An Early Lesson in Vision

Early in our marriage, God opened the door for my husband to be the youth pastor at his grandfather’s church. His father also happened to be the associate pastor. Three generations of Stewarts pastoring together—what a unique church we were!

However, I was against the idea from day one. I won’t go into all the reasons why I thought this was a bad idea, but the list was long! Nevertheless, I played the part of the submissive wife and pretended to care about the youth in the church.

About 6 months into our youth ministry there, I was sitting in the back of the room during a Wednesday night youth service. Matt was preaching while I was telling God, in my mind, all the reasons why we should not be working there. I began to tell him all the problems with the youth group and why we were the wrong people to lead this group of students. I counted around 25 youth there that night and that depressed me too. I missed the large youth group we pastored when we lived in San Diego. “Why are we so small, Lord?” He was listening.

Right at that moment the Lord spoke to me and said, “This youth group is small because of YOU.” Immediately I knew what he meant—my lack of faith, my negativity, my complaining spirit—I was the problem!!

That night I repented and asked the Lord to give me a heart for these students. Soon after that, we took almost 40 young people to Magic Mountain, an amusement park in Southern California. One night in the hotel conference room, we experienced an unexpected, supernatural move of God. Students began to weep, confess sins, prophecy—that night would launch a consistent move of God. Our youth group began to grow and grow. Many of those young people are in full time ministry today.

Is your lack of vision harming your ministry? Is your negativity and complaining spirit putting a wet blanket on the Holy Spirit’s plans for your church? Repent and allow the Lord to fill you with a supernatural love for the people the Lord has assigned you to serve. He can do it!