. I loved finding simple, yet profound articles that helped me learn and grow. This eBook was just one among many. Why would this little eBook be that important?
It turns out that God used this eBook to wake me up. Perhaps God was using all those other ones, but I wasn’t listening. For whatever reason, when I read this eBook… I was listening. I still don’t know why I was listening this time, but I am glad I did. The effect of what this eBook caused will reverberate across eternity!
The eBook is called, Discipleship Empowered by the Spirit by Jeff Vanderstelt.
It was compelling. Two memorable things happened in the days that followed the reading:
- I was challenged. What challenged me, if I’m honest, was a realization that I didn’t really believe in the Holy Spirit. This is difficult to say. I theoretically believed in the Holy Spirit, but it would be true, after reading this article, that I didn’t functionally believe in the Holy Spirit. I was confronted by the fact that while I believed in the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, I didn’t actually believe that he was active and working and leading. Ironic for a pastor to say this, but that is what hit me. This wasn’t good.
- I was haunted. What haunted me was Jeff’s stories. Vanderstelt told stories about the Holy Spirit working in people’s lives and Jeff just prayed. The author himself was convicted often that he didn’t trust the Spirit to work, so he repented and believed and prayed that the Holy Spirit would work… and he did… often in ways that Jeff didn’t expect. I was haunted by the author’s stories because I had been a pastor for ten years, and I didn’t have many stories like that. I didn’t have any accounts where the only explanation was the Spirit’s work and not mine. Sure I had some great stories of God working in people’s lives and using me to do it, but it more came down to my effort and God working in spite of me being in the way.
What does one do when a 16-page eBook upends your world?
Action and inaction, in interdependent tandem with one another.
I knew I needed to act differently. I knew some things needed to change, drastically… but how?
Ironically (to me at least), inaction was what I needed to do. I needed to stop acting, stop strategizing, stop arranging and stop leading out in front. Did I believe that Jesus Christ was Lord, or did I believe that Jeremy Mavis was Lord? This was core gospel stuff. I needed to stop being the youth pastor, and the Spirit of Jesus needed to take over. Would I let him? Or did I think I could do a better job than he could? To be honest (and this is hard to admit and write), I led our youth and children’s ministry, and if I ran up against something I couldn’t handle, then I would ask God for help.
I sought out the Spirit only when it was necessary for me. Ouch. These were difficult things to realize and accept. Where did I go wrong? My intentions weren’t bad. After all, I was trying to do God’s work.
- I taught straight out of the Bible.
- I tried to contextualize the message for the current audience.
- I parsed child and teen culture to better connect the truths of God to them.
- I studied and learned how the history and cultural world of the Scriptures to accurately understand them.
- I taught about Jesus and a relationship with him.
But I did it… largely all on my own.
All this happened in the summer of 2014 around the end of July. Usually that is time of year where my typically busy, youth pastor summer (two camps and VBS) winds down and I start preparing and planning for the next season of youth and children’s ministry. Things were going well at the time. The previous year (2013), our high school pastor had stepped down from youth ministry and I assumed the responsibility of the high school students. I got to shepherd students from birth through high school graduation! Fun! I was able to hire two ministry coordinators to assist with the extra work load. It was great! I was partnering in ministry with others in both a paid roles and volunteer roles. Things were good! There was no reason to make any strategic or structural changes. We were leaning into team-based ministry and it was seemingly going well!
The haunting realization that I led both children and youth ministry largely on my own strength and leadership as opposed to any direction of the Holy Spirit was disequilibriating. This was an inconvenient truth.
Active Inaction
This is a made up phrase, but it seems to accurately describe what happened next.
I spent several days wrestling with the Lord on what this all meant. I didn’t know anything different, so I didn’t have any kind of framework to work off of. I do remember praying a lot… and thinking a lot. It’s funny to think back to that time and remember that I was trying to strategize my way out of strategizing ministry on my own. I remember letting go at some point going:
“Okay God. If I don’t know how to do it, then how am I supposed to do it? How am I supposed to trust you to lead this youth group if I don’t know how to do it?”
This came down to faith: Was I going to believe that God was going to be the youth pastor of our youth group or was it going to be me?
Woah. God as the youth pastor. I hadn’t thought of that before. What would it look like if God was our youth pastor and not me?
What I was doing at the time was planning out the curriculum trajectory for the whole school year. For eleven years I planned out every lesson prior to youth group starting to create an intentional learning experience for the whole year. You see, the first year I picked up the high school ministry we combined both middle school and high school together. With new ministry coordinators and a new ministry arena, I was on a bit of a learning curve so I didn’t want to split out the two groups just yet. But it became very clear by the end of the school year that the groups needed to be separated in order to thrive in what they needed. I was working on what a high school specific curriculum looked like when all this went down.
What would it look like if God was our youth pastor and not me?
This was a seminal moment for me. I’ve recounted the story of what happened next to many people since then. This is what I heard God say to me:
“Jeremy, I don’t want you to plan high school youth group this year. I want you to trust me from week-to-week for the content of what I want you to teach.”
Wait, what did you say?!
I remember thinking this back:
“But God, don’t you understand? My year is more peaceful and settled if I have a curriculum planned out in the fall rather than trying to figure it out from week-to-week.”
And then I really heard myself. I finally understood what God had been trying to get me to see.
I was trying to make my own peace. If I can just control what happens in spiritually leading students each week, then I will find peace. Not, if I trust God and his plan from week-to-week, then I will find peace.
Woah. This rocked my world.
I clearly heard and understood what God was saying to me. What was I going to do?
Was I going to follow God’s leading and listen to the Spirit of God?
or
Was I going to follow Jeremy’s leading and listen to what he thinks?
In the years that followed, a high school student would remind me often of how that high school youth group year started. He would say:
Jeremy, that was when you told us that you didn’t know what was going to happen from week-to-week, but that you were going to trust the Holy Spirit to lead.
Hunter
Not only did that practice last that first year (2014), but it endured for the next 5 years.
I remember being haunted when I first read Jeff Vanderstelt’s ebook that I didn’t have any stories of trusting the Spirit to work. When I started the practice of letting Jesus be the youth pastor of our high school group and trusting the Spirit to lead the “curriculum,” the stories both began and started to become a normal occurrence in our youth group.
The last 5 years I had in full-time ministry with Hayward Wesleyan’s high school youth group were some of the sweetest times I’ve had in my life. And the fruit of that season endures through to this day and beyond. Many of those stories will find there way out in this medium. They currently reside in my journals from that time.
In the meantime, this genesis story is where a major ministry (and life) turn happened for me. It’s difficult to calculate its impact.
What an honor to participate in God’s curriculum as opposed to my own!
Photo credit: a picture of all the journals on my shelf!