We are at the threshold of a new season. It was four years ago at a youth ministry convention that my wife and I began having serious discussions regarding our future involvement in the church we'd been a part of for the past several years. For over three years, I had been paid to fulfill the role of Youth Ministry Equipper which was the title given to my position. However, as I will soon reveal, there were problems with that particular title. Actually, the problems did not lie within the title so much as they did within the expectations of a stubborn child known as the church. But I'm getting ahead of myself.After a few years of working menial jobs, I came into the role of Youth Ministry Equipper as a wide-eyed hopeful who was ecstatic about finally being paid to do something which I was incredibly passionate about. The title "Equipper" was co-opted from the Apostle Paul's letter to the Ephesians which reads, "He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ" (Ephesians 4:11-12 NASB). Even back then, all wet behind the ears, the title seemed to align with my own early drafts of a philosophy of ministry. The fact that this particular church seemed to buy into the idea that one flawed human should not bear the entire load of God's call to his people was refreshing. I mean it's one thing for a church to say it, but to actually believe in it enough to say, "this is the title we're giving to the folks on our staff because we want everyone to know that there are no Lone Rangers in church ministry!" That's right, we're all a bunch of Tontos.
