What I've Learned Doing Youth Ministry In a Smaller Church

In 2003, I began working at a medium-sized church, about 400 people on a Sunday. (Note: normally I avoid specific discussion about attendance numbers, but the post just didn't make a lot of sense when I wrote it without them.) It was my first experience heading up a youth ministry. In 2006, I resigned my position at that church to be able to continue my seminary education full-time (the position had grown to full-time, and I decided to pass the mantle rather than take longer to complete seminary). For the next three years, I served at a smaller (about 100-120 on a Sunday) and admittedly dying church. When a church split accelerated the congregation's demise, my wife and I moved to Utah in 2009 where I had accepted a youth ministry position at The Heights Community (average attendance: 1,800).

In almost ten short years, I have served in three very different churches. That experience has taught me a lot, including the fact that there are a lot of great things about serving in a smaller church and a lot of great things about serving in a larger church. Today and tomorrow, I'll cover what serving in a smaller church setting has taught me about being a youth pastor in a larger church, as well as what I've learned from being in a larger setting that I wish I knew when I served in a small church. (UPDATE: You can read the follow-up post here.)


What I've Learned Doing Youth Ministry In a Smaller Church:

Knowing parents is important. Most youth workers I know give at least lip service to the idea that parents are the most important influence in a teenager's life, but if you don't know (and interact with) the parents of the teenagers you're working with, you don't really believe in ministering to parents. Obviously, a youth pastor can't work closely with every parent. But in the routine of being on staff at a larger church, it's easy for ministry to and with parents to get pushed to the margins. Parents are more important than that.

Unstructured time is great ministry time. When fewer students are a part of a youth ministry, there tends to be a lot more room for unstructured time at events and at youth group. In a lot of ways, the best ministry tends to happen in the moments when we didn't plan on anything happening. When more students are involved, there is more need for tighter planning, simply because of the logistics involved (transportation, lodging for retreats and trips, etc.). My desire for control often makes more over-schedule events, rather than allowing time for students to just hang out.

Students need to be known. When I served in a small church, I knew every student, their parents, the friends they were praying for, and the struggles they were going through. Even in a small church, it wasn't possible for me to spend tons of time with everyone, but I knew just about every family on a meaningful level. In a larger setting, this just isn't possible. In a larger church setting, there needs to be a way for teenagers to be known by loving adults, whether that vehicle is small groups, mentoring, or serving outside the youth ministry with adults.

Tomorrow, I'll share what I've learned doing youth ministry in a larger church.

QUESTION: What do you think smaller churches have to teach larger churches about youth ministry?

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