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The goal of "Welcome to Student Ministry" is to post interviews that help guide both new and experienced student pastors toward faithful ministry over many years. This 20th interview in this series is with Matt McClay. Matt serves as the Student Pastor at Lewis Memorial Baptist Church in Huntington, West Virginia!
1. Tell our leaders some background information about how long you have been in student ministry, how you started, and anything else you think would be useful.
It’s hard to believe that I’m coming up on twenty years of serving in some capacity within student ministry. My journey in student ministry began after college, when I volunteered in my local church’s student ministry. I was at a crossroads in my career, and God used that time to refine my spiritual life and clarify my call to pastoral ministry. In 2011, I joined the ministry team at Lewis Memorial Baptist Church (LMBC) in Huntington, WV, as the student pastor. I have been a part of this church family since I was five years old, and the people here are some of the finest people I know. I count it one of the highest honors of my life to serve alongside a team of godly pastors and devoted ministry leaders.
2. How has your view of youth ministry changed from when you started to now?
I’ve heard leading in youth ministry compared to “building an airplane mid-flight.” It’s easy to look back with the benefit of hindsight and shake my head at all the lessons I learned in “The School of Hard Knocks,” but I’m thankful for God’s faithfulness in working through me sometimes, and in spite of me most of the time. From when I started to now, my view of youth ministry has changed in six aspects. First, I endeavor to be more patient with others than I was when I started. We live in an “instant” world, but spiritual development in youth ministry is often a slow, nonlinear process. Second, I’ve shifted from a “more events” mentality to a “quality events” mentality. Stripping down the weekly and monthly calendar has allowed our student ministry to be more intentional and mission-oriented. Third, I’ve expanded my ministry focus. Instead of focusing 100% of my time on students, I do my best to split my role into “fourths” by giving a fourth of my time to students, a fourth to parents, a fourth to leader development, and a fourth to local church integration. Fourth, I do less topical teaching and more expository teaching through books of the Bible in our student ministry. It’s amazing how many teen-applicable topics come to the surface when teaching verse-by-verse through God’s Word! Fifth, I have found myself more drawn and dedicated to prayer as the power plant for the student ministry. It’s amazing what God will do and how he will bless when the student ministry team is united in a strategic prayer effort. Finally, I view youth ministry with a greater sense of urgency than I did at the beginning. Serving in the same area over an extended period of time has exposed me to brokenness among the students and families in our community that can only be remedied by the gospel of Christ. I’m more convinced now than ever that students need Jesus, that he’s coming soon, and that the mission is urgent!
3. Share one of your favorite student ministry moments.
It’s hard to pick just one! As you may imagine, years of student ministry are filled with funny moments on trips, “full circle” moments when former students return to serve in the student ministry, and even weddings of former students. But my mind goes back to a sweet season of ministry a few years ago when upperclassmen would linger for an hour or two after the student ministry dismissed on Wednesday night, dedicating themselves to intercessory prayer for each other. Dubbed the “prayer circle,” this informal group of students prayed for people who were near to them but far from God. The little “prayer revival” lasted for most of the school year, and it was such a joy to see these students’ heart for God, love each other, and burden for the lost. By the end of the year, several of their peers became followers of Jesus - a direct answer to prayer!
4. Share one of your least favorite student ministry moments.
Bus problems…need I say more? Most student pastors have dealt with these situations at some point in their ministry. A particularly vivid memory I have is a bus trip to King’s Island in Ohio - three and a half hours away from the church. The temperature hovered around 95 degrees, and the air conditioning on our fifty-five-passenger bus quit soon into our return trip. The windows on the bus would not open, so, every thirty minutes, the driver would stop the bus, and I would line the students up outside the bus to enjoy the “fresh” ninety-degree air…considerably cooler than the temperature inside the bus. If I remember correctly, this ill-fated trip constituted our final voyage on the poor bus!
5. What resources do you find helpful to use in student ministry?
When I took Dr. Rich Brown’s “Introduction to Youth Ministry” as an elective at Liberty University in 2008, I never would have imagined myself in student ministry almost twenty years later. I linked back up with Dr. Brown and his organization, NextGenMatters, about 6 years ago, and have benefitted tremendously from his roundtables and cohorts. Specifically, his “ENGAGE” cohort helped me better plan and organize evangelistic outreach events. Additionally, Mike McGarry and his organization, Youth Pastor Theologian, provide a supportive online community to share insights and resources for our student ministry’s expository teaching series through whole books of the Bible.
On a more philosophical level, I have recently been spending time in the field of missiology and considering its application to student ministry. The Gospel In A Pluralist Society by Leslie Newbegin, Youth Ministry As Mission by Brian Hull and Patrick Mays, and T4T: A Discipleship Revolution by Steve Smith and Ying Kai have led me to view student ministry through the lens of cross-cultural missions. Also, discipleship tools from the missions movement NoPlaceLeft have proven very effective in our student ministry’s disciple-making efforts.
6. What is one or two things that you do to make sure you don’t burn out as a youth pastor?
Years, ago, I heard Rick Warren give the following advice to ministry leaders: “Divert daily. Withdraw weekly. Abandon annually.” I try, albeit imperfectly, to spend an hour per day, a day per week, and a week per year, disconnected from the world. That means the phone, iPad, and laptop stay off! Of course, the ebb and flow of ministry and family responsibilities at times may require breaking the rules, but I do my best to follow these guidelines in a general, consistent way.
7. What advice would you give to yourself when you started as a youth pastor if you could go back to that time?
Don’t be such a people-pleaser. Be kind, hospitable, and gracious, but don’t deceive yourself into thinking that every student, parent, and onlooker will like you or join the cause. Ensure that the mission of the student ministry flows downstream from your church’s mission, cast vision among students and leaders to make disciples of young people in your community, and invest in those “Persons of Peace” (Luke 10:6) who are “bought-in” to the cause. Don’t insulate yourself from the lostness of your community. Get a good mental grip on the spiritual condition of teens in your area, and make it your “Why?”
Thank you, Matt, for taking time to answer these questions. In coming weeks I will post our 21st edition of "Welcome to Student Ministry."
