Dear Youth Pastor:
I had an interesting conversation with my senior pastor today. I've been in my position as the youth pastor for about a year now. He asked if he could speak with me, and so we met in his office after lunch. After a bit of chit-chat, he asked me where I thought our youth ministry was heading. More specifically, he wanted to know my dreams for what I thought our youth ministry should look like three to five years down the road. He told me that he had appreciated my leadership in the first year of my job, and he looked forward to what God had in store for our youth ministry in the coming three to five under my leadership.
Three to five years?
THREE TO FIVE YEARS???
I've already put a year of my life into being a youth pastor at this church. When you combine it with my job at my last church, I've already paid over two and a half years worth of dues as a youth pastor. TWO AND A HALF YEARS! I thought for sure I was getting close to a better position in our church, and eventually a senior pastor position somewhere. What should I do?
Sincerely,
Distraught in Delaware
Distraught:
Your frustration is apparent--and understandable. After all, we all know that the only reason anyone would want to do youth ministry is to bide one's time, waiting for a higher position in that church or somewhere else. If a youth pastor plays his cards right, he will only have to work with teenagers for nine or eighteen months--tops! Then, he can leave youth ministry far behind, talking to teenagers as little as possible for the rest of his career. To make sure you get to that point as soon as possible, here are some things you can do:
Fabricate as much "success" in your youth ministry as possible. Everyone knows that one of the most important purposes of youth ministry is to test pastors (and potential pastors) to see if they are ready for "the big time." It's kind of like a laboratory to try people out in a place where they can't screw too much stuff (or people) up, because teenagers will generally turn out fine and turn into responsible, God-fearing citizens as long as we keep them occupied and away from the opposite sex for most of their adolescence. So, try to tout as much of your own success as possible as a youth leader, making sure the Decision-Makers know that you are ready for the next step.
Focus on impressing the elder board's teenagers. If you want to spend as little time in youth ministry as possible, you need to know who your audience is. If you can get the children of the important people in the church to like you and tell their parents how great you are, you'll get out of youth ministry that much quicker.
Spend as much time "playing up" as possible. It's important that you don't actually spend much time doing youth ministry. Instead, get ready for your next position by "playing up" and doing big-kid pastoral stuff. After all, if you're just going to be leaving your youth ministry position for a better job in a few months, you don't really have to worry about whether things are going well in your youth ministry. As long as you provide enough fluff to keep the teenagers entertained, no one is going to notice that there's no real discipleship going on.
I hope this helps, and I hope that for you, youth ministry will be right where it belongs: in the rear view mirror.
Sincerely,
Youth Pastor
Dear Youth Pastor is a public service to the good people who read this blog, and letters are published every Thursday. To ask Youth Pastor a question, just email him at DearYouthPastor@hotmail.com.
