Starting out in ministry, I believed that if I could talk to any student I could convince them to stop bad habits, care for people, and lead them to Jesus. I also believed that if a student walked through the doors of the church and they didn’t leave transformed that it was my fault. I would beat myself up, and still occasionally do, when a student finds themselves pregnant, gets caught at a party, finds themselves suspended from school, or worse yet walk away from God and/or the church. I would spend hours having conversations in my head as to how I could have done things better so that these students would not have made these mistakes. There was a time when I even considered walking away from ministry because of the mistakes of the students that I had invested into.
Key Learning Number Two– You can’t save everyone – in fact you can’t save anyone.
Truth is I have had drug dealers, abusers, defiant bullies, convinced atheists, and accused murderers (they became that after high school) in the student ministries that I have led and they did not experience personal life change under my leadership. I remember sitting at a funeral for a 17 yr old drug dealer who had come to my student ministry. Every week he would get up and leave during our services and small groups so that he could take an “important” call. I remember the conversations with him asking him if he could limit the “important” calls during group time and more importantly letting him know that he mattered and that if he would give Jesus a try, that things would be different for him. He eventually got busted and was sent to a rehab center for 6 months and came out clean – within days from returning, an old friend invited him over and pressured him to take a hit of some “good” stuff, he went into cardiac arrest and died. I don’t know if he ever made a commitment to Jesus. I sat at that funeral thinking, arguing with God, why couldn’t I make him choose better, maybe even save his life. What did I do wrong? Was ministry even worth it anymore? What was wrong with me?
Over time Jesus has met me with tons of love and grace. Truth – I have made huge mistakes in ministry, I am not the best at leading student ministry. The more I am in ministry the more mistakes I make. And Jesus has clearly shown me the Truth that I have never saved anyone – in fact I am perfectly incompetent of saving anyone. Now, He has given me thousands of opportunities to be His hands, His voice, His guidance in being the instrument of people seeing Him clearly and being there when people go from death in sin to life in Christ, and for that I am pretty undone and blown away.
John 14:6 – Says, Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.”
This is a great foundational Truth that has helped set me free from the stress and the lie that I was responsible for the salvation and good works of the students in my ministry. My role isn’t to change behavior, it is to introduce people to the One that can redeem, restore, and forgive. When I live and lead ministry with the purpose of leading people to Jesus versus trying to come up with the best techniques to stop bad behavior, I become free and the ministry I lead comes alive.
I still grieve over the people in my life and sphere of influence who are not saved, who are caught in addiction, in bad relationships, and overall picking things in their life that are not the best for them. Now I pray for them, invest in them if possible, and believe that Jesus will change them if they give Him a chance.