Testimonies

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I am a Youth Pastor and love it. Three years ago I would have never said that. As a matter of fact I would never have thought that I would say that. The story of how I went from “I will never be a youth pastor because God has not called me to be one” to “I am a Youth pastor called by God and loving it,” is a story about the power of God. I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal savior in 1994 as a high school senior. I did not attend church growing up so I did not know much about church or how things worked. In the summer of 1996 I felt God calling me into the ministry. I graduated from Yellowstone Baptist College (Billings, MT) in 2002 with a Bachelor degree in Pastoral Ministries and I was ready to be a senior pastor in a church. My Wife and I moved back to Helena in 2003 and my intent was to be a senior pastor somewhere. From 2003 to 2008 things changed drastically in my thinking. Somewhere in that time I began to realize that I may be wrong about my calling of being a senior pastor in a church and began to believe that God wanted me to be an associate pastor for now. I could be trained to be a senior pastor or so I thought. So I submitted my resume to a church that was looking for an associate pastor and was told that I was not what they were looking for. I was devastated because I was sure that this is what God wanted. I was so confused; I was sure that God wanted me to be a pastor and yet I was turned down.
A little while later I started to think I was wrong about my calling about being a pastor at all. Maybe God did not want me to be a pastor and I had misunderstood him all those years ago. If that was the case then why did God have me go to Bible College? I went through a time when I was confused and questioning everything about God’s calling and purpose for me. I never questioned my faith in God, just my purpose in God. I even began to get really interested in politics at that time and considered running for a local office. When I asked my wife what she thought of that, she reminded me that God had called me to be a pastor. I told her that I was kind of questioning that, but she said she still believed that God was calling me to pastoral ministries.
Then someone in my church asked me if I had thought about submitting my resume for the youth pastor position that had opened up. That was an easy question to answer. No! God had not called me to be a youth pastor. I was sure about that. There were many other things that I was not sure about with my calling but being a youth pastor was not one of them. The confusion continued for me on exactly what God wanted to do through me. A while after that happened someone asked if I had thought about teaching the 7-9 grade boys Sunday school class. I prayed about it and believed that this was something God wanted for me at this time. I told them that I would be interested but that I still believed that God wanted me to be a pastor so I may be called away anytime. They informed me that they had already found a teacher for that class. Now I was really getting confused. “God,” I said “we talked and I was pretty sure that you said you wanted me to be the teacher. Are you using reverse psychology on me or what?” They asked if I would be willing to be the assistant teacher of the class so I went from “I am going to be a Senior Pastor of a church” to “I’m an assistant teacher of a junior youth Sunday school class“. “Okay God I will stick this out until I find that church that is ready for me to be their Pastor”. After about two or three weeks the teacher of the Sunday school class I was assisting stopped coming to Sunday school, so I became the teacher by default. Okay, I figured, I will teach until a church calls that wants me to be their Pastor.
In the early fall of 2007, after almost a year of teaching Sunday school, God and I had a talk. “God I was sure that you wanted me to be a pastor, but God if that is not what you want for me then I am content with teaching youth Sunday school for the rest of my life. I will do it to your Glory. God, I am willing to do whatever you ask.”
This was not just something I was saying, not just words that were coming out of my mouth. I was not just paying lip service to God I was ready and willing to do whatever God wanted. I became a little less confused and more willing to be used by God wherever he saw fit to use me.
About a month later I received a phone call from my Father-in-law asking me if I would be interested in submitting my resume for the Youth Pastor position at their church, South Hills Baptist Fellowship. My internal response before my Father-in-law even stopped talking was “No, God did not call me to be a Youth....” That was all that got into my head before God reminded me that I was ready and willing to do what he wanted. I told my Father-in-law that I would pray about it and boy did I pray. I was back to that confusing part again.
“God I thought you wanted me to be a junior high youth Sunday school teacher.”
God came back and asked “Are you willing to go where I ask you as you said you were?”
“God you know the answer to that.” I said “I am willing”
In the blink of an eye God changed my heart from never, ever going to be a Youth Pastor to I want to be a Youth Pastor. It took just a few days of praying before I realized that this was exactly what God wanted me to be doing. A couple months later after the interview process and praying on both sides I was voted in as the Youth Pastor and I was so excited. That is the power of God.

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