Christ’s Church at Whitewater welcomes Joey Potter as student pastor.

Potter is a veteran youth pastor who has been ministering to middle and high school students for almost 27 years.

Potter most recently served as the student pastor at First Christian Church of Ft. Myers, Fla. Prior to that, he served as the high school and college age youth pastor in Joppa, Md. During that time, he saw both churches double in attendance and in ministry.

Regarding his move to Christ’s Church, Potter shares that he and his wife, Cathy, desired to start over in a new church, with less emphasis on the “mega-church model.”

He also shares that he and Stephen Carpenter, Christ’s Church Senior Minister, are long-time friends who attended college together and that Carpenter invited him to join him to help grow the church. The new opportunity also allows him to continue his research in youth culture and faith development in students and hopefully the chance to teach youth ministry in the Atlanta area.

“I love students and desire to see them reach their purpose and mission in life,” Potter said recently. “I am most excited about the students who go on from our student ministry program to excel in what God has gifted them to do. It doesn’t matter what they do; what matters is that they believe God has called them to do the very best they can for Him.”

Focusing time and energy on middle school students is what he enjoys the most about being a student pastor, because he believes that is when “faith development begins in students and young teenagers.”

“Most churches and youth pastors focus more time and energy on the high school student, budget, and program, because they only understand the ‘how to do youth ministry’ instead of the ‘why you do what you do in youth ministry’,” Potter explained.

The philosophy of student ministry at Christ’s Church, he says, “is focused on why we do our programming, events, mission trips, and conferences/camps/retreat instead of how. Fun and exciting can happen anywhere, but authentic, life-changing experiences happen only when we understand why we are doing what we are doing,” Potter said. “As creditable as our school system is about a shaping a student’s purpose, reasoning, and outcome, every church should also be accountable to the end product of what that student will look like spiritually when they graduate.”

A student pastor’s role, according to Potter, is to “serve and disciple to make more disciples to serve.”

Therefore, he says, the Christ’s Church Student Ministries “will seek to serve and to reach out to those who have no relationship with God or Christ and then begin a discipleship journey for life.”

The vision for the student ministry, he shares, is “to serve our community, our schools, and third world mission projects. We desire our students to be leaders in academics, sports, theater, music, band, and other activities.”

An idea to grow the student ministry, he explains, is a new concept called “YMMP—Youth Ministry Mentoring Program. It is a program in which Christian college students do an internship at the church, working alongside him and the volunteer youth staff. His hope, he says, is to have eight or nine interns throughout the year who receive college credit and gain hands-on experience of the “theological why’s of youth ministry.”

Christ’s Church Student Ministries, Potter says, will offer “the finest middle school ministry for spiritual growth and relationships. Our retreats, mission projects, and volunteer youth staff are founded in excellence because we decide about the why for our middle school students’ spiritual journey.”

In addition, he says, student ministries “will offer to high school students a safe place to be real, understand their life journey, and become founded in their spiritual formation with Christ.”

“Joey Potter brings to Christ’s Church a wealth of experience,” Christ Church senior minister Stephen Carpenter explained. “As the father of two adult children, he expands the traditional youth ministry to include ministry to parents as well as to their children. In landing Joey we have hit the mother load. He’s the best of the best.”

Potter has also served as Youth Pastor at Christian Churches in Pasco, WA, Bristol, TN, Louisville, KY, and Johnson City, TN.

He received a BA degree (Bible major and minor in human relations) from Milligan College and did his graduate work at Emmanuel School of Religion. He is currently pursuing a Master’s of Youth Ministry Degree at Huntington College in Huntington, Ind.

He and his wife, Cathy, have been married for 27 years. They have two children, Josiah, who will graduate from Milligan College this spring, and Hannah Beth, who will be a senior at Milligan this fall.

In addition to spending time with his family, Potter enjoys outdoor activities, including, kayaking, running, hiking, and riding his dirt bike.

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