Choosing the Right People…

As a young leader, I am very interested in finding someone to mentor me right now.  I am hungry for someone to heavily invest and challenge me as a follower of Christ, a man, a husband, father and a pastor.  There’s also a strong desire in me to find someone willing to stretch me as a leader.  As a youth pastor, I see the HUGE need to invest in a few…and go far deeper with a couple of students than what you normally would in a program.  Last year, I even attempted a relationship like this with a few students.  My goal was to: awaken and inspire them to God’s reality.  I also focused on unleashing their dreams and visions. But, I remember thinking this: “I have no idea how to mentor these kids because I’ve never been mentored.”  However, I quickly realized that this kind of thinking can often be an excuse for not investing in anyone…so I did what came natural to me and it seemed to have an impact.

So, my question to you is this: Do you have a mentor?  If so, how did you go about finding one?  Did they find you?  Or, did you seek someone out?  If you sought someone out, what qualities did you look for?  Any feedback you could lend me would be greatly appreciated.

Steve Carter (Student Ministries Pastor at Mars Hill) recently wrote a very good post on more of a professional-type of mentoring relationship.  His post talks about people in his life who offer both healthy critique and encouragment for his teaching.  You can check his thoughts out here.

 

The Struggle

As a young leader, here is something I battle almost every day — confidence. “Real Life” is extremely weird to me. I mean, think about it, after graduation from college, you are thrust into life and are supposed to begin a career. Then, you’re supposed to let your life play out according to the American dream (which many in my generation see right through) and basically have your life scripted out for you by friends, family and even the church. Well, what if your career is a “calling?” That can be quite intimidating. What if your job involves shaping lives and leading? What if you are the youngest pastor on staff? Again, that can be a bit intimidating. As I man, I probably let what I do determine how I view myself too much. This can be a bad thing…especially with the often messed up evaluation of a successful ministry (the amount of people who come to your programs instead of the amount of people whom you are reaching out to and the kind of impact you are having). Recently, I began mentoring 4 students. At one of our times together, one student said, “I want to be like you Dan.” Wow…that was the most humbling thing I ever heard…and one of the most challenging and convicting. Shouldn’t I find confidence in that instead of the amount of people who come to our big program in the church building? Shouldn’t that be the basis for evaluation? Being a young leader can be a roller coaster ride full of questions: “Is this who I have been created to be?”, “Why don’t older people invest in me?” ,”Where do I go for validation?”, “What do I do with this passion in my soul?”, “Is my voice valued?” If you’re a young leader, be sure to check out this video blog from my friend Tony Steward. I think he really articulates the need to be yourself…to dream big and follow the plans God has for you in life. As you watch this video, be sure to wrestle with the definition of success. Is success what the world tells you, or simply being who you were created to be. After all, in Christ, you are not defined by your sin, your limitations, stress or by how the world judges you. Enjoy the video blog, find your confidence in the Lord and be who He wants you to be. I’ll join the fight with you.

 

One Bad Decision Away

Here is something to think about: your reputation. Think about it for a second. What is your reputation? Good or bad, I think we all need to realize that is takes a LONG time to develop a good reputation. How people view us is really dependent on our relationships, values, actions, words and on and on. Now, a reputation is not a timeless thing…it can change in an instant. For example, if we make one poor decision…in a time of weakness… and do something tragic or stupid our reputation will crash to the floor and shatter like a piece of china. Think about baseball players right now. When you read the words “baseball player” what did you immediately think of? If you’ve been following sports, I bet you thought of steroids and how many of the players have a black cloud over them right now because they have cheated. Pitcher Roger Clemens is all over the news right now because he is being accused of using steroids. Clemens’ reputation went from one of being a hall-of-famer to now being speculated as a cheater. The good reputation he spent all of his career building is now falling apart. None of us are immune to making bad decisions. Listening to good advice from people who care can do an awful lot to help shape our decision making…which helps us build a good reputation. So a good question to ask yourself is, “Who is influencing my decision making and should I listen to them?” After all, one bad decision can destroy a reputation that we have all worked hard to build.

 

Completely Dependent

As many of you know, Jace — our 21 month old son — was in the hospital this past weekend. He had a very scary and sudden illness that came on Thursday night. He struggled with his breathing, got a high temperature and really seemed out of it. My wife and I loaded him up and took him to the emergency room at 6am on Friday morning. When he arrived, they were greatly concerned. His nose started to turn blue and his temperature had plummeted to 95 degrees. On top of that, his oxygen levels had decreased to only 50%. He had an IV put in and oxygen tubes hooked into his body. It was a very scary time.After 4 days, Jace finally made it home last night. He’s doing much better. Amber and I are so thankful the he is getting back to looking and feeling like himself. But, here’s something we realized once again throughout this whole ordeal: Jace is completely dependent on the decisions we make for him as parents. As Amber and I lie in bed last night all kinds of thoughts and emotions ran through our minds: “We should have taken him earlier” etc. He was really sick and needed us to make the right decisions to make him well. As Jace grows older, his view of himself, God and His character, the world and people is dependent on what he is taught and what he sees from his parents and others who pour into his life. If I want Jace to have a proper view of manhood, then I have to give him the proper view of a man. If Jace has dreams and visions to be used by God to expand His kingdom, then I need to spend a lot of time trying to help him find and use his talents and gifts. That’s an awful lot like mentoring. We really feel like God is calling us to spend a lot of time helping students to identify their gifts and talents and unleash their dreams and visions to do something great in this world. Helping to shape the lives of younger people really inspires me to be a better father, coach and pastor.