a leader in crisis: I want to quit

What do you do if you parents get joy from bashing you?

I have been in youth ministry for years, mainly as a volunteer. I am now and have been for 4 1/2 years in a paid position. I am at a small European American church . I am an African American female. I love my kids and i love how much they love me, it just gets so frustrating when all everyone sees is numbers. I would rather have a group of 12 youth who want to be here and want to know God , rather than 50 youth here and I am continually disciplining 30 of them. Because this only causes the one's who want a relationship with the Lord to leave. There are many days that i ask myself why I do this, is it changing a life? And then one of my youth who has gone off to college or something will call me and tell me that I taught them something , or that something they are in mission to do is because of me. Knowing that that one person came closer to the Lord because of me, that is what it's all about.

Your article is straight to the point of every youth leader. We have alot on our shoulders. Our church has posted a youthpastor search online for a year as I was only stepping in until they found a youth leader. Turns out I have to turn in my resignation because I feel exactly like your article. Overwhelmed! As it turns out our Senior pastor will be leaving next june 2011, now the focus is on finding a Senior Pastor and not a youth leader. Please pray for a youth leader to be sent our way to carry on our youth program. I just cannot continue, but care greatly about my youth.

Craig: praying for you! Sometimes our passions change, and thats ok! (assuming this is happening while you are having a great personal spiritual life... I have to say that because I don't want people to misunderstand what I'm saying, not because I doubt you!)

Thank you for this article! It was very challenging and encouraging and very timely in my life and ministry! Thanks for all you do, God's best!

We quit! After 7 years and thousands of dollars and hours of work (including 2 NYPC paid for by us) my wife and I were blasted out of the church by people complaining that we did not take their toddlers to the Dairy Queen on Sunday nights or invite the adults to a youth concert. Our focus has always
been "fundamentals" not "fun" (though we do include fun to a degree). After several months of badgering and some very unpleasant remarks, we decided to leave. This ended the youth program, destroyed 2 Sunday school classes and brought much discord to the church. Our faith was shaken but not to pieces. We are now (2 years later) working at another church maintaining a vibrant nursing home ministry and at the very beginnings of building a youth program. God has provided us with many more opportunities to serve than we could have handled before. Don't know if we will ever recover completely from the ugliness we endured from our "brothers and sisters" in Christ but we are making progress. John 2:24-25 is now our favorite Scripture. Appreciate everything you guys do. Thanks. tk---

I have really felt the pressure to throw in the towel lately. I am a veteran of over 20 years in youth ministry. I have been in my current position just under 2 years and inherited some great and not-so-great leaders. The last Youth minister left with 2 reasons for leaving. One true, he wanted a discipleship position the church would not create and he chose to leave and one not true, He was asked to leave or fired. The not true was the one he has told the students. 50% of the adult volunteers are sit in the back of the room type that will only get to know the students their teen son or daughter is associated. The adults talk about what they do not like about the youth ministry with each other and their kids, but never talk to me. And I have even spoken to them about what they thought about ideas and such, never disagreeing then only later. Our last leader's meeting all 4 of my male small group leaders decided they wanted to help in the ministry just not lead a small group. They gave excuses of being related to someone in each group and not feeling comfortable with the students opening up to them. I only have 1 man who wants to lead a small group. I feel like a complete failure and want to leave, but every time I pray God reemphasizes that He wants me to stay. One student even wrote a letter to the pastor about what a horrible leader he thought I was. My pastor is behind me and spoke to me before he spoke to the student. He has been extremely supportive. But I cannot help feeling defeated after every meeting. Some Sundays I don't feel like going to church. That is big for me, cause I love The Church, but right now I do not like this church and what is happening. I am hurting and have no idea who I can trust. Being a female youth leader I do not get the invites and lunches to meet with other youth ministers. I think there is one other female youth minister in our town, but I do not know her. I feel like I am going through this alone. I know I have God and it is Him I talk to alot. I just need your prayers. Thank you.

