Welcome back to Episode 8 of the podcast!
Today’s guest is Josh Robinson, Lead Minister at Dover First Christian Church in Dover, OH. Josh started in ministry when he was in the 8th grade and felt a need within his own church for more things to be happening for students. Josh was empowered to lead and to develop ministry opportunities for students there at his church.
Josh continued on for a total of 18 years in student ministry before feeling the call to move into a lead minister position. Taking a step like this can be overwhelming and Josh shares some of the lessons he’s learned along the way, including the need for building boundaries into our routine of ministry.
I’ve had the opportunity to meet Josh as part of 95Network before, but we’ve never been able to connect 1-on-1, so this was a fun conversation!
My Takeaways:
1) Don’t let age keep you from empowering the next generation. When we open doors for young people to step up and experience ministry leadership, we are paving the road for new leaders. Sure we don’t hand them to the keys to it all, but we walk alongside them and guide them as God leads.
2) Leaving a ministry, for any reason involves real grief. Leaving a ministry position, even when we do it on good terms and for positive reasons, like changing roles or locations, is still tough. Ministry is about building relationships and sharing important parts of life together and so when we leave, it can cause some real pain and grief.
3) We have to actively take steps to ways to rest, be refueled and replenish because it won’t happen on it’s own. Ministry can be a heavy burden at times and if we don’t intentionally plan times and ways of slowing down and resting, we can find ourselves wearing out quickly. We need to learn to develop rhythms and practices that remain as a priority in our schedules, and honors our family and our important commitment to them.
Links
- Dover First Christian Church
- Get in touch with Josh
- Get in touch with me
- Subscribe to Real Church Stories on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
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