A friend of mine is leaving his youth ministry to attend seminary and asked this question on the Facebook group, Youth Pastors Only: As I prepare for a transition in the next month and a half, do any of you have advice for what I can do to “leave well?” I feel that I can relate to this question due to my recent transition from my former ministry in Texas to where I am now in Minnesota.

As I prepare for a transition in the next month and a half, do any of you have advice for what I can do to “leave well?”

Here’s my response:

1. Don’t make promises you won’t/can’t/shouldn’t keep. For example, “I’ll come back and visit you guys” or “You can still call me whenever you want.” Students will cling to these statements emotionally and be hurt again in the future when they’re not fulfilled. If you’re planning to visit again next year on vacation or something, that’s fine, but don’t tell them just so they’ll feel better. Do your best to make it a clean break for the sake of the ministry and the next person who takes the position.

2. Decide which of your responsibilities MUST continue and delegate them to volunteers. If you have the time, take a week or two to overlap your involvement in these areas to ensure a smooth transition.

3. Listen to everyone. There will be so many different responses to your departure. What’s important is not that you address every concern (or relief!), but that everyone feels that you’ve heard their voice and feel that its respected and valued.

4. Once you leave, it’s hands off. Don’t contact people to see if you’re missed or entertain those who contact you to continue with some follow-up work or complaints. And when a new person takes over and students contact you about how it’s different (because it will be), always encourage them to be positive and support the new leader.

5. Never bad-talk anyone, especially if you’re leaving with tension. You don’t have to support various decisions and people, but don’t tear the ministry apart even further just so you feel like you’ve had the final say and got your revenge. Leave with grace.

I’m going to be honest: every item I list here is based on tendencies I’ve noticed in myself over the past several months. If you’re a regular reader of my blog, maybe you’ve even noticed some of them pop up in my previous writings. When I take a step back and write about it, it’s so easy to see how foolish I am. Burning out in ministry is not a sudden event in time that will take me by surprise, like a bursting firecracker on the 4th of July. Instead, it’s a slow process over time, like holding a burning match. If I’m not careful these things will eventually creep up on me, burn me, and render my leadership useless.

I doubt I’m alone in this. Here’s how you and I will crash and burn-out in ministry:

1. Ignore spending time in the Word and in prayer. Ministry is easy — you can do it all in your own strength. It shouldn’t be based on God anyway. Spend all your time teaching others how to develop their relationship with God instead.

2. Accept responsibility for everything. Say “yes” to whatever is asked of you and your time. It doesn’t matter if it could easily be handled by a volunteer, take it on anyway because you’re the guy they pay to do it. Besides, there may be no one else willing or available to do it besides you, which obviously indicates how important it is to everyone else.

3. Become emotionally attached to every situation. Whenever someone has a need, be the first to jump in, provide all the emotional support they need and rescue them from the problem. After all, everyone needs a savior.

4. Always serve God in ministry. This is so important that you must sacrifice all personal down-time and fill it with good things like meetings, events, Bible studies, evangelism, mission trips, prayer groups, small groups, and knitting groups.

5. Attempt to control everything. Control all the planning, the results, the future, the people, the workplace, the weather and God. You are the sustainer of the ministry on whom it is all built. If you take your eyes off of any of anything it will collapse and fail miserably.

6. Base your self-worth on the “success” of your ministry. You’re investing your life into this ministry thing! How it grows and flourishes indicates how important you are and how pleased God is with your labor. If your ministry is struggling, there must be something wrong with you.

7. Feed spiritual consumerism. So-and-so left the church and is attending the “mega-church” down the street because they have a better youth ministry. Now you need to quickly compete by offering the same programs but better. Otherwise, the entire congregation will migrate and leave you out of a job.

8. Focus your ministry on programs. This may come as a result of #7. Remember that vision and relationships are secondary to programming. Look at Jesus for example: His ministry was all about getting things done, not about growing disciples through relationships or communicating His vision for the world.

9. Dwell on all the problems. So it turns out that your ministry is the only one in the world that isn’t perfect. Let it consume your thoughts, your heart and your emotions. It’s important to focus on internal problems so there’s no time left to reach the lost souls that are dying all around.

10. Avoid transparency at all costs. Vulnerability brings the potential for rejection, criticism, and people losing respect for you. As a church leader, everyone must think you’re perfect, strong and invincible. Otherwise, the perfect people in your church will have no reason to follow you.