I practically BEGGED my spiritual director to let me quit my job in high school youth ministry. He was guiding me through a horrible crisis - dealing with a long period of clergy abuse that began as an adolescent. I had denied it for 20 years, and by God's grace, was finally beginning to accept it. Depression, suicidal thoughts, loneliness, shame and self-hate were headlines in my life. I began to see a counselor and started taking happy pills. HORRIBLE times. I wanted to quit my job in the worst way. I couldn't focus or be cheerful and wanted to crawl in a hole and stay there. But trusting in his ability to hear God better than I at that time, I hung in there. He told me that perhaps God would use my suffering if faced with a youth in a similar position. I could also work passionately in helping them learn to keep themselves safe, which I've done. I'm glad I stayed with it. I would have always questioned leaving and staying FORCED me to focus on something other than my pain. I did not enjoy my work at that time, but grew. God used the youth ministry for His glory ... by helping me move towards my healing and possibly preventing the need for the same for our kids. (sorry this got so long)

I had parents bash me when I was on vacation, to later find out that they were nice to my face when I got back. I felt like there were knives in my back the whole time. It was stuff that was already resolved and done, but they wanted to dwell on it.

you guys and your daily newsletters have really been helping me. the past few weeks my marriage has almost fallen apart, on top of that I have been a "rut" in my ministry for almost a year. that and some...sin issues, have me really beating myself up and feeling like I shouldn't even be in ministry and why on earth would God want to use some one as messed up as me...
I have since been to counseling and gotten a mentor and joined an accountability group. I am trying to cut back and "slow down" but it's harder then it should be. partly because of your last thought, they need me! I am a the only one who does anything on our website, runs sound, and fixes the computers around here. this article has given me a lot to think/pray about. I did a lot of praying yesterday and I know God doesn't want me to quit but I am trying to figure out what kind of changes I need to make now. I know I need change I am just not sure what change God is calling me to right now...

Hello, Doug and Matt,
What can I say? I not only quit YM, but left ministry completely.
Everything you talk about in this article is right on, and I did pretty much every point you mention (more than once over the 9 years I was in full time ministry), however I believe it is very important to mention that if you do not have the support and understanding of your church or congregation as you go through this stage, it can be hell in ministry.
Of course my situation may be a little bit different, because I was a youth minister / missionary and I relied on support from many churches. But when it got to the point that I recognized I was needing to step back, re-evaluate, and seek God's direction for the next stage of ministry, the churches were not very understanding and took it as if we were loosing our faith. Which was not the case, we were just seeking clarity for what was next.
I guess we have been in the "Decide your next step" for over two years now, since we "quit" ministry. I have been feeling the call of getting back in the game, but I am still not so sure what it will look like and if church work is the way to do it.
Do not get me wrong, This time of waiting and seeking has provided time to heal and many good things have come from it.
It seems that we have been able to minister to people in a more tangible way since we "quit" ministry. So perhaps God has called me out of the "ministry" to actually minister.

I was a Youth Leader for 14 years. Every year I got excited as the new school year rolled around and a new year of youth ministry was ready to start. Then it was light a light switch someone turned "off". The excitement was gone. The desire to lead the youth ministry was gone. I pushed ahead for another year but I never got the spark back. I resigned my position and now I feel like I'm in a sort of spiritual limbo. It's definitely a wierd place to be. Has anyone else been where I am right now?

I'm kind of at that point right now. I've been in full-time student ministry for about 6 1/2 years now. I'm at a church in Indiana that runs around 150 or so...it's a smaller church. My problem is that our leaders don't seem to support what I do, there's no encouragement. I'm getting burnt out and they don't seem to care. People in our church don't want change even though we need to change what we're doing or this church will continue to disentigrate. Everyone is negative and it's just starting to wear me down. I feel like my joy of being blessed to be able to minister to teens in our church an in our community is being zapped from me. I feel like I'm going through the motions a lot of times. Any suggestions?

I am the ministry assitant to the church youth pastor. I always read your articles so that I may further assist the pastor whom I work with. Thanks so much for sharing your heart and wonderful insights!
Working together for Jesus!
Holly A. Vaughn