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New joint Youth Ministry Network to help build stronger ties in tough times
by Laurie Oswald Robinson, editor, WDC News
Jesse Blasdel is a seasoned pastor who has served in youth ministry since 2006. But he is experiencing new challenges in his role that make him very grateful to have the support of the new Youth Ministry Network.
The network – a partnership of Western District Conference (WDC) and South Central Conference (SCC) – is forging a stronger link between congregations and the area conferences in their joint mission of forming youth in Christ. The area conferences have commissioned two youth ministers who will jointly assume the shared services formerly provided by Doug Krehbiel, whose term ended Jan. 31.
Blasdel, student outreach pastor at South Hutchinson Mennonite Church (SCC), is commissioned as Youth Ministry Event Leader. Dwight Regier, a lay youth ministry leader at First Mennonite Church (WDC), and former director of a short-term mission program for young adults, is serving as Network Team Leader.
They are guiding a Youth Ministry Committee of youth pastors from both area conferences. The network is helping them develop new ways to support each other in the forming of faithful disciples among the youth, steeped in an increasingly secular and broken culture.
“Challenges in youth ministry have become more intense in the past couple of years,” Blasdel said. “One challenge is counteracting a culture that teaches kids the most important thing in life is personal happiness. That doesn’t support our Christian value of enduring suffering and sacrifice that are sometimes part of living in radical Christian discipleship.”
“A second challenge is the increasing brokenness of family systems. … As youth pastors, we face unhealed hurts and pains that teenagers carry around because of divorces. That pain used to be the exception; it is now the rule. … It’s no longer just about a bunch kids showing up to have a good time. … It’s a lot messier now.”
To help youth pastors better deal with that messiness, Regier will relate one-on-one with them in spiritual companioning. As the youth pastors strengthen their own walk in Christ, they can more effectively empower the youth to find Christ’s calm in a chaotic world.
He will also support Blasdel in his role of forging a deeper communal partnership between youth pastors across the two area conferences.
“I want to visit the pastors, to listen to them, to walk alongside them as they seek to be faithful to God,” Regier. “I am not a formal spiritual director or a counselor. … But I will strive to help them to discern where God is moving in their lives in order that they may be equipped to do the same for the youth.”
Regier will be a “pastor to the pastors” and schedule and lead regular gatherings of the area conferences’ youth pastors.
Blasdel, who is continuing in his full-time role in the South Hutchinson congregation, will lead the joint Youth Ministry Committee, to eventually include five members. He will guide these members, who are currently persons serving as congregational youth pastors, in planning and executing conference-wide events.
In the midst of the new challenges of guiding youth pastors in their planning, Blasdel wants to help everyone keep in sight the many joys that are part of youth ministry. They are joys that are sure to double in the new shared partnership.
“Despite all the tough stuff, I experience so many joys in youth ministry,” he said “One Sunday night around Valentine’s Day, I was teaching on how to forge Godly relationships.
“Afterwards, I got a text message from a gal who said she had been really confused about relationships and had been praying to God to help her sort it all out. … She said that for the first time, she felt God had spoken to her personally, and that she felt God had answered her prayer through the teaching.
“Youth ministry gives you a front row seat to all those moments when kids grasp God’s love and plan and purpose for their lives a little more deeply and firmly. … I hope our new network will encourage us to collaborate to make more of those moments possible.”
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