Maina Mwaura serves as the Student Pastor at Greenforest Community Baptist Church in Decatur, GA. He is a graduate of Liberty University and New Orleans Baptist Theological seminary. When Maina is not hanging out with his students you can find him spending time with his wife Tiffiney.
It seems like there is a manual for everything. Everywhere you turn from how to care for your hair to, how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, to one my personal favorites, how to wash your car properly.
In this month’s segment, I would like to tackle the question, How Do I Do Youth Ministry Effectively? The goal of this series is to tackle such issues as how to stay fresh as a leader or how to disciple rebellious students. We will end the series focusing on how to plan events with purpose.
Modern day Americans aren’t the first to ask the “how do I?” question. Jesus answered it clearly in John 1:35-49, where he shares with the disciples that before we can do anything we must first start with the “why”. In Simon Sineks book, Start with the Why, he writes “people like Martin Luther King Jr., Steve Jobs, and the Wright Brothers might have little in common, but they all started with the why.”
Often times as leaders we start with the question “How do I?” before going to the why. In John 1:38 Jesus asked the hard question, “What do you want?” If Jesus were here physically with us today I think He would want us to ask the why before we ask the “how do I.”
The students to whom we minister don’t need another leader who is reading from a manual or reading great articles like this one, which I know is what you say every time you read one of my articles! Seriously, its okay to buy manuals and go to conferences and read articles, but I think Jesus had much more in mind for us than to go around asking and reading manuals. I think He first wants us asking him what does he want us to do and not the “how do I” question.
In this world of information overload, lets first remember that the one who holds the information wants us to ask him the question first and then begin the “how do I.” Its only thru being like Christ do we find answers to other issues in our life.
Question:
In your ministry, are you asking God what does he want you to do? I know this is a simple question but think about it before answering.