Recently a teenage boy wrote to tell me that God had called him to be a preacher. What a joy to see another generation of young people yielding their lives to serve Christ! He asked if I would give him some advice.
Below are the simple things I wrote to my young friend. It is my prayer that other young people will be helped by them.
1. Work on your devotional life. Everything else grows out of your own walk with the Lord.
2. Spend time with your pastor and youth director. Ask them questions and learn all you can.
3. Begin now to witness and serve. If you don’t start now you won’t later.
4. Plan to attend a Bible College where you can get a good foundation in Bible and local church ministry training.
5. Listen to sermons regularly of preachers who faithfully preach God’s Word.
6. Read! Read biographies of great preachers. Read theology. Read on prayer and revival. Fill your mind and heart with great things.
7. Prepare sermons. Study and write messages regularly. Preach them to yourself! Work on learning how to prepare and deliver a Bible message.
8. Preach whenever you have opportunity. No open door is insignificant. Preach or teach the Bible to children, in a nursing home, or any where you have opportunity.
9. Pray much. Learn to get alone with God and commune with Him.
10. Build friendships with people who sharpen you and encourage the call God has placed on your life. The devil will do all he can to detour you.
11. Submit to your parents. No one can lead if they will not follow. Honoring your parents will bring the blessing of God both at home and on every part of your life.
12. Apply yourself at school. Preachers must be students all of their life. English, history, and so much more will help you to be a more effective communicator of God’s Word.
God called me to preach as a twelve-year-old boy in the summer before seventh grade. I learned so much from the experiences, failures, and godly counsel of those years. Young people can serve the Lord, and they must be given guidance if they will serve Him their whole life.
Let no man despise thy youth; but be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity (1 Timothy 4:12).
May God raise up an army of young men and women who desire to give themselves to the Lord and His wonderful work!
Great advice! Love these thoughts!
Thank you for reading and sharing them!
Good stuff my friend, I wish I had read these thoughts 30 years ago. If applied they would have saved me many years of trial and error.
I appreciate your heart for young preachers.
Grateful for your friendship and encouragement. Happy to hear how God is using you!
Thank you sir am also a teenager with a call to ministry gor as long as I can remember I always sought advice thank you once again sir God bless you
May God use you in a mighty way! Stay close to Christ, study the Word, be a man of prayer, and follow the counsel of mature ministers. The Lord will use you.
Thank you so much for this Sir. God bless you richly.
God bless you.