11. Focus only on what’s in front of you. Dreaming a huge vision for the future only makes people feel uncomfortable, probably because of item #5. Passion can become contagious and take the ministry in scary and risky directions, so it’s best to avoid these dreams altogether. It’s always safer to wander aimlessly by staring at your feet than it is to walk toward God’s beautiful horizon and risk tripping.

I talked with almost 40 churches over the past several months before taking the youth ministry position in Minnesota. Several reoccurring themes seemed to keep popping up as I asked questions and learned more about each church and their ministry.

First, most churches do not have a strong sense of where God is leading them. Instead of seeking God’s vision for their congregation and community, they steal God’s vision for Saddleback or Willow Creek, modify it a little and say, “This is our vision.” Most churches carry the generic mission statement of “making fully devoted followers of Christ.” I’ve observed through the interviewing process that Mark Batterson’s observation is true: the more vision a church has the less internal problems it has. He says, “Most church problems are vision problems.” (A post on this is coming sometime next week.)

Second, I like to take risks and experiment with ministry in new ways. In theory, most churches are attracted to new ideas and talk a lot about innovative plans, but few actually feel comfortable implementing them in practice. They feel safe and comfortable with how things have been running for the past 50 years. They’re more concerned with not offending anyone and eliminating controversy than they are about reaching lost souls.

Finally, many churches are content to coast on success they had years ago rather than continuing to pursue it for this current year. I heard lots of stories about big events and ministry ideas that were implemented and left a big impact on the community, but they were never repeated or improved upon. Discussion seems to stop at, “Wow, look what we did! That was so cool!” and they’ll tell their one story for years to come.

Ally Moody of Gainsville, Texas contacted me by e-mail asking how I deal with the pressures of church leadership. Here’s what works for me:

1. Spending time in the Word and in prayer. I don’t see how people can make it in ministry by only depending on their own strength, their own “wisdom,” and their own vision. Christ must be our focus.
2. Earn the trust and respect of the congregation. If you’ve invested into building trust through all the little things, when the big issues come up they don’t tend to explode as easily.
3. Develop relationships with church leadership. Know the team in which God has placed you and learn to work together in all areas of ministry, not just in your individual areas of responsibility. When pressure comes, it’s a lot easier when their support and understanding is already in place.
4. Learn to say “no.” Setting boundaries is vital not only for maintaining a healthy personal life, but for maintaining a positive view of ministry. It’s easy to work and work and feel so overwhelmed and stressed by it all because there’s always more to do.
5. Maintain an accurate perspective of ministry. God doesn’t need you to take care of His ministry, He only chooses to use you as a vessel. So don’t feel like the ministry belongs to you or depends on you. The people ultimately belong to God and He can take care of them with or without your involvement.
6. Know your vision and communicate it clearly and often. People naturally rally behind those who have a vision and are developing a strategy to accomplish it. Don’t get so focused on all the little details that you lose sight of the big picture because if you do, those following you will, too, and suddenly no one knows where they’re going.

How do you handle the pressure of church leadership?

P.S. A good healthy dose of video games usually helps relieve pressure, too.
[Suggest a topic, a question or buzz to cover. If I write about it, you'll get credit with a link in the post.]

Unfortunately, a previous video I posted on this topic no longer seems to be available, which is a shame because it was excellent. So, here’s another video that might be good to use with a youth group greeting team instead.

[youtube]A6rDteQIrKE[/youtube]

Here’s a summary list of every issue in youth ministry that’s been mentioned by one of the series contributors. Whew! There certainly are a lot of issues that need to be addressed.

Discuss: Which of these issues apply specifically to your youth ministry? What changes can you make to address them in 2007?

What do you see as some of the main issues youth ministry is struggling with today?

• Students are under a tremendous amount of stress and pressure.
• It is vital that we remind them constantly that Jesus needs to have first priority in their lives and that He holds their future in His hands. Students are so busy and God and church is not always the #1 priority.
• We need students to be global Christians.
• The idea of godly sexuality for all people needs to be put back on the agenda.
• Mental health.
• The whole question of “church” is becoming more and more of a struggle for youth ministry.
• Professional youth pastors and senior pastors looking for job security.
• This generation is facing identity issues, sexuality issues, authority issues, and vocation/purpose issues, but in a much more intense, aggressive, combative, pluralistic context.
• Discipleship and teaching students to grow on their own.
• Retention after graduation.
• Engaging parents.
• Cultural relevance. The Church is often reluctant to change sufficiently to genuinely include the young people.
• Defining Success.
• Recruiting and training adult volunteers to be effective.
• Presenting God as the right and better choice over pop culture.
• A lack of understanding of youth culture and no desire to learn it.
• We’re spending so much time trying to keep the ones we have that we are not reaching the lost.
• The church leadership believes there are only a couple of kids caught up in major issues and the rest of the kids are great, god fearing and perfect.
• Employed Christian youth workers are only deployed where there are churches with significant financial resources, meaning deployment is based on money not need.
• The “dumbing down” of programs because of the myth that junior high students cannot go “deep.”
• Connections between people and real community.
• We should be focusing more on is inner-city and “fringe” type of neighborhoods and young people.
• The issue of personal holiness, from youth ministers to parents to students. Our calling should be to BE children of God and pant after Him so that teens can see HIS power in our lives.
• Apathy of the “cradle-Christian” student.
• Not enough long term funding or funding in general.
• The church allows the youth to be isolated, and sometimes they want the youth isolated, which is anything but unifying for the church.
• Viewing youth ministry as a stepping-stone to becoming a Sr. Pastor, as if it’s important to practice ministry on “little people” before being qualified to work with “real people.”

What do you see as some of the main issues youth ministry is responding to effectively?

• Loving teens and connecting with them in their world.
• The call to missions.
• Youth ministry is attempting to address the same issues that the adult church may be after, but the amazing thing is that there is more of a willingness to experiment.
• Provides a safe place for hurting students. We are responding to the deep-seated hurts of teenagers in more effective ways than ever.
• Giving students time and space to be in community with each other.
• A desire to do ministry outside of the church and where kids are.
• Youth ministry allows young people to encounter adults (and young people) who seek to live a 24/7 faith and model a life that’s Christ centered and counter cultural.

In what ways does youth ministry need to change?

• We need to make sure we’re taking our young people deeper into their faith. But not just in Bible studies, but in their experience of mission, church, worship and so on.
• Students need to be IN ministry and not just the recipient of it. If students don’t lead they’ll leave. We need to believe in students and their ability to minister effectively to their peers.
• Relational-driven is more work and less to show…at first.
• Do your deal, follow Jesus, create this environment in the student ministry IF YOU CAN. If you can’t - shut up and leave and find a place where you can if it’s that important to you.
• Less reliance on programs.
• Less “next big thing” thinking.
• Less trendy, fad, youth workers.
• Longevity. Finding a way to keep youth pastors and leader in their positions for the long haul.
• Youth ministers need to adopt more of a “Family Ministry” rather than a “Youth Ministry.” Parents need to be central to the process of our teenagers’ spiritual formation and not disengaged bystanders.
• Emotional health.
• We need to have a plan for when the kids arrive in 6th grade they graduate high school knowing the fundamentals of scripture while at the same time encountering God rather than just being taught facts about Him.
• Plug students into the greater body of Christ.
• Church leaders need to understand what youth pastors are facing and stand with them in a major way.
• Giving opportunity to live faith not just hear about it.
• There is a pretty big void when it comes to Junior High Ministry Curriculum.
• Starting where young people are instead of where we want them to be.
• Student ministry needs to change first in the heart of Lead and Senior pastors across America.

[Read previous authors and posts in this series, "Issues in youth ministry."]

“Let no one despise you for your youth…” (1 Tim. 4:12a).

I am a young pastor (26 years old) and have found that my peers in ministry often throw this verse around in order to justify themselves when any type of criticism comes their way. Rather than heeding advice from those older and wiser, they let wise input bounce right off with this verse in mind. They think, “The church elders are just looking down on me because I’m young, but scripture says I shouldn’t let them despise me, so I’m right, they’re wrong.” This attitude is so dangerous and feeds arrogance like nothing else. As a young pastor, the balance to this passage is knowing the difference between legitimate criticism and illegitimate criticism, heeding what’s said with wisdom and respectfully disregarding what’s not.

What do you see as some of the main issues youth ministry is struggling with today?

I think the biggest challenge for youth ministry today is a church that just doesn’t get it. I am not saying the youth leaders do not get it but the leadership of the church has missed where this generation is at or if they get it they are afraid they’ll rock the boat. A while back I sat down with the main youth leaders of a Northern city. About twenty some youth pastors and I had the chance to really talk over lunch. I gave them my insight as to where this generation was at and the issue’s they were struggling with. I was surprised that a few didn’t know what teens where struggling with, but I was even more surprised when I heard this statement over and over again, “I know what kids are facing, but my leadership has said I cannot talk about self-injury, suicide, sex, eating disorders, porn, etc., because I’ll hurt the good kids that are not into this type of thing. If I talk about what is really going on they will fire me.” The leadership believes that there are only a couple of kids caught up in major issues and the rest of the kids are great, god fearing and perfect. As most of you know, most of the kids have major issues in their lives. That doesn’t mean they are not good kids, it means that some how, through the home, school or just the world in general they have been hurt. Until the leaders give our youth workers the tools they need, youth ministry will always be a step behind. If we are a step behind, the church is not relevant and if the church isn’t relevant why would a student continue with church after high school?

In what ways does youth ministry need to change?

I think in the area of discipleship and walking with kids more then once a week. I am finding more and more church kids and college students from Christian Universities that have no clue as to who they are in Christ. They are allowing their sin to dictate who they are and that simply is not correct. When I am able to sit down with them and show them their identity in Christ they are blown away. They are not sure what to say when I show them that they are a saint. I told one kid that they were not a porn addict but a saint who struggled with porn. Once you can remove the sin from their identity they are able to use God’s power to be set free. This takes a lot of time. How does a youth pastor do this? It could even become overwhelming if they had ten kids [in their youth group] wanting this kind of an impact on their life much less [groups that] have 40, 50, 100 or more students. Again, it comes down to the leadership at the top wanting to provide the recourses. In most churches the money can be raised and adults could volunteer to help the youth pastor reach students on a much deeper basis. My prayer is for the leaders of our churches to understand what youth pastors are facing and standing with them in a major way. The only way we can meet the intense needs our kids are facing is for the whole church to war for them. Yes, there needs to be changes in youth ministry but even more so the church has to be willing to fight for their kids, not just the youth department.

Bill Scott is the founder of Zjam Youth Ministries and Teenhopeline.com, a place where hurting teenagers can go to talk with live volunteers about whatever issues they’re going through in life.

[Read previous authors and posts in this series, "Issues in youth ministry."]

[tags]Bill Scott, Zjam, Teenhopeline[/tags]

The youth worker who got me hooked on youth ministry back in high school is now a missionary to students in China. Yesterday I got his monthly newsletter, which contains the following paragraph:

“Our #1 challenge in this culture [is] the availability of new believers for discipleship, and then involving them in a local church. Kids’ lives revolve around prep for the college entrance exam. Only 2% ‘pass.’ The other 98% feel their future is lost. Some commit suicide over the results. So, there are no sports teams, marching bands, cheer leading squads, or drama clubs. It’s all academics, pure and simple, 7am-5pm, with extra weekend classes. Kids fear spending their time in any other way but studying.”

Wow. I don’t think I can even imagine students who fear doing anything else but studying. That’s crazy! It seems to me that most American teenagers generally seem to be kinda apathetic toward education (as described by one of my youth group students). Most students I know would skip school in a heart-beat if given the chance. I don’t think apathy should be students’ response to education, but neither should fear.

If school, for whatever reasons, seems to generate a sense of apathy toward education, why do we adopt this model in Christian education and call it “Sunday school?” Certainly we don’t want to replicate the same “school attitude” in our churches. Even preaching and teaching can sometimes feel like a classroom lecture in a fancy auditorium. If people mentally check out during classroom time in school, maybe the church should find or develop a more effective model for our weekly programming. I want to see students studying scripture as fervently as Chinese students study academics, but with a holy and reverent fear, not an insecure fear.

Our current approach to Christian education can’t possibly be the best we can do.

Hmm… Our interim pastor just called me and said that the guest speaker for Sunday had to cancel due to some scheduling conflicts and asked if I’d be willing to take over the pulpit. I don’t mind helping out, but I don’t really have a ready-to-go game-plan in mind either. Since I’m not really an auditory learner myself, I’d like to do something out of the ordinary that’s maybe a little interactive (kinesthetic). Plus, it’s a very full service so I only have about 20 minutes or so. Hmm… Any ideas?

[tags]preaching[/tags]