401-Y: Investing in the Youth Of Our Church

I remember being told by influential people in my life as a teenager and young adult how important investing your money is. They would tell me that it didn’t matter how much I invested at the time as long as I invested on a regular basis. I didn’t truly learn just how important it was to invest my finances until I moved to Liberal, KS five years ago and set up a retirement plan with Edward Jones.

In that short amount of time I have experienced just how important it is to invest into the youth of our church. Spiritual growth in teens (and all of us) is slow. Sometimes it can seem like no growth is happening at all. But I am happy to report that in five years as being the youth pastor I have witnessed really awesome leaps and bounds of growth in many in the youth department.

This growth hasn’t been because of any kind of extraordinary effort on my part - but consistent, weekly investment by godly parents, godly youth leaders, and consistent preaching and teaching from God’s word.

That’s how Youth Conference serves our youth. It is one week dedicated to depositing a large sum of God’s word into the lifeblood of our youth group. Youth conference isn’t what makes or breaks a youth group by any means, but it is certainly another way of pouring exactly what our kids need into them: God’s truth.

I write all of this to tell you, Fellowship Baptist Church, thank you for all of your investment into our youth department. You will never know how your investment into them and making things like youth conference happen will shape them for Christ for years to come.

Remember, it’s not about how much you put in - it’s about how consistently you invest. In time I believe Fellowship will see an amazing return on the investment we as a church have put into the church. So stay faithful, and keep investing!