We love teenagers, but we love you, their adult leaders, also! You are the ones God uses to make a spiritual difference in their lives throughout their adolescent years and often even into adulthood.

We know what it’s like to have a passion to reach students, but to have little resources for training, encouragement, ideas and support, often while working a secular part-time or full-time job. That’s why we started this mentorship — to give you the training and support you need as you progress through your first 2 years of youth ministry free of charge. Please allow us to just bless you for all your hard work and dedication to teeangers.

Focus of the Mentorship

The mentorship focuses on three major areas. You and your mentor will talk about all three. Risking some vulnerability may be appropriate, but you can rest assured that your mentor cares about you and only wants to see you excel in each area.

• Ministry growth
• Spiritual growth
• Personal growth

It is impossible to truly grow in ministry without growing in your relationship with Christ. Since your personal growth also determines what you do and the decisions you make in ministry, growth in all three are necessary and intertwined.

Length of the Mentorship

The duration of the mentorship is 10 weeks. Each week you’ll have a one-on-one phone conversation with your mentor for about an hour or so. Have fun!

Goals for the Mentorship

Your mentor will explore your personal goals and expectations for the mentorship and discuss ways you can meet two or three of them through your time together. Here are our three main goals for you:

• That you would receive encouragement, training, and advice about ministry to middle school and high school students.
• That you would be challenged on a personal level in character development.
• That you would know God more intimately.

Required Reading

Everyone in the program will read these two books. Reading assignments are made by the mentor after your needs and goals for the mentorship are established. Both of these books will be shipped to you free of charge, but you are responsible for purchasing any other books your mentor suggests for your 10 weeks together.

• Your First Two Years in Youth Ministry, by Doug Fields
• Ministry Mutiny: A Youth Leader Fable, by Greg Stier

Cost

Again, because we want to serve you in every way possible, this mentorship is provided to you free of charge. Our team of mentors receives no compensation for the time they invest into you. We do it because we believe in you and the teenagers you’ll impact for Christ as a result of our brief time together. Changing kids’ lives for eternity can have no price tag.

The books above are made available to those accepted into the mentorship program at no cost thanks to our friends at YouthBytes.org. Their generous sponsorship of this program ensures that everyone goes through with absolutely no expense. Please visit their site and check out their fun and crazy youth video curriculum DVDs.

The Team

There are 10 incredible youth ministry veterans on board who are passionate about training and encouraging you one-on-one. Their backgrounds range from youth ministry volunteer work to full-time paid youth pastors to even a sr. pastor. See more about the mentor team.

Apply for the Mentorship: Sept. 14 to Nov. 16, 2008

This youth ministry mentorship is open to any youth worker, volunteer or paid, of any age and any denomination who has been in youth ministry for 2 years or less. However, please understand that we receive hundreds of applications and cannot possibly fulfill them all. We will be in touch with you via email shortly after this application period ends. If you’re not accepted, please keep your eye on Life In Student Ministry for when the next round of mentorship applications opens up.

The mentorship will start the week of September 14, 2008, and end the week of November 16, 2008, or shortly thereafter.

Apply here to be mentored