Yesterday I was reading Doug Fields Blog about a guy who had recently been fired from his youth ministry. It got me thinking that in many cases I know of people have been fired or lost their jobs in youth ministry because they didn’t line up with some expectations that others have about who they should be and what they should be doing.
As I talked to a few friends I realized that many of the expectations that are placed on youth workers are really not very fair to them and are actually false realities of what it means to be effective in ministering to teens and families.
So today I took a stab at writing out 10 topics that I think are false realities that some people think are “requirements” of begin a youth worker. I’m sure that there are more than 10 and the readers of this blog might add some to the comments which might modify this list a bit. But here’s my 10 for today.
- You must be with students 24/7
- You must be young
- You must be single
- You must be irresponsible and fly by the Seat of your Pants.
- You must be theologically trained
- You must be an extrovert
- You must a great upfront communicator
- You must be wild and crazy and a kid magnet
- You must be willing to be poor
- You must want to be a “real” pastor some day
Great List…I’m looking forward to seeing how you expand on 5 and 10.
Another one: You must attend (and lead) all youth ministry events/activities.