Issues about youth ministry and how we do it in the local church are still up for discussion.
An recent article in Christianity Today described youth ministers as the ‘least valued and least recognised members of any staff team’. Youth ministers are not dissimilar to other ministry personnel in the church except in one major area. It would be rare these days if those entering adult ministry were not trained and ordained in some way first.
Training
Thankfully there are some colleges (though not all) offering training for those entering youth ministry. Most post-college ministry trainees enter their first church as assistants (curates in the Anglican set-up). These posts are regarded as training appointments and should include extensive mentoring and support. Youth ministers start as the senior person in the youth and/or children’s department and can be woefully short of both mentoring and support.
Perhaps we should regard the new posttraining youth minister as a curate or assistant pastor and that would immediately place them in a training situation. Some find those first few months very hard because the expectations placed on them are too demanding. I wonder if anybody starting a new youth ministry post should be without a mentor. Ideally that should be someone experienced in youth ministry who can guide the new appointee through all the learning situations they will encounter.
30s and 40s
In my consultation work the cry is for maturity. Larger churches need people with some experience to lead a work of ministry that will often include experienced professional people. Perhaps we should push it a stage further. I started as a full time youth/children’s minister in my 40s having spent nearly 20 years in the classroom. I had held senior teaching positions, so leadership had been exercised by me in several contexts. I made a deliberate choice to switch careers (I believe guided by the Lord), but I wonder if that needed to be permanent. Is it possible that an experienced volunteer could take a year’s secondment and act as the leader of the youth ministry, while the young new youth leader learns about the job? It provides the new youth minister with a good start and gives them time to become established. This may mean the church has to help the mentor through that time.
I believe increasingly that we need men and women in their 30s and 40s committed to youth ministry. Greater maturity would produce greater depth in the young people’s lives. Training (residential or distance) could be provided. Another solution would be to ask the experienced person to cut their working week and give a day to the church (or be funded).
I hope this will provoke some discussion about the future of youth ministry. Whatever else happens, we cannot do nothing. Churches need mature youth workers to work alongside those who are younger.
