Good Leaders Serve Twice

This past summer, our youth ministry had a bit of fun with slip-n-slide kickball and lots of laughter. The setup for an afternoon of fun always takes far longer than the fun itself; like waiting in line for the rollercoasters in a theme park, there's a long lead-up to a brief period of enjoyment.

As I tracked muddy tarps and picked broken camp pegs out of the dirt, I was deeply frustrated by the janitorial role. Soaked and tired, wet grass all over my hands, slowly picking up destroyed kiddie pools. This was nasty work. Was this really what I had signed up for when I chose ministry as a vocation? Then I remembered a phrase uttered by a college prof years ago: good leaders serve twice.

Leaders serve once in their calling and strengths and passions and vision. This is the leadership I signed up for--the vision-casting, the teaching and preaching, the brainstorming and dreaming, the praying for students, the life-giving conversations, even the messy counseling situations. I genuinely love my job and the tribe of youth ministry folks I get to interact with on a regular basis. Even on the hardest days, I just have to remember my calling and the lives being changed through Christ.

Leaders serve twice in their willingness to serve outside their "job description," strengths, and desires. I don't feel called to pick up water balloon scraps, or carry muddy tarps around a field, or pick up the half-eaten breakfast off the youth room floor. There's little in those activities that I find enjoyable or fulfilling, but they've gotta get done, and I'm the one in charge. A few students and youth leaders will help serve alongside me, but I'm leading them in the serving, not directing them to do the jobs I don't feel like doing.

In ministry, most of us didn't sign up for setting up the chairs, or throwing away students' half-drunk soda cans, or fixing blown tires on the church van, or any number of seemingly mundane and insignificant tasks. But we are called to serve, and true service means getting down and dirty. 

Jesus both preached magnificent sermons and washed people's dirty feet. He did both with the utmost willingness and humility. I'm still learning how to serve twice, to have an attitude of grace instead of resentment for the dirty tasks of ministry.

An earlier version of this post appeared on The Mayward Blog here.

Joel Mayward is a pastor, writer, husband, and father living in Langley, British Columbia. He’s been serving in youth ministry since 2003, and is currently the Pastor of Youth and Young Adult Ministries at North Langley Community Church. A writer for numerous youth ministry publications and author of Leading Up: Finding Influence in the Church Beyond Role and Experience, Joel writes about youth ministry, film, theology, and leadership at his blog, joelmayward.blogspot.ca.