You Can Take the Man Out of Youth Ministry, but...

February 09, 2025

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Over the course of my life so far, I've worked at a YMCA, a juvenile detention center, a factory, as a youth pastor in a local church, a public school English teacher, and, for the last 23 years, the executive director of Cadre Missionaries. (I still don't know what I want to be if I grow up.) However, on most Tuesday nights these days, you can find me and my fun/crazy friends volunteering—hanging out with students at Chillicothe Campus Life.

What do we do to build authentic

Christ-sharing relationships with students?

We eat together.

We get to know each other through questions.

And we listen, share our stories, and share God's story.

Meals. Stories. Questions.

In other words, we do exactly what Jesus did.

It's simple AND transformational.

Up to this point in my life, I had never been to a Youth for Christ "club" before. But my daughter, Sadey Rose, who leads the Chillicothe Campus Life Club, invited me to share my story with the students and volunteers (as I have done around the country for over 32 years).

I had so much fun with the students and volunteer ministry leaders,

I volunteered.

(See what Sadey did there?)

You can take the man out of youth ministry, but you can't take the youth ministry out of the man.