5 Ways John Piper Made Me a Better Student Pastor

Student Pastors who wanted theologically-driven ministry, until recently, have had to be adept at the art of appropriation. We had to learn to take the good and reshape, retune, or retool it for student ministry. While this could sometimes be frustrating, it also has led to great intellectual and spiritual breakthroughs in my own ministry and life. One such appropriation I made early on was the theology and ministry of John Piper. 

While he can be a polarizing figure, I can’t think of a person who has more dramatically shaped my student ministry than John Piper. I can remember being a 19-year-old student pastor binging John Piper on YouTube and filling up notebooks with what I was learning. 

Here are five things Dr. Piper (indirectly) taught me about student ministry that still shape me to this day.

Student Ministry Fuels Worship

Piper famously opened his book on missions with the quote “Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man.”(1)  

We go because people must know there is a God to be worshipped. Mission is a means to worship, not the other way around. In so many ways this idea has shaped how I send students on mission whether overseas or to their school. 

The worship of God is what is at stake in our going, not just notches in our evangelism belt. It also teaches to be sent from a posture of worship. We can’t call people to worship a God we do not already adore. Our student ministries need to be places of worship—both individually and corporately – so students can taste what they are to share.

Student Ministry Prepares Sufferers

I’ll never forget the first time I heard John Piper, passionately, in a sermon, say “You must suffer.” I stared at my computer screen for several minutes. At first, the words “must” and “will” scared me, but later began to give me unshakable hope. 

Our students live in a world that tells them to avoid suffering by any means necessary. Piper helped me realize that, as a Student Pastor, I must prepare my students for the inevitable pain of suffering. They can receive the rock-solid hope of God, because even suffering turns for His own glory and His children’s good! 

Student Ministry Loves Providence

Few have given modern evangelicals as positive a view of Providence and Sovereignty as John Piper. In his church’s statement of faith he wrote “We believe that God, from all eternity, in order to display the full extent of His glory for the eternal and ever-increasing enjoyment of all who love Him, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his will, freely and unchangeably ordain and foreknow whatever comes to pass.”(2)

Few things will get students (and volunteers) debating like a conversation about Predestination or Providence. We often lose our wonder and astonishment that we worship a God who orders all things for His glory and our good - and that these are not contradictory, but complementary, pursuits. Piper helped me come to terms with God’s providence being a key devotional truth in my heart that fuels my prayer, preaching, and discipleship. I can work, sacrifice, lose, and hurt in service to Jesus because I know he holds every molecule of the universe and shapes each one for good. Don’t just debate providence in your student ministry—herald it with wondrous joy.

Student Ministry Prizes Preaching

Piper calls preaching “Expository Exultation.” 

Preaching is expository. The point of the text should be the point of the sermon. Preaching should be logical, textual, and followable. We trace arguments and patterns, we dig into words, we uncover themes. Over the years Piper has been a clear guide in prizing the text in preaching. The text is not a springboard to an idea. The text itself is the idea! When we preach we should do it in such a way that it honors the text in front of us. 

But preaching is not just logic. It is, as Piper calls it, “exultation.” Preaching is worship. One of the best things we can do in our ministry is to clearly show that we believe God is worth following by the way we preach. Preaching should be a duty of joy for us and our students. Let them see our logic, but let them see you worship because of the text you are preaching.

Student Ministry Leads to Joy

Piper’s most famous statement is, “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.”(3) When we follow God we’re not ultimately losing anything. We gain everything. Following God is the only way for you to find true and lasting joy. 

We are in a “joy war” with the culture for our students’ hearts. They are promised identity, happiness, and joy in all the wrong places. But we proclaim to our students that true and lasting joy is actually found in Jesus. May our student ministries be places marked by a deep, cross-shaped joy that only Jesus can bring. Jesus is where the joy is. I’m thankful Piper showed me that truth and I hope to continue showing it to my students.

Editor’s note: This is the first in a series where youth pastors are invited to reflect on the ways they’ve been influenced by certain preachers or writers. If you would like to contribute to this series, please send your article through the Submissions page. This blog also includes affiliate links, which brings a small financial benefit to YPT that’s used to purchase resources that further our ministry to youth workers.

(1) Let the Nations be Glad, 3.
(2) Providence, 38.
(3) Desiring God, page 10