Don't Drop the Kid!: Miracles and Messes of a 20-Year-Old Youth Pastor

By Wesley Criswell

So you want to be a youth pastor but don't know where to start? You want to be a youth worker but think kids won't relate to you? Maybe you've been serving in ministry but don't know the next step, or you just want to get involved with Christ's work in the church and want some answers?

Well, I don't have them!

You've heard the saying "God works in mysterious ways." You have even seen this principle in action with a casual glance at the fishermen, tax collectors, tent-makers, shepherds, and all-around amateurs God whips into shape with His perfect wisdom for His purpose in the Bible. I invite you to discover the outpouring of God's manifold grace for delivering His gospel to teenagers through the "dysfunctional group of factory rejects" (Chuck Owen) He used for a period of time at a small church in Columbiana, Alabama.

This collection of stories and lessons learned by the everyday bivocational servants of Jesus in a small town gives a gritty, down-to-earth look at nonprofessionals ministering to teenagers with little more than a passion for Jesus and a willing heart. Whether you are preparing a Wednesday night message while working on your doctorate or working on your truck, you are sure to be enriched by the extraordinary normalcy of how God works through regular people.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: May 3, 2021
• ISBN: 9781643494630

Book preview

Chapter 1

For Love of the Stepping Stone

"Y’all, they really are fighting out here! There must have been something in the voice of skinny, thirteen-year-old Donovan (a.k.a. Opie Taylor) that kicked us up off the couches of the small youth room and sent the youth group volunteers Tom Tomaford Goodwin, Mike Jonas Jones, and Wessley the Mussell" Russell, and me bolting down the hall.

We had ignored his first two warnings of the rapidly escalating disagreement between his older brother Iain and Iain’s best friend, sixteen-year-old Matt Whataburger Wattenbarger. When we piled out of the small, short hallway into the not-much-larger foyer, true to Opie’s testimony, we found the two boys scrapping like starving wolves over the last piece of bloody veal. Without breaking stride, Tom, Mike, and myself smashed into Matt like we were stifling a bank robbery, while the 281-pound Mussell ripped the much smaller Iain away and bear-hugged him into submission.

By this point, a sizeable crowd had developed. Some were shouting, some were watching, some were crying; the latecomers were trying to figure out what was going on, and the adults were still trying to finish up their Wednesday night Bible study. I remember tapping Tom’s arm like an MMA fighter in plea that he release the still struggling and oxygen-deprived Matt’s neck from the viselike choker hold that was effectively rendering his efforts of escape useless, yet christened his face with an ever-darkening purple complexion.

That’d be a fun one to explain to his parents.

Events such as these were the hydrogen of our atmosphere. They weren’t necessarily always fights, but they were nearly always obscure how-do-I-deal-with-this-one events that would leave a far-from-expert twenty-three-year-old youth pastor bewilderedly staring at his Bible as if he were looking for answers in a cookbook.

This particular episode just happened to share a night with Kristy’s (my wife) and my final youth service at Fellowship of Faith Community Church in Columbiana, Alabama. I had been on staff for two years and was just beginning to feel like we were making some major headway in the midst of our hoodlum youth group. Kristy had never been actively involved in another church in the eight years since the night she had begun her walk with Christ and was sickened at the idea of leaving the only church family she’d ever known.

The church had enveloped her family in blessing after her mother had succumbed to a grueling fourteen-month battle with pancreatic cancer only a year earlier. I’d known most of the other staff, congregation, and youth leaders for at least five years prior, and most of the staff, including Justin Hill, the pastor, had been leaders in my own high school youth group at Bethel Baptist Church only five miles up the road. Following their exodus from the church where Justin served as youth pastor, I never really separated from them or Fellowship of Faith despite being in a different building on Sunday morning and Wednesday night.

Singles retreats and weekly Bible studies had been a regular part of mine and Kristy’s life for several years and even witnessed our first meeting, dating, and marriage. We boasted that we were the first complete product of the popular singles group. Our roots were deep. All these thoughts, along with the world heavyweight championship in the foyer earlier, were swirling through my mind like a hurricane as we were preparing to step away from the church that had been a part of our lives for so long.

Our church was small in size—I’d say 80 to 120 in regular attendance. As a result, our youth group was small. I recall counting somewhere in the mid-’30s on our heaviest night, but that was uncommon. Usually, we lived in the land of the upper teens. Our entire church staff was bivocational. Justin was a framer; Mike Jones, who doubled as the worship leader, was a firefighter; I worked on air conditioners; and Blaine Davis, the associate pastor and former youth pastor, worked for a cable company. There were several more staff members who also had other jobs. We had an enormous staff for a church that was still searching for the two-hundred mark, but several staff members were volunteers, and those of us who were paid almost never saw a whole paycheck, so I say, the more, the merrier! I love bivocational ministry.

I was talking with a homeless man not long ago who hadn’t shaved in weeks, still wore his army beret, and smelled like feet. He was sharing some of his rather disturbing views on God and experiences in life, and when I handed him my business card for him to call and chat sometime, he said, Oh my god, you’re not a psychiatrist, are you? I was thankful that I was able to say, No, I’m just an AC man, this just has my phone number on it.

We had a staff full of people who could relate to others on the job site, in the office, or at the fire station, and I always appreciated how we took advantage of that atmosphere to bring other Christ-loving ministers into our staff meetings without payment being an issue.

We used to have prayer in the greenroom before our services Sunday mornings. It was a small classroom about the size of a large bathroom where the staff of about seven at that time would discuss the service order and form a circle to pray for the upcoming service. I used to notice the various-clad feet as I had my head bowed and remembered the passage in Isaiah that says, How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news. You may think it cheesy, but the experience would always prepare my heart to