Just a year or two ago, Broadway Baptist Church (2500 Harrodsburg Rd.) got a new pastor to lead the youth attending the church. His name is Zach Bauer, and he has been helping to grow the youth department more and more each month. For this article, I conducted an interview with him on what he has planned for the upcoming months for the youth!

How long have you been a youth pastor? 

 Almost 10 years. I started in 2009. I had a small church in Oklahoma and, uh, I was part-time, still finishing up. I was a senior in college and that was about the first ministry job I had. 

On average, how many attendees do you have on Wednesday night services? 

Now we have about 20 Wednesday night. When I first got here we only had around 5 or 6 constant attendees, so I’m proud of how much it has grown.

What are your plans for your youth group?

Uh, nothing? (laughs) No, just kidding. My plan for the group is kinda my philosophy. It is, “I want students to learn more about God, and grow in their walk with God.” That’s really my grand plan. So, I do what I can to help them.

This is the one you need to be brief on, what is your testimony? 

Okay so, I became a Christian when I was, I mean I was young. I was about 6 years old. So there’s no like crazy, there’s no crazy story but you know, my parents got divorced when I was young, but I still followed and trusted the Lord and despite a lot of crazy circumstances in my life, God’s always been there for me, by his grace, I have followed him and grown closer to him. Even when I was little I said to my mom that I wanted to be a pastor! And now here I am!

This one’s a big question, what do you see in our youth group that needs to be fixed? 

Right after I asked this question, we heard a bunch of yelling in the hallway just outside the room we were sat in, along with some of the youth running up and down the hallway, resulting in us both laughing for a few minutes at the irony.

Uh, definitely that. (Laughs more) But, no that’s a good question and I actually have, I’ve been addressing this over the past month or so and actually had to sit down and email some parents for some people, not everyone. For some behavioral issues and how students treat one another and it’s something that I am done with.

You kinda already answered this question, what do you plan to do to fix this?

Oh, yeah! It’s- I need to communicate and let people know. A lot of that starts with how I can talk to parents of students and make them involved and just do it in a way that’s kind and loving but that’s in a serious way too.

What are some events you have planned for the next few months? 

Alright, so we got summer camp coming up in June at Crossings, so that’s the big event. And I got a couple of interns now and we are working so there’s gonna be a girls night and a guys night, and they may coincide actually. And then in summer, there’s a lot where each week we’re going to be doing something different for Wednesday night. It’s gonna be like last year with movie nights, pool parties, things like that.

Where do you see the youth group in the next 5 to 10 years? 

Hopefully more mature, (laughs) but in all seriousness in 5 years it could look a lot different, it could look a lot the same, but my goal is never strictly numbers. But in 5 years there very well could be 50 kids coming here every week looking at kids that are coming up and looking at how it’s been growing over the last year and a half but hopefully I want those kids that are here and in 7th and 8th grade will be juniors and seniors and I hope they will still be here! And I’m very excited for hopefully more to come!

Service time for Wednesday nights would be service starts at 7:00, but Zach would like for everyone to show up at around 6:00 to 6:30 t0 be able to talk and have some of the pizza and drinks delivered to the attending youth! He hopes to see you next Wednesday!