The students are quiet as Katie Mussat walks up to the front of the room to start teaching. She’s been planning this lesson all week, and can’t wait to enlighten the students, who are eager to learn. Is she a teacher? No, but something very similar, a youth pastor, at Sugar Land Baptist Church. 

Born in Tulsa Oklahoma, Mussat moved throughout her life, eventually leading her to the diverse city of Sugar Land. 

“Aaron [her husband] and I did not grow up with a lot of diversity, racial diversity, or just any diversity at all, with religions or anything, so it’s, an exciting place to be with people from all over the world,” Mussat said. 

Mussat has been a youth pastor for 6 years now, but only one at SLBC for 14 months. Her favorite part of the church is the staff. 

“We have a very talented, gifted staff. That’s not always the case in churches that you get. We call it kinda like, for all of us it kinda feels like a dream team. You know, just to be able to work with people who are highly trained and gifted at what they do, and a team approach, I guess,” Mussat said. 

Although Mussat has been preaching for a long time now, she still remembers how she felt the first time she had to stand in front of a crowd. 

“I was terrified. And I actually, the first time I preached, well, the first time I preached was in college. I wasn’t as scared to preach to my peers, except that, I found out, a few hours before that the president of the University was coming,” she stated. 

Mussat’s schedule is busy all throughout the week, not just Sundays and Wednesdays. She not only plans lessons, but also activities for the church as well. 

“So, on Sunday mornings a lot of what I do is helping my volunteers, supporting them, managing volunteers, we have over 30 volunteers in our student ministry. On Mondays I try to spend a lot of time studying and writing for whatever we are going to teach on Wednesday nights. Other than that, I manage budget, I do a lot of event planning, so a lot of my time is scheduling events, calendaring, working on every detail for an event, down to, rental vans, to schedules, to booking things. It’s a lot of dreaming, visioning, and then practically figuring out how you’re going to lead a group of people to where you want to lead them,” she said. 

Throughout all that she does though, the students are what keeps her teaching. 

“I think my favorite part of my job and what keeps me doing this is seeing students grow in their faith and mature in their faith. You don’t always get to see that, but you get to see it enough that it’s just extremely encouraging.” 

Mussat encourages anyone who wants to be a youth pastor to go to seminary and be eager to learn more, and not closed-minded. 

“Listen to the mentors in life when they point out gifts in you, so that you know whether this is something that you are called to, because it’s not easy, it really isn’t.”