In addition to this, in our part of Utah we are blessed to have a network of youth workers who work together on a lot of different projects. It's run by a very faithful veteran of YM who's spent much of his career at one church in our area, and the network joins together for a lot of different events. Our church isn't involved in every single event, but in the past year, we've done four of our twelve monthly events with other churches in our area, rather than going at it solo.
Now, this doesn't mean we agree on everything in terms of philosophy of ministry and theology. But we all have a passion for teenagers and their families knowing Jesus in a real, transformative way. And that's what keeps us together.
Here's a question: why doesn't the broader church do a better job of this? In general, it seems to me that youth workers are far less territorial than other ministry leaders. Now, we're far from perfect. I've have heard a few horror stories about youth workers being territorial, and we do have a considerable distance to go. But I'd say that in many ways, we're leading the way in terms of putting aside secondary differences and egos for the sake of teenagers knowing Jesus. Am I off base? What do you think?
