Interview with Ted Haggard on the Secrets to a Healthy Church

By Pauline J. Chang, Christian Post Reporter Monday, November 21, 2005

According to Ted Haggard, President of the National Association of Evangelicals and senior pastor of the 11,000-member New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colo., the secret to a healthy church lies in its youth.

“Just like a home, you need healthy youth leaders to have a healthy local church,” Haggard, 49, said during a Battle Cry Leadership Summit in Lanham, Maryland, on Saturday. “If in a home, young men and women are wise in responding to their parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, they can contribute to that home being a phenomenal home.”

“That’s the same thing in our generation with our churches,” he explained. If the youth leaders, associate pastors, and young men and women are a blessing in the church and do wise things in the church, then it opens the doors for the church leadership to make increasingly better decisions.”

Healthy youth leaders need healthy training, and Haggard boils down those points down to five simple tips: be Godly, add value, be helpful, be aggressive, and remember your pastor wants to be proud of you.

“If you know that, it will take you a long way,” he said.

In addition to these basic tips, youth leaders are encouraged to make the most out of what they are given.

“There are two traps the youth departments tend to fall into,” Haggard said. These traps are thinking that more money and more people will solve the problems in the ministry.

“Well that’s what the federal government says and are they still doing it right?” he added. “No.”

“You have to be more creative and to think, ‘I have the amount of money and human resources I have and I might not get any more. How can I more aggressively make this church successful?’” he suggested. “Aggressively think about that and be aggressive in making that think work.”

On the other hand, Haggard says senior pastors should better engage their youth leaders into the church by generously funding and investing in the youth ministry.

“Befriend your youth pastor, fund him or her heavily, and ensure that the church’s focus is on cultivating the next generation of Christian leaders,” said Haggard.

The following are excerpts from an interview with Haggard on what is needed most in today’s church, youth pastors, and senior pastors:

What is most lacking in youth ministry today?

I think youth leaders are under-funded and under-supported by their local churches. But what’s lacking most is the local churches’ drive to ensure that the sharpest, brightest, most aggressive and strongest leaders are set up as their youth pastors. Local churches as a whole need to fund them better so that youth leaders will stay and improve at what they do.

In your speech today you told youth leaders to make the best of their situation instead of complaining about a lack of financial and human resources. How does this help deliver your message on supporting youth ministries?

The talk I gave was to youth leaders. If I were speaking to senior pastors, it would have been the opposite. I would have told the crowd to befriend your youth pastor, fund him or her heavily, and ensure that the church’s focus is on cultivating the next generation of Christian leaders.

Most churches don’t adequately focus on their young people. This is why we have a low percentage of high school students who will identify themselves as followers of Christ.”

Why is this important?

In a very short eight years, today’s youth department members will become screenwriters, doctors, lawyers, moms, dads, business leaders, and other professionals. That’s why we have to be diligent in reaching the youth of today.

What is the greatest obstacle to achieving this task?

It’s not hard at all if we try. Every church in America that has made an intentional effort to reach the youth has been successful. My church is full of teenagers and 20-something year olds. A lot of churches are this way, but the only problem is that there are just not enough of these youth-oriented churches. Reaching the youth is not a difficult task if we choose to do it.

How can pastors remain relevant to the youth?

The youth does not have any issues with generation gaps. It is the older people that have issues. So that’s why we call this the fatherless generation – they are looking for stable men and women to be in their lives. The youth does not have the issues older people have, so if only the older people will be stable, trustworthy, consistent, and communicative, young people will respond.

The interview was held outside of the Hope Christian Church following the Rev. Ted Haggard’s address to a crowd of 700 youth leaders. Haggard was one of five speakers at the Battle Cry leadership summit, which was sponsored by TeenMania.