Part 1 of the BE AN AMBASSADOR Series
It’s almost the holiday season. As the end of 2022 approaches quickly, we want you to know the difference your giving makes. Here’s a testimony on what the Lord is doing through the prayers and financial gifts of our supporters. We praise God for allowing us to do his work!
When you join us as a monthly partner, you become an Ambassador for Pastors in Training.
“What does a church need to focus on when it comes to men’s ministry?”
19-year-old Dane, a Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary student, hadn’t considered that question extensively before he met Mike Young. He started on the path to Criminal Justice at Clemson but soon felt the call to full-time ministry. As he now works to complete his Master of Divinity at SEBTS over the next few years, he’s doing it with men on his mind.
It began with Mike’s weekly trips to SEBTS to complete his Doctor of Ministry. In stepping forward to obey that call and to continue traveling there weekly, the Lord is opening doors for him to develop relationships with SEBTS leadership and seminary students from around the globe.
Dane’s long-term plan is to be the head pastor of a church. Whether it is near his home in South Carolina or somewhere across the globe, he’s still waiting on the Lord to determine. Wherever he lands, he recognizes that half of his church will be men. While Dane has an excellent example of biblical manhood in his own father and other mentors in his life, he realizes he will be pastoring many men who haven’t had men step up in their lives that way.
“If you haven’t had that growing up, you have no idea how to be a man of God. You’ve never seen it done.”
When Dane met Mike, he immediately recognized, “Mike is dead set on the calling that God has pulled him to of men’s ministry.” It has changed Dane’s views on becoming a man of God, understanding where men may fail to step up and where he personally needs to step up to be a man of God as he pursues becoming a pastor, husband, father, grandfather, etc. He’s learned from Mike’s training, “If you change the man of the house or the church (to be) the God-given leader he is supposed to be and fulfill, so many other things fall in place.”
Dane keeps Proverbs 20:11 in the forefront of his mind. “Even a child makes himself known by his acts, by whether his conduct is pure and upright.” Every man has an audience. Someone is watching at every point in your life. You will have influence. Dane wants his audience to remember God through Dane, not just Dane. It goes hand-in-hand with the teaching Mike is driving home that He must increase, and I must decrease.
It’s young, future pastors like Dane that get us so excited about the investments in relationships at SEBTS. He was already going. He was already planning to serve as a senior pastor. The difference is that now he has pastoring men at the forefront of his mind. He will start his ministry with the foundation of the principles of Biblical Manhood on his mind.