For this discussion board post, read the following vignette and respond to the questions that follow:
Jeff Goodman was a youth pastor at a small Baptist church in Illinois. He had finished seminary three years prior and had been serving in this particular ministry for about 18 months. When he first took the position, he was full of enthusiasm and big dreams. He imagined swarms of teenagers filling the church and coming to Christ in droves. He pictured himself leading huge teams of youth to Latin America to build houses, feed the hungry, and preach the Word. And he envisioned students from miles around coming to the church for enormous outreach events as he passionately preached the Gospel from the church stage, sweat flying off him, surrounded by the latest and most popular Christian bands.
But 18 months had passed, and very little seemed to have changed. Jeff felt like a failure. When he took over as youth pastor, there were roughly 10 kids in attendance on a Wednesday night. Now there were 11. When he took over, the youth were not actively serving in the church or the community. Now they set up chairs after youth group for the lady’s Bible study that met on Thursday mornings. When he took over, nobody invited their friends to youth group. Now only one new student, a seventh-grade boy named Charlie, was attending on a regular basis. And he only showed up about every other week. Jeff had poured his heart and soul into his work, and he had little if anything to show for it. He felt burned out and discouraged. He was thinking about quitting when he received an unexpected but welcomed surprise.
Jeff was checking his email on Thursday morning when he saw an email from a someone he didn’t know. It was Charlie’s mother. She explained that, ever since Charlie had begun attending youth group, he had become a completely different child. He was more cooperative at home, he was getting in trouble less at school, and his grades were going up. She said that Charlie loved going to youth group because the kids were nice to him there, in contrast to the children at school who bullied and teased him. She was so grateful to Jeff, she explained, for creating a safe, encouraging place for Charlie to fit in and learn good values. She wished that Charlie could attend every week, but he could not because she and her husband shared custody of him. Finally, she
asked if there was a group for women that she could join so she could have the same life-changing experience that Charlie had.
Jeff was ecstatic. He finally had confirmation that he was making a difference in the lives of the kids. All his hard work and investment was paying off. He just had to persevere and keep doing what he had been doing, and he was sure that the ministry would grow in number and impact.
First, write an original post of no less than 250 words in which you address the following discussion questions. Next, respond to the posts of TWO other
students in no less than 50 words.
Please note: students will not be able to read others’ posts before creating their own, nor will they be able to go back and edit posts. This is to assure that all posts originate with the student and are not the result of reviewing others’ work. Any false posts” obviously intended to circumvent this restriction will be considered plagiarized, and all posts for that discussion board will receive a 0.
1. How do you evaluate your effectiveness in your own job? If you do not have a job, how do you evaluate your effectiveness in some other role (e.g., parent, student)? Is this an objective form of evaluation?
2. Is it necessary or even appropriate for pastors to evaluate their work as ministers? Why or why not?
How could relying on personal testimonies provide a pastor with misleading information? Which principles of scientific inquiry does this approach to evaluation violate?
