This is what kills me about churches & youth ministry

I have a heart for youth ministry and especially youth ministers.  I cringe when I hear of wrongs being done to youth pastors, especially when their only fault is wanting to do Gods work.


The following is a job posting from a church in Missouri that is looking for a new youth pastor.

WEEKLY SCHEDULE IS BASED ON A 15 HOUR WORK WEEK 1This will include being present at ALL worship services, Sunday School hour, and Wednesday Eve activities. Anytime the church is open to the public, the Youth Director will be there to meet and connect with youth