Oct 5, 2026 · 53 min · 8 segments
This podcast is dedicated to the belief that creativity is important to all work and walks of life. In this episode, Reverend Paul Christensen, Associate Pastor for Students at Brainerd Baptist Church…
So coming up to today, your official title now is Associate Pastor of Students, although it was at one time Next Generation Discipleship Pastor, which is, you know-
Uh, but to be honest, even in the work that I was doing before I retired, there was a lot of discussion of next gen kinds of like in higher education and things like that, and I was like, "Okay, what is that?" And so, you know, I had to get into it.
But so- That means then that you're, however you, you are dealing with a d- you know, a different generation than I would be used to, and even you as a millennial would be part of, I guess.
So in your seminary training, did you take specific classes on, on youth work or whatever, next gen work?
And so during our time at Union, I was a youth pastor of just a small kind of rural country church.
It was my first ministry role, and basically some, some complicated things happened towards the end of that experience that left me just really frustrated and burned out, and I'm like, "I don't ever wanna do youth ministry again." And so I entered seminary thinking I was gonna be a missionary, and I was gonna be on the other side of the planet.
And the Lord has a sense of humor, and so I intentionally did not take any youth ministry classes.
And I thought, uh, I was gonna be more in the kind of missionary church planting track, so to speak, and took a lot of discipleship classes and theology classes.
And so, uh, I guess in some ways I, I've taken a practicum, uh, the last five years of, uh-
So coming up to today, your official title now is Associate Pastor of Students, although it was at one time Next Generation Discipleship Pastor, which is, you know-
Uh, but to be honest, even in the work that I was doing before I retired, there was a lot of discussion of next gen kinds of like in higher education and things like that, and I was like, "Okay, what is that?" And so, you know, I had to get into it.
But so- That means then that you're, however you, you are dealing with a d- you know, a different generation than I would be used to, and even you as a millennial would be part of, I guess.
So in your seminary training, did you take specific classes on, on youth work or whatever, next gen work?
And so during our time at Union, I was a youth pastor of just a small kind of rural country church.
It was my first ministry role, and basically some, some complicated things happened towards the end of that experience that left me just really frustrated and burned out, and I'm like, "I don't ever wanna do youth ministry again." And so I entered seminary thinking I was gonna be a missionary, and I was gonna be on the other side of the planet.
And the Lord has a sense of humor, and so I intentionally did not take any youth ministry classes.
And I thought, uh, I was gonna be more in the kind of missionary church planting track, so to speak, and took a lot of discipleship classes and theology classes.
And so, uh, I guess in some ways I, I've taken a practicum, uh, the last five years of, uh-
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.