Mike was (and is) the charismatic leader of Soul Survivor, a rapidly-growing festival for Christian young people, a demographic I had recently joined. Like me he was a clown, and the rounder side of athletic. But there was a crucial difference between us: everybody loved him.
Mike would stand on a stage in front of several thousand teenagers – and could make them do anything he wanted. He could make them laugh; he could make them sing and chant; he could get them to be quiet; he could even get them to fall over and scream uncontrollably. Or at least, that’s how it seemed to me. He was a circus ringmaster with almost unlimited power over his audience. As a teenager with some fairly serious self-esteem and popularity issues, that seemed like a pretty attractive idea. I wanted some of that.
It was, you’ll be pleased to know, a fairly fleeting thought. I never stood in front of my bedroom window using a can of Lynx Tempest for a microphone making jokes to an imaginary audience before introducing an imaginary Matt Redman. Honest. Yet while the vaulting desire to be a conference main-stager subsided, the more subtle quest for affirmation has remained a lifelong pursuit.
I’ve been involved in youth ministry now for well over a decade. In that time I’ve mainly served as part of a volunteer team, but for a few years I also had a taste of the lead role. In one church, I stood in front of 120 young people, week after week, fulfilling that ringmaster role that I’d once found so alluring. I made them laugh; I got them to sing and to listen; at times I even saw the spirit of God moving among them ‘on my watch.’ It might not have been a cow shed in Shepton Mallet (ah, the glamour of ministry); but it was a platform. A little platform, just big enough to take my feet off the ground.
There’s something challenging about the nature of youth ministry and those it attracts. We’re usually highly relational, so we expose our self-esteem to either affirmation or rejection as a matter of course. More often than not, we engage positively with the young people in our care, and so our self-esteem can be regularly affirmed through the process of our work. Which is fine, as long as we don’t become dependent on it. Even if we’re only working with five young people, their affirmation of us can hoist us onto a little platform.
Do you struggle, like me, with issues of affirmation , ambition , and the lure of the platform?
Here’s another hallmark of many youth workers. We’re often ‘builders’ – entrepreneurs who love pioneering and innovating. We’re rarely satisfied with the status quo, or with the way things are done elsewhere. Our natural tendency can be to make our own way. Building new things. Building little platforms.
The problem comes when these two potent elements are mixed together. Entrepreneurially motivated, and propelled by the affirmation of those we lead, we can become intoxicated by the lure of more influence, greater success…and a bigger platform. When this happens we invariably wrap it up in the language of kingdom…but whose kingdom are we building at this point?
Perhaps the most worrying book I’ve read in the last ten years was written by Christian publishing giant Michael Hyatt. The author has created a how-to guide for building your personal brand, mainly through careful and deliberate use of digital media. His step-bystep approach is terrifyingly effective in a ministry context; I know of one well-known British adherent who advised another young minister to ‘spend at least 30 per cent of your time on building your name.’ The title of the book? Platform.
In Ephesians 5:21, Paul instructs us to ‘submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.’ In Mark 9:35, Jesus tells the disciples that ‘if anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant to all.’ The Bible calls us to mutual submission; to preferring one another’s priorities. The problem with platforms, however small, is that they turn us into islands, unwilling to support, co-operate with, prefer or be led by others. It’s hard to submit from a place of elevation.
Join me then, in asking yourself a hard question. Do these symptoms ring true with you? Do you struggle, like me, with issues of affirmation, ambition, and the lure of the platform? You’re certainly not alone, but that doesn’t mean you should leave the issue unaddressed. Today and each day, I commit to bring these struggles to the cross; to ask God for his help in overcoming them. Would you join me?
Come on youth workers. Let’s submit to one another. Let’s prefer one another. The kingdom we might build from the smashed-up pieces of our own little platforms is more beautiful that we can possibly imagine.
