Youth Ministry Minute: 5 Questions

Awhile back a very nice and persistent and responsible writer for YouthWorker Journal—sometimes referred to as our “competitor” magazine—asked if I’d be willing to answer a few questions for a big article they were planning called “Starting Well, Ending Well.” They planned to interview 12 youth ministry veterans for the article, and asked me to be one of them. Of course, I told them I would do it, and then I promptly blew right past my deadline (don’t try this at home, you GROUP writers).

By the time I’d written my responses to the five questions they sent me, it was just too late to include them in the article. So in the interests of scientifically proving the whole lemons-into-lemonade theorem, I’m inflicting my answers to these questions on…you.

1. What do young leaders most need to succeed as they start out in youth ministry?

My Answer:They need to listen more than they talk. They need to actively search out veterans in their area—people whose ministries they respect—then buy coffee for a few of them and spend an hour picking their brains. They need to remind themselves, over and over and over, that their primary ministry is to their families. I’ve heard too many stories to count over the years about young leaders who learn the hard way that “gaining the whole world” is not worth “losing your life.”

And as hard as it will be to do this, they need to prioritize their deepening relationship with Jesus over everything else. A simple and regular way to do this is to read the gospels all the time, stopping to ask themselves this question whenever they’ve read a chunk of scripture about Jesus (I call this the “Oprah Question” because she uses a broader version of it on her show and in her magazine): “What’s one thing I know for sure about Jesus, based on this passage?”

2. What makes for long-term service and success?

My Answer:Healthy relationships and (here it is again) an always-deepening relationship with Jesus. The most important ministry relationship is the one they’ll build with their senior pastor, closely followed by the relationships they develop with the parents of their teenagers, closely followed by their connection to their adult leaders. If these relationships (Jesus, senior pastor, parents, volunteers) are growing and healthy, the chances of long-term service in your current church go way up, and longevity in ministry to teenagers (at one place) tends to bear incredible fruit.

3. What is one perennial problem that all youth workers face, and how can they address it?

My Answer:developing adult leaders for their ministry. I think the best way to address this is to shift your focus from simply recruiting and equipping adult leaders to developing a pastoral relationship with them—literally becoming their primary pastoral influence. The shift is from seeing them as crucial cogs in your machine to treating them as your primary ministry focus.

4. During your decades in youth ministry, what developments have encouraged you? And what developments concern you?

My Answer:I’m encouraged by the almost-universal admission that family ministry (ministry that partners with parents instead of competes with them) and missions (workcamps, service, and evangelism) are now part of the meat-and-potatoes of youth ministry. I’m concerned by the universal assumption that we pretty much know who Jesus is already, and therefore are free to shift our attention to topics that seem (outwardly) more interesting to teenagers.

5.  How has publishing/curriculum changed over the time you’ve been involved?

My Answer:Pretty much everything about the resourcing of youth ministry has changed radically since I became editor of GROUP 23 years ago. When I started, I had to scrounge for good ideas and relied on a relatively small pool of youth workers to feed me great stuff for the magazine. Now my hardest job is picking from a menu of great ideas from a vast array of youth ministry veterans. Youth ministry has grown up, and there are many, many youth pastors who have the wisdom, experience, and savvy to offer great advice and ideas to their peers. ◊

Rick has been editor of GROUP for 23 years, and this is not the first time he’s missed a deadline.