Pastor of the week
In every church, some people have the same goal but are also very different, even pastors. Every pastor has the same purpose of spreading the word of God but also has other plans within their church.
This is Pastor Nathan Jenkins, a youth pastor from the Guymon Church of the Nazarene. He was ordained last year but has been in that process since 2014. Pastor Nathan grew up going to a little United Methodist Church in Cimmaron, Kansas, which he attended up until high school. His parents own a grocery store, and because of that and growing up in a small town, he started to get to know everyone. The United Methodist Church that Pastor Nathan was involved in also did things with many surrounding churches. Pastor Nathan talked about how one of these babysitters was a Mennonite couple, and his best friend attended the Nazarene church. When he was in junior high, his church didn't do anything on Wednesday nights, so he started attending the Nazarene church and felt like it was a better place to grow in his faith. Pastor Nathan then talked about when he was in high school; he felt a calling to ministry. He had a youth sponsor who thought that Nathan would be a great youth pastor, but at the time, Nathan thought it was crazy because he wanted to be an architect. Little did Nathan know he would end up being a youth pastor. He went to Southern Nazarene University (SNU) for college, and after graduating, he and his wife went to Northern Ireland for a year and served as volunteer missionaries. They did classes on cultural anthropology and ethnology.
After their year in Northern Ireland, Nathan and his wife were trying to figure out what they would do after they came back to the states. Nathan's ultimate goal when they came back was to be a lead pastor at a church, to help all churches figure out how to do ministry. Nathan said, “After my year overseas, I think there was just something within me that said, I think it was God saying, ' I think you still have a little bit to learn and I think before some older adults will take you seriously, you need to be a little older.' I was looking for a position where I could learn and serve under someone who was already doing that, and when we met with Craig (who
was featured as the first "Pastor of the Week”) and it seemed like it was something he wanted; to do.”
“My goal within the church (at the Guymon Church of the Nazarene), as a youth pastor, first is helping students and introducing students to Jesus and secondly connecting students to the church. In the community, my goal is to help our church better connect to our community,” Pastor Nathan said. Nathan hopes to help the church become more of a listener to its community. When asked how he thought he was different from other pastors, Nathan went on to say, “I would hope that I would be a pastor that is okay allowing people to be where they're at in the process. I hope that I am a pastor drawing people toward Jesus but
isn't so impatient as to get frustrated with people when they haven't quite made it there. Just within our culture, I believe it is straightforward to get frustrated with people if they aren't moving fast enough or they don't look like “the ideal Christan,” or they don't fit the mold. I hope that while I'm not just letting people not be changed, that there is also a willingness to allow them to be who they are and where they are at in the process, but also that I am still a pastor who is inviting people and drawing people to experience that transform.”
Nathan hopes that this section of the newspaper shows people that pastors are regular people. He hopes that people see that pastors are just like everyone else and we are all made in the image of God and trying to figure out that calling that God placed onto their lives, just like everyone else.