This post is part of the Foundations Of Youth Ministry series. Check out the rest of the series!

Just over four months ago, I moved my family from the middle of the United States to the Gulf coast of central Florida in order to accept a new youth ministry position.

It’s been a crazy transition. We have five kids, with one one the way, so that means a lot of stuff to move. We’ve never moved this far before either, which made things even crazier.

And to top it all off, we moved out of the Bible belt of southern Missouri. The culture shock has been pretty significant. But we are adjusting nicely. The kids are building new friendships, and so are my wife and I.

But for the past few months, I’ve been the “new guy” in the area.

One one hand, that means that I may get lost trying to find someone’s house, or even the local Wal-Mart, but on the other hand, I’ve noticed some great advantages to being the new guy.

I have the opportunity to build this ministry the way I want

When we moved to Brooksville, I was told that this youth ministry had experienced some struggles. As a result, I have the opportunity to build this ministry from the ground up.

That’s pretty exciting to me. While I don’t want to build any program based on me, that would fall apart if I left it, I do have the opportunity to structure things according to my personality, as well as the personality of the church as a whole. This give me the ability to add or eliminate elements that may or may not work.

For example, we have completely restructured the Wednesday night program, giving it a totally new look and feel. My hope is that this capitalizes on my strengths, and the strengths of the team I build. My prayer is that it attracts teens from our surrounding communities and becomes a place where they can plug in, not just to a youth group, but into Christ and his church.

Being new, I carry a sense of authority

Whether I deserve it or not, As the new guy, I carry a sense of authority. As these students get to know me, they may shrug off some of the things I teach them. But right now, there seems to be a fascination with me, and the things I say are taken to heart, and often repeated.

This, however, can be a double-edged sword. I have to watch myself more closely, because I am being watched more closely. My thoughtless and careless remarks can be misinterpreted and repeated. This forces me to take greater care in what I say and do, which I should do regularly anyway.

I don’t know all the “we’ve always done it this way” restrictions

It’s easy to get into a rut in ministry. When we do things the same way for a long time, it’s natural to keep doing it that way because we’ve grown comfortable in the rut. Being the new guy, I have no idea how things operated before I arrived on the scene. Sure, I’ve been informed of a few things here and there, but just because the last guy did it a certain way doesn’t mean that I have to.

Sometimes, there is the expectation that I will do things differently, because I am a different person. But other times, I’m expected to do things the same as they operated before I got here. In the process of getting to know the people of this congregation, they can get to know my personality, and I can get to know theirs.

Even my well-used ideas seem fresh to new people

There are some things I’ve implemented in my ministries for several years. Even though they seemed old to me and to my students in previous places, they feel new and fresh here because they are new and fresh here. No one here has experienced things the way I do them, and that can breath new life into my old ideas.

I’m not using this as an excuse to stay in that rut. I’m still reading, learning and growing in my abilities as a minister. And I’m still forcing myself to think outside the box, to come up with new ideas and strategies. I’m still pushing myself to grow, even as I push these students to grow.

Things that didn’t work well in another place may work better here

I will be the first to admit, many of the ideas I thought were great… weren’t. They flopped. Sometimes colossally. But I still think they were great ideas. Some of them may get pulled out and dusted off to be tried here. They may work better here and be successful.

Then again, they may not.

We get to experience a part of the church we’ve never seen before

I’ve been a part of the church on two different continents, and in six different countries. In the US, I’ve been involved in churches in numerous states and regions of the country. But I’ve never experienced the church in Florida. It’s a whole new culture, different than anything I’ve experienced before.

It bears some similarities to the church I was a part of in upstate New York, where I interned. It’s also similar in may ways to southern Missouri and to northeast Indiana. But it’s crucially different from each of these other locations as well.

As a result, my family is experiencing something none of us has ever experienced before, and meeting people from many different regions and cultures, both from within and outside of our own country. It’s pretty cool, actually.

A new ministry allows me to serve God in a new place, in new ways, with new people

God chooses to use me in this capacity. And that is pretty incredible!

What do you see as an advantage of being the “new guy”? You can share your thoughts in the comments section below.