Oasis: From Director To Sage

Opening Thought Questions:
Where do you put the weight of your leadership expertise?
Where do you invest the most of your leadership time and energy?

If you’re answers to these questions was anything other than yourself, I’d like to challenge you for the next few minutes.

If you spend the best part of your leadership time, expertise, and energy feeding the ministry beast – program, calendar, etc – your soul will die. You will never make it long term. You’ll be one of the statistics.

There is nothing more important than your own personal relationship with Jesus. Nothing. It may sound counter-intuitive but the best way to become a better leader is invest in your relationship with Jesus. It’s the only way to move from being a director to a sage.

By sage I mean a “Yoda.” Remember the first time you saw Yoda? Empire Strikes Back, little green guy comes waddling out of the swamp and you knew it….you KNEW he was the Jedi Master. The Force just dripped off of him. We waited over 20 years to see him pop out the light saber and when we did – we were like …”I KNEW IT!!!! Yoda is a STUD.”

He wasn’t cool, fly, hip – he just dripped with the force.

We need Yoda youth pastors who drip with Jesus. Don’t have to be cool, hip, athletic, smart. Just have to drip with Jesus. Our relationship with Jesus should ooze out of us like this. That’s what students need, not a calendar.

How to be a sage?

Find a sage, walk with him (or her).

Get deep – students need Jesus…the real Jesus. not a cool youth pastor. Get deep in the word, not pop theology but continue to dig deeper for yourself in the Word.

Get authentic. The more vulnerable you are, the more you’re going to see God work. Focus on BEING accountable to others, not keeping others accountable. Raise the vulnerability level on your team by you being vulnerable.

Get risky – go after the real issues that students are really dealing with – abuse, cutting, eating disorders, sexuality. Take them to the REAL Jesus.