This is one of the unfair pigeonholes that Youth Pastor get labeled with. Yes it’s probably true that some of us have had moments where we’ve not been as prepared as we need to be but as a whole I’ve found most Youth Workers to be some of the most responsible people I know.
So why are we unfairly labeled? Well let’s think about it for a second. We work with teenagers who sometimes are not always the most stable people themselves. They often change thoughts and personalities really quickly and we’re doing our best to change and modify things to continue to reach them. When we have to change things up and make quick decisions we are sometimes looked at as not having a plan or being very organized.
I’m trying to think of another career that gives a young person as much responsibility as that of being a Youth Minister. There are just so many facets to doing youth ministry that it is often difficult to be trained for all of it.
But, if you want to figure out a way to remain in youth ministry for a long time you do need to make sure that this perception is not what people at your church think of you. Here’s a small list though of ways you can be perceived as more responsible.
1. Communicate the right message to parents multiple ways. I would go so far as to say over communicate everything. Parents and other adults will complain when they feel like they don’t know what’s going on but if you are constantly keeping them in the loop they will complain less.
2. Have backup plans and contingency plans for everything. I used to do a lot of training in this area with my teams (probably should start again) where I would simply ask questions about their upcoming trips and events and I’d throw out things like: your van has a flat tire what do you do? Making sure that you know how to solve problems that might come up goes a long way towards having people think you are responsible.
3. Have a team of parents (committee) that know everything. I had a trip once where something when wrong and the first thing I did was to call a couple key parents and explain everything to them so they could answer questions. That way they could be a firewall and advocate for me and I could direct other people to talk to them. It really helps if you have have some of those parents on trips with you too. One other thing I do is to run all details by parents before we do something. Seems tedious but in general my parent committees think about things I don’t. They know when things are happening at the school and can think about potential conflicts. They also do a great job of helping think through prices and details. As an example we were doing a houseboat trip this summer and had though about doing it on a lake pretty close to the Mexican border. I asked my committee what they thought and they were all against it so we found another lake in Arkansas and it ended up looking like we made a great responsible and wise decision.
4. Plan everything way in advance- Today I’m having a couple of meetings to talk about summer 2012. My goal is to always out plan parents and not surprise them with dates. So in 3 weeks we are presenting them with all of our 2012 calendar so that they can plan their lives and vacations around our plans. I often find that this kind of planning actually helps us be more flexible than less. I present the calendar to a bunch of parents and let them figure out the problems with it before we officially release it.
5. Have at least one older person with you always- This isn’t going to sound very fair and I fully expect a little backlash but the reality is that many people still equate age with wisdom. I just got back from a trip to Israel where my whole HS team led a bunch of families on an amazing experience. The oldest paid staff on my hs team is currently 25. I didn’t have much role on the trip expect supporting and encouraging them. It’s helpful now too that I have kids that are almost in the youth group so parents just treat me a little different. I don’t think I ever stepped in and took leadership away from my younger staff. But I was just there in case they needed me. I want to be very clear to my younger youth worker friends and make sure you know that I feel that the role of the older person is not to take over leadership but simply to support you and be your biggest advocate.
6. Ask for feedback- Not always easy but super helpful. After an event, retreat, camp, missions project give people opportunities to share what they thought. You will likely find a nugget of wisdom from many different sources. Write up all that you hear and use it as a reference when you plan the trip next year. Since we are talking about “perception” in this post ask people what they think. Use that to help break any negative cycle.
7. Be on time for everything and look responsible when you get there. This is a huge pet peeve of mine. You will never break any cycle if you are always late and look like a teenager when you get there. I work at a large church with weekly large all staff chapels and staff meetings. I tell my staff that these are the only 2 meetings each week that the rest of the church will form their opinions about them. Be wise how you present yourself.
There you go. I purposefully chose to stay away from the areas like. 1. Don’t dress like a teenager. 2. Don’t ride a skateboard to work. 3. Don’t wear a “Slayer” t-shirt to church staff meetings. 4. Don’t respond to angry e-mails with more anger. 5. Don’t take the sides of students against their parents and a million other things you could do that make you look irresponsible.
Here’s a question. What are a few tips you’ve learned to break the perception issue?
Youth Ministry Falsehoods.
- You must be with students 24/7
- You must be young
- You must be single/married
- 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
Would I qualify as the older person?
Old guys Rule