Leading Young

By Will Thomas

Young ministers can overcome the challenges that have faced them since Paul wrote Timothy.

I understand Timothy”s predicament. “Don”t let anyone look down on you because you are young,” the apostle Paul encouraged (1 Timothy 4:12). Timothy was a preacher and in all likelihood younger than most of the people in his church. Been there, done that.

I had just turned 19 when I began serving as a minister. I had preached a fair number of sermons as a teenager in my home church and had always been a motivated student of the Bible. But suddenly, a semester into Bible college, I was preaching every Sunday for a small group of saints in a congregation about an hour away. 

I led them in prayer and worship. I offered Communion. I baptized. I married and buried. In fact, I was the preacher at the very first wedding ceremony I ever attended!

All in all, those years proved a good experience, at least for me. The people were kind and forgiving. As a small, rural church with a history of novice preachers, the congregation didn”t have high expectations. They just wanted someone who would preach for them on Sundays and love them through the ups and downs of life. I was with them for three and one-half years. The church grew a bit, and I grew a lot.

I had much to learn. I still do. My biggest problem was this: I didn”t know what I didn”t know. I often turned to older preachers and college professors for direction. Sometimes their advice took. Sometimes it didn”t. Looking back, some of the most important counsel I needed as a young preacher was what Paul offered to young Timothy (1 Timothy 4:11-16). 

I read his words back then. But I read them now with different eyes. Four bits of advice in particular loom large today.

 

Lead

First, a preacher must lead, no matter what his age. Leading is always job one. I don”t mean lead in the sense of directing or telling people what to do. Instead, every church needs the person up front to “set an example for the believers” (1 Timothy 4:12). Note the areas of leadership Paul emphasized: speech, conduct, love, faith, and purity. The context sheds important light on why this is so vital for those who lead when they are young.

Timothy”s church faced a growing assault from false teachers. Some strange mixture of legalism and license left believers wrestling with doubts and divisions. Speculations and controversies took over where faith and love should have bloomed (see 1 Timothy 1:3-7 and 4:1-10). Timothy”s task: take a stand, expose the problem, and set the church on the path to godliness (1:18-20; 3:14-16; 6:11-16, 20, 21).

Most young ministers tend to view ministry in academic terms. After all, every troublesome problem has a textbook solution. I learned that my first semester! What I didn”t fully appreciate then, and what Paul wanted young Timothy to understand, was that standing for truth and confronting heresy are as much about how as what. Get the how wrong and people seldom hear the what.

Superficial understanding mixed with youthful passion can easily result in a brash, confrontational, take-no-prisoners approach to doctrinal discussions. A poor attitude seldom promotes good theology.

To this end, Paul advised, “Do not rebuke an older man harshly, but exhort him as if he were your father” (1 Timothy 5:1). In Paul”s second letter to the young preacher, he made sure his point was clear. 

Flee the evil desires of youth and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. Don”t have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels. And the Lord”s servant must not be quarrelsome but must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. Opponents must be gently instructed, in the hope that God will grant them repentance (2 Timothy 2:22-25).

Preachers must lead. How they lead matters every bit as much as what they say, probably more. 

 

Stick to the Basics

Paul”s second counsel for young leaders follows naturally. Keep the main thing the main thing. Stick to the basics. Major in majors. “Devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching and to teaching” (1 Timothy 4:13).

The people in my congregation pretended they didn”t know that what they heard in church on many Sundays closely resembled what I had learned in class on Tuesday. Week in and week out, I preached the great mysteries of the faith. I boldly went where angels fear to tread.

Paul apparently thought Timothy also needed extra tutoring on this back-to-
basics principle. 

Here is a trustworthy saying: If we died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we disown him, he will also disown us; if we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot disown himself. Keep reminding God”s people of these things. . . . Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage””with great patience and careful instruction (2 Timothy 2:11-14; 4:2).

Older believers need reassurance when listening to a young minister. They want to know that the next generation shares their faith. They don”t need new truths as much as reminders of the “old, old story,” told over and over again. The young leader and preacher needs the same thing, even though he doesn”t know it yet. This fact provides the foundation for the next bit of counsel Paul gave to his young friend.

 

Grow

A young person who leads is in a fertile place for growth, not church growth but preacher growth. Most preachers who start young do so because someone recognized a special talent or potential in them. Early starts can be a blessing and a hazard.

I grew up in a church that encouraged young people to try their wings at ministry. We read Scripture, led prayer, helped with children”s classes, passed offering plates, and ushered. When my preacher saw eagerness and some degree of ability in me, he took me under his wing and provided me with increasing opportunities for leadership. Eventually, he had me preach parts of a sermon, then a complete sermon, and eventually I filled in for him when he was on vacation. 

The whole church showered me with encouragement. Occasionally, one of the schoolteachers in the pews would pull me aside for some unsolicited but much needed grammar lessons. I relished the attention.

By the time I began that first ministry during college, my preaching had improved dramatically. And I knew it! People kept telling me so. I probably didn”t know how much more growing I needed, not only in preaching, but in a host of other areas. That”s a danger of a gift that is discovered early.

Paul insisted that Timothy”s gift could be “neglected” (1 Timothy 4:14) and might need to be rekindled (2 Timothy 1:6). The young leader”s ministry, as grounded as it was in his giftedness, required diligence and hard work. “Be diligent in these matters; give yourself wholly to them, so that everyone may see your progress” (1 Timothy 4:15).

Obviously, this means more than just sharpening one”s skill set in the pulpit. Paul quickly adds, “Watch your life and doctrine closely” (1 Timothy 4:16). This is always the heart of every young leader”s ministry. “Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers.”

Early ministries are places of growth and learning. I didn”t fully realize that, but my church did. The people accepted that grooming young preachers was part of their unspoken mission statement. They took pride in the many student ministers they had “trained” through the years. I thank God I was one of them.

 

Persevere

The one word that sums up Paul”s advice to young leaders is persevere (1 Timothy 4:16). Becoming a leader takes time. A young minister who thinks he is the real leader of his small church is probably the only one who thinks so.

Those young ministers who lead””especially in smaller, rural churches””learn quickly that leadership is earned. It doesn”t happen overnight. The real leader could be a much-respected patriarch or matriarch. She could be a grandma who can no longer make it up the church steps on a regular basis. Nonetheless, no one would think of making an important church decision without talking it over with her. Such respect developed over years. Her ideas always trump the new preacher”s.

A young minister earns the right to lead through loving, patient servanthood””washing feet as well as preaching the Word.

A pastor, especially a young one, can easily mistake ministry for a single-minded focus on the “gift.” That doesn”t fly in the small church. I gradually learned that the more time I spent joining the men in painting the basement or helping clean up after a church dinner, the more closely folk listened to me from the pulpit. I could stand in front of them only if I first stood beside them. Time spent serving is never time wasted. That”s perseverance.

I don”t know how young Timothy reacted to Paul”s advice. Maybe he did take the older preacher”s counsel in stride. He may have said, “Thanks for bringing that up, Paul. I needed to hear that.”Â 

Or he may have bristled a bit when Paul warned him of the dangers of his youthful inexperience. I know I would have. The fact that Paul found it necessary to bring up some of the same subjects in his second letter probably tells us all we need to know. But despite my first response to such advice, I learned to listen. My guess is Timothy did too.

Leading young has its challenges. I know. I learned my share of lessons the hard way. But I did learn, and I am a better preacher for it.

 

Will Thomas pastored churches for more than 30 years. He is now a retired teacher and freelance writer living in Darien, Illinois.