10 Essentials: #3 Figure out Your Philosophy of Ministry

On the journey of transitioning in student ministry, you would be remiss to not take adequate time to "Figure out Your Philosophy of Ministry."

Your ministry philosophy is the "why" (and sometimes "how")of student ministry. What motivates you to do ministry? Is it a desire to "reach and save the lost" students? Is it to "make disciples" of all students? What about "serving the needs" of students? Determining the answers to these, along with numerous other, philosophical questions, will help direct you to a church that shares a similar ministry-DNA.

Should you end up ministering to students at a church where your ministry philosophy is significantly different than that of the leadership of the church, you are headed for deep trouble.

Here is a non-exhaustive short-list of areas that you need to think through philosophically:

-Evangelism

-Small Groups

-Worship

-Discipleship

-Shepherding

-Spiritual Gifts

-Centrality of the Gospel

-Social Justice issues

Dedicate a few hours (or a few days) to determine your philosophy of student ministry. Once you begin to flesh it out, write it down and save it somewhere that it can be easily retrieved (like Evernote) during the application/interview process. During a well-thought out student ministry interview you will most-likely be asked ministry philosophy-related questions.

Read the first article in this series, "10 ESSENTIALS TO GETTING HIRED AS A YOUTH PASTOR."