Youth Pastors Are Not Apprentices
Over at TGC, Brandon Cooper wrote an article titled Oh No! The Youth Guy is Preaching, which is a call to train up young leaders.
Now I get what he is saying, we need to train up young leaders, mentor them, encourage them, give them opportunities, etc. I am on board with that!
However, I was a little dismayed as to how he treated the role of “youth pastor.” As if it is simply the bottom rung on the ministry ladder. You know, youth pastor, then discipleship pastor, then associate pastor, then executive pastor, then senior pastor, or whatever hierarchy you have.
But, what if, the youth pastor was not the ecclesiastical scullery maid of ministry, the lowest position on the lowest pay where you start out? What if the youth pastor was instead treated as a theological and spiritual pediatrician?
I mean, you wouldn’t send your kids to a 22-year-old college student for treatment for serious mental health issues or for cancer surgery. No, you’d want someone well trained, with expertise, a true professional. Why not the same for children’s and youth ministry who are dealing with their spiritual health, childhood, and adolescents?
Children and youth pastors are not babysitters, not teacher aides, they help parents grow and guide their children in the way of Jesus Christ. They make disciples and nurture curious minds and vulnerable hearts on the gospel.
If so many kids, tweens, teens, and young adults are leaving the church, maybe it is because we’ve treated children and youth ministry as an afterthought rather than one of THE MOST important missions of the church to our own kids.
Get a children’s and youth pastor who is trained as a children’s and youth pastor.
Make it a specialist and professional role with a long-term plan.
Pay them like you would pay a senior associate pastor (pay chicken feed, you’ll get chickens).
Resource them with what they need to do their work, to train youth leaders, to work with parents.
Make children’s and youth ministry a priority in terms of strategic plan, staffing, budget, and prayer.
If not, then our churches will be nothing more than funeral services for boomers.
If you want to know more connecting with other children’s and youth pastors in a network of people who are kind of dedicated to this profession for the long term, then check out Ridley’s Centre for Children’s and Youth Ministry.
Such a needed take, Mike. Thanks for this. As a youth pastor for 7 years and now lead pastor, I can say with some certainty that youth pastors should probably be some of the highest paid people on a church staff. I like what Marc Cortez says about his journey as a theological anthropologist: it all started for him as a youth pastor. "What does it mean to be human?" = THE question du jour for the teens/20s I know (three of whom live under my roof, and soon to be four!). A theological anthropology degree is really a youth ministry degree.
We recently celebrated the retirement of our youth pastor after 44 years as a youth pastor. The number of kids (and adult workers) that he mentored during that time is large. He led 13 or more summer bike rides of 6-700 miles, one with 100 kids and adults (including the logistics crew), did countless hikes and canoe trips, enlisted adults and college students to lead “D-Groups” to disciple the kids for their entire time in the youth group, and raised funds (with lots of help from kids and adults) to fund all that! Now that he is retiring, he will be taking on a part time job as Pastor to Seniors Adults. He had opportunities to “move up”, and always turned them down.
We know what we have had. We threw a big (for us) party for him when he retired, and made the front page of our local small town paper.
There is almost no one else like him anywhere in our denomination.