Jarrett Samuels has never been one that’s been afraid to step out on a limb when he feels like God has placed a calling on his heart.
Samuels, Lead Pastor at Castleton Christian Church in Indianapolis, had never even attended a church camp when he found himself applying for a job as a lifeguard at one. As he tells it, he didn’t even know how to swim when he first applied, but he knew it’s where God needed him, so he took swim lessons, passed the test and became a lifeguard.
Later in life, he volunteered in youth ministry despite not having kids of his own. As he recalls, he wasn’t a great volunteer, but he felt God’s calling and it led him deeper into ministry.
More recently, Samuels founded The Pursuit of Manliness, a ministry that challenges men to become men of God and pursue their spiritual calling to be leaders in the home, the workplace and the community. Despite never having blogged or hosted a podcast, he used both as a platform to create a ministry that today spans the globe and includes an annual men’s retreat, Bible studies, a podcast and more.
God “has just continually gone before me providing opportunities equipping me,” Samuels said. “One of the greatest pieces of advice I ever received from my father-in-law was, 'always remain teachable.' So, I will never try to act like I have this figured out, but I do want to remain teachable.”
Samuels is leading his congregation and the men who participate in The Pursuit of Manliness through challenging times, influenced by social media, turbulent times in society, political division and more. He has observed that such weighty topics have led to a change in the way people behave.
“When I first started ministry, I was a children's pastor. I felt like when people walked in to check their kid in, they were very polished. They wanted to kind of put on this, ‘we got it together’ Sunday best,” Samuels recalled. “As I got further along in ministry, people stopped pretending. It was kind of like, ‘this is who we are, this is what we’ve got going on.’ And depending on your church, your culture, where you live, there's going to be some varying degrees of that. But I just think there's a lot of people hurting. I mean, we are bombarded with a message 24 hours a day from somebody, and our brains are not meant to be processing information at that kind of rate. I shouldn't know about every country in the world all the time at a moment's notice and who liked what. And so, I just think we're just overwhelmed.”
Looking to the word in times of strife
How does Samuels help those he ministers to combat the heaviness and information overload?
“One of the things I've tried to do is just preach the word,” Samuels said. “I want to see the world through the lens of Scripture. So, if I see a situation going on in my town, your town, another country or whatever, I can look through the Word and I can say, ‘OK, what does the Bible tell me about that?’ Or ‘What is the appropriate response to this?’ Or ‘What is expected of a Christian in this situation?’ If I can tell you what God's Word says, maybe it'll create a hunger in you. You go home, if you get the Gospel to your address and you start to change those people, revival will start to break out, even within your own home.”
Pastors need your encouragement
Being a pastor can be a heavy, burden-laden calling. Samuels says he and his fellow pastors appreciate constant encouragement from their flock.
“Just tell ‘em you're praying for ‘em,” Samuels said. “I get messages from guys all the time in my discipleship group like, ‘Hey, I'm praying for you and your family,’ and I just appreciate that.”
He said he also relishes the occasional diversion of talking about non-church-related matters.
“One thing I would love is conversations about life,” he said. “I don't care if it's the football team. I don't care if it's the hamburger you had on Thursday. Let's just talk life.”
Samuels said people can pray for him specifically to “take that baton of faith that was given to me and run as fast as I can with it, as the people who come behind me depend on me to get this right. And so for me, it’s just stay faithful, stay focused, keep fanning that flame of faith, and I just want to be a really hard worker for the Lord.”
To learn more about Samuels’ The Pursuit of Manliness, visit www.thepursuitofmanliness.com.