This Sunday our church will be introduced to Taylor Miller. He will be coming in view of a call to serve as our next youth minister. Taylor comes with the recommendation of our youth pastor search team, pastoral team, deacons and the rest of the church staff. Personally speaking, I am really excited about the possibility of Taylor serving in our church.
He easily possesses the necessary competencies to serve in this role. But, more important than that, he has a spirit of authenticity, a deep love for the Lord and a great passion for what the Lord is doing at Broadview. I asked him to write an article introducing himself that you’ll find below.
Before handing it over to Taylor, though, let me mention a few things.
1.) Date Night on Broadview
On December 16th from 6-10pm we’re giving free childcare to any of your unchurched friends so that they can have a date and finish their Christmas shopping. Free to the first 30 who register. (unchurched families only)
2.) Advent Series
We started an Advent series this past Sunday and there’s an Advent guide that you can use to lead your own family in focusing on Jesus this Christmas season. These guides, produced by FBC Georgetown, will correspond to the Sunday messages. You can download a copy or pick one up in the Gathering Place.
3.) World Missions Offering
Starting this Sunday we will also be emphasizing our World Missions Offering. Broadview is an Acts 1:8 Church. We want to be on mission in our own Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and uttermost parts of the earth. People have invested close to $125,000 in giving to the World Missions Offering and various mission trips throughout 2016. Please consider how God might have you to give for this upcoming year.
Now, here is Taylor Miller, in his own words.
My name is Taylor Miller, and I am excited to be considered as a candidate for Broadview’s Youth Pastor. Before talking about how God has been at work in the process of bringing me to Broadview, I want to give you all a brief background of how I came to know Jesus as Savior, as well as how I was called and came to love ministry work.
When I was in the 6th grade, my family had just moved to Fort Worth and began attending Normandale Baptist Church. That summer I went with Normandale to a children’s camp in Glen Rose. The Thursday night of that camp we were all sitting outside at the amphitheater, and a man came and presented the Gospel to us.
He tnew us that our sin had separated us from God, that Jesus came and lived a perfect life, and that he died on a cross for all of our sins so that we could have a relationship with God.
As he spoke those words, I knew that I was a sinner in need of grace. I felt God call me, but for some reason I did not go down when he tnew us to come down to the stage to pray if we wanted to be saved.
Perhaps I was scared. That night I was miserable because I knew I needed Jesus, but didn’t pray to receive him. An opportunity came the next night to pray to have Jesus be the Lord of my life and I went down to the stage quickly to pray!
The next year was my first year in the youth group, which became a massive catalyst for my spiritual growth. That first summer at youth camp I was called to ministry. God significantly impressed upon me the significance of Jesus dying on the cross for our sins. The best way I can describe it is that I felt the weight of it.
I loved Jesus and wanted to tell other people about him. From that point on I was incredibly blessed to be a part of a godly youth group. Through middle and high school I was a part of accountability groups, engaged in discipleship with the discipleship pastor of our church, and led a significant amount of worship.
All that to say, middle and high school were incredibly formative years for my spiritual growth, and I love to see students who can follow in similar steps of being discipled and growing in their love of our Lord Jesus.
I went to college in Oklahoma. While there, I became a youth minister during my last two years. I absolutely loved every minute of it. As I stepped into youth ministry, I began to learn the ins and outs of everyday practical ministry. It was a wonderful experience at a church that I loved.
After college I went to work at a church in Tulsa for roughly six months before moving to Louisville, Kentucky to begin a master’s degree in Biblical Counseling. After a semester of school, I began applying to churches, seeking a youth ministry position. My desire was to work in ministry and finish up school subsequently.
Soon after that decision, I began talking with Wes. From the outset I was filled with a certain excitement when thinking about Broadview. He and I had a great conversation, and his heart for ministry and the church was clear to me.
There was much prayer from both myself and the search team, and then they called me to interview for this position. That interview and the next step, which was meeting with the staff, solidified for me what I believe to be God’s calling for me to come to Broadview. There are several aspects that I will mention about these meetings that solidified things for me.
First, meeting with the committee and the staff filled me with incredible excitement for what I believe God is going to do at Broadview. The 2020 vision that you all have is God given, and I believe that God will bless it.
Second, the types of questions I was being asked during the interview were questions that showed genuine care for the youth ministry as well as the church as a whole.
Third, I believe that God has begun to give me a direction for this youth ministry.
I believe the role of the Youth Minister is to come along side parents and families to help them in the process of discipleship, to guide their teens to become faithful followers of Jesus Christ and His Gospel. To put it simply: to show them how to love God and love others as we were commanded to do in Matthew 22:36-40.
If you so vote, I look forward to many years at Broadview, serving the Lord together among you all, to reach as many people as we can with the good news of Jesus Christ.