My Purpose

I have been leading an Early Youth (7th-9th grade) discipleship group for a couple of weeks now. We are working our way through the book of John section by section and it has been going great.


One of the reasons for this group is to help these students start owning their faith for themselves. It provides a forum where they can more freely discuss their insights into the Word and questions concerning life, the universe, and everything. Thus far the conversation has been a little rough. It's hard to motivate this age group to take anything serious for more than a couple minutes, but we're making progress. As I allow for tangents, and even contribute to the tangents here and there, we are getting to the point where I would like them to be. They are extremely smart teens and I'm excited to see them continue growing. However, this is not the main reason for this post. I actually want to talk about a revelation I had while studying for this group.

As we contemplated John 1:35-51 I was struck by something I had overlooked. In verses 35 and 36 the goal of the pastoral ministry is given. Now, I know this cannot be a brand new thought, but nonetheless it stood up and smacked me in the face. In this passage John the Baptist points two of his disciple to look at Jesus. These two disciples immediately leave John and follow after Jesus. They leave one master and go to another.

As a youth pastor, and having served in this role in several churches, it's difficult to see one of my students leave my ministry and go elsewhere to find spiritual guidance. I want to be their go-to guy for all things biblical and and their authority for all things Christian. I mean, it feels really good when a student seeks you out with a question and you get to answer and lead them into deeper walks with Christ.

But that's the tear right there: lead them into deeper walks with CHRIST. If I continue to teach students to come to me with the questions and seek me out for answers I am teaching them to seek deeper walks with me, not deeper walks with Christ.

So my job, my purpose, is to lead them toward Christ, to teach them all I can about the Messiah, and than as they see Him to present Him to them so that they may leave me and follow Him.

So that's the what... now to consider the how...

Grace and peace.

Starting Fresh

By means of introduction for anyone stumbling upon this site from the blue: I am Craig. I am a youth pastor, husband, and soon to be father. I am a Christian and have been one since I can remember. I earned a BA in Youth Ministry and am working on earning a Master of Ministry and Master of Divinity. The name of my blog is "Doulos Christou" which is a transliteration of the greek phrase used by the apostle Paul to describe himself, it translates to "Servant of Christ" to webaddress of my blog declares "Khrusso Christou" which is again a transliteration of Greek which would translate to "I Preach of Christ." The goal of my blog is to honor and glorify Christ through reflecting on what is going on in the world through the lens of Scripture. Applying what I learn to what is going on around me.

It has been close to a year since I posted my last blog on my old blog site. I am setting  a goal here to post at least one blog per week. With the amount of study I do between personal devotional times, youth group lesson prep, and the occasional sermon prep I should be able to write more than I do. And once classes start up again I should have a lot to process.

Speaking of Processing:

I've also been thinking about who I am recently. Not some existential "why am I here" kind of who I am, but more of a personality thing. I am extroverted. Now while most people associate extroversion with being out and about with people all the time and very rarely sitting down alone and doing things like "blogs." Blogging is definitely an extroverted activity, and here is why:

Extroverts process information externally (hence: EXTROvert)
I have noticed that when I want to really hash out an idea I need to talk it out with someone. I don't do all that great if all I do is sit and think passively. I need to do something to do something. I have not been faithful to this side of my personality recently and it's definitely shown in my work. By blogging I'm going to be working through the thoughts in my head by writing them down. The whole "flow of consciousness" thing at work.

Because Extroverts process information externally We thrive off of the feedback of the community.
That's why we're energized by being around people, we're bouncing ideas off of those around us, feeding off of their energy, adapting by their responses and having a great time doing it. Being a youth pastor (despite common beliefs and stereotypes) is not the most social of jobs. Of course I hang out with teens a lot. I am out around people a good chunk of the time. However, when it comes to the actual majority of time I am "working" I am alone in my office with maybe the secretary or another pastor down the hall. This does not allow for a lot of instant feedback of any of the ideas running through my head. So a blog will allow for you, my readers, to give me feedback, enter into conversations, and feed energy into my otherwise draining work day.

Grace and Peace