Over the past few years, you’ve invested heavily in your unbelieving neighbor’s life. While she’s eager to hang out with you, she’s deeply resistant to Christianity. You invited her to your church’s Christmas Eve service, but she refused. You invited her on Easter. Again, nope. You invited her to bring her children to your Backyard Kids’ Club, but she saw that as brainwashing camp. So when after facing a crisis, she agreed to join you in church this week, you just about fell out of your chair.
Absolutely buzzing, you meet her at the front door, help her kids get set in children’s ministry, and find a seat. Then, opening your bulletin, you learn your favorite pastor—the one you keep telling your neighbor about, the one who has such winsome insight into the human heart and contemporary culture, the one who unpacks Scripture’s depths, riches, and relevance with warmth and clarity—is on vacation.
Oh no! The youth guy is preaching.
Of all the days! You’re happy your senior pastor gets a break, and you’re glad the youth minister gets an opportunity to grow and develop, but why today? Not when you need your church to bring its A game. Not when your neighbor’s eternity is at stake. Couldn’t the youth guy keep practicing with the teens downstairs?
At one time or another, we all feel this way. We recognize the conflict between the need to train the next generation of leaders and the urgent need for excellent ministry now. So why do pastors choose to share the pulpit with younger, less experienced men?
The Tension
We all feel the tension between today’s needs and tomorrow’s. We feel it keenly because today’s needs are pressing, and we know that a 25-year-old, fresh out of seminary, won’t preach with the skill, authority, and life experience of a seasoned preacher. The youth guy may trip over his words during the Lord’s Supper. He might misjudge the length of the baptistry and nearly smack someone’s head on the side (OK, that one was me). When believers show up with unbelieving neighbors and discover a kid in the pulpit, they may feel disheartened.
You’re happy your senior pastor gets a break, and you’re glad the youth minister gets an opportunity to grow and develop, but why today?
But when we read Paul, it’s clear he’d rather err on the side of giving too much teaching responsibility to young leaders, not too little. In his zeal for the church, Paul chose to equip the up-and-coming. Consider his words to young Timothy:
Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity. Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching and to teaching. Do not neglect your gift. . . . Be diligent in these matters; give yourself wholly to them, so that everyone may see your progress. Watch your life and doctrine closely. (1 Tim. 4:12–16, NIV)
Paul gives Timothy tremendous responsibility in the Ephesian church, and he tells Timothy not to hide behind his youth. Does Timothy need to develop? Absolutely. Everyone should be able to “see his progress” as he diligently stewards his preaching gift. That means Timothy needed to make progress, but this didn’t cause Paul to hold him back from ministry in the meantime. Rather, Paul commanded Timothy to devote himself to reading, preaching, and teaching the Word with the utmost integrity.
By emphasizing Timothy’s life and his doctrine, Paul puts the primary emphasis where it belongs—on faithfulness, not skill or experience.
3 Reasons We Train Young Leaders
So why do we err on the side of letting young leaders serve publicly, despite their inexperience and underdeveloped gifts?
1. We ensure the work continues.
He’s a fool indeed who chooses short-term advance over long-term victory, who squanders the war for the battle. Why do flight attendants insist you put on your own oxygen mask first before helping those around you? Because the first step is making sure you can take another! Refusing opportunities to young leaders might mean you help more people now, but it can quickly suck the oxygen out of a church’s continuing work.
When beginning work on medieval cathedrals, European cities first planted a forest. They knew the next generation would need the timber to continue construction. Letting the youth guy preach is how we plant the forest for tomorrow.
2. We trust God’s sovereignty.
God knows the end from the beginning (Isa. 46:10). He knows exactly when your neighbor will attend a service, and he knows who’ll be preaching that day. Nothing can thwart his plans. Yes, we act wisely—by having a young leader preach sermons to staff first, so they can make suggestions—but we do so with confidence God is in control.
3. We know where the power lies.
We devote ourselves to reading and preaching God’s Word because we aren’t born again through clever turns of phrase but through the living and enduring Word of God (1 Pet. 1:23). The gospel is God’s power for the salvation of everyone who believes (Rom. 1:16).
By emphasizing Timothy’s life and his doctrine, Paul puts the primary emphasis where it belongs—on faithfulness, not skill or experience.
While we may like to hear a preacher with Piper’s passion or Keller’s erudition, those traits aren’t necessary for salvation. Be sure of this: there’s infinitely more power in a young man reading—even haltingly—God’s Word to God’s people than there is in the most brilliant TED talk.
We train the next generation of leaders because we want to see the work continue for generations to come, and we trust God to advance his kingdom through the faithful preaching of his powerful Word no matter who’s in the pulpit.