{"id":2839,"date":"2012-01-30T10:00:06","date_gmt":"2012-01-30T15:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/ywupdate\/?p=2839"},"modified":"2012-02-22T16:50:40","modified_gmt":"2012-02-22T21:50:40","slug":"marclantz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/ywupdate\/2012\/01\/30\/marclantz\/","title":{"rendered":"I\u2019m a Youth Pastor and Not a Rock Star, There is a Difference Right?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Author of this guest post, Marcus Lantz serves as the Youth Pastor of Faith Covenant Church in Breton, AB.\u00a0 Marc also serves as the YMN Facilitator for Canada<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m 26 pushing 27, just over three years into my first youth pastorate call, and I\u2019m as insecure as ever about my ministry. I want to share a bit of insecurity that crosses my mind every so often when I\u2019m reflecting on my call to serve students, \u201cAm I working hard enough?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Networking with other youth workers is important to me as I serve in a rural church. I need to be in touch with other youth workers to feel support and to hear what\u2019s happening to the greater youth ministry. That\u2019s the good part. The tough part is when I gather with other pastors and their phones are \u201cblowing up\u201d with text messages from students, while my phone is on \u201cpower safe\u201d mode in my pocket for days before hearing from a student. I often feel like I\u2019m not investing enough in students when my peers seem to be so central to the survival of the teens they serve and I\u2019m \u201cjust another respected adult\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>The topic is often a prayer cry, \u201cGod, show me your will for my life. If I need to spend more time one on one, then open doors for it. If online resources are ways of connecting, then convict me to log in more often.\u201d The list goes on of ways I am not giving everything to my students. However, my prayers are often answered with a simple gesture from someone that God uses to remind me that I\u2019m a \u201cservant of the Lord\u201d who deflects praise toward His throne instead of seeking personal praise. Now, I know in my heart that these peers of mine are doing everything they can to live out their calling, but leave it to the enemy to try and attack something as special as the support of my fellow youth workers. When I\u2019m honest, I know I\u2019m doing my best with my gifts to serve the Lord. It looks different than other youth pastors, and it doesn\u2019t have to be wrong.<\/p>\n<p>Insecurities were rarely a problem for me before I accepted God\u2019s call to ministry. What was never even on my radar is now one of the biggest attacks to my sanity. I write this to hopefully connect with others who feel flooded at times with the insecurities of doing God\u2019s will. I pray we brothers and sisters in Christ will release those insecurities to our Heavenly Father who is Truth. Then John 8:32 will become more and more real as we are set free from those insecurities.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-report-this\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/ywupdate?moderation_action=report_form&#038;object_type=post&#038;object_id=2839&#038;width=250&#038;height=300\" class=\"thickbox\" title=\"Report This Post\">Report This Post<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Author of this guest post, Marcus Lantz serves as the Youth Pastor of Faith Covenant Church in Breton, AB.\u00a0 Marc also serves as the YMN Facilitator for Canada. I\u2019m 26 pushing 27, just over three years into my first youth pastorate call, and I\u2019m as insecure as ever about my ministry. I want to share [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":98,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[204],"tags":[4361,16151],"class_list":["post-2839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reflection","tag-marc-lantz","tag-ymn"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>I\u2019m a Youth Pastor and Not a Rock Star, There is a Difference Right? - ECC | Youth Worker Update<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/ywupdate\/2012\/01\/30\/marclantz\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"I\u2019m a Youth Pastor and Not a Rock Star, There is a Difference Right? - ECC | Youth Worker Update\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Author of this guest post, Marcus Lantz serves as the Youth Pastor of Faith Covenant Church in Breton, AB.\u00a0 Marc also serves as the YMN Facilitator for Canada. 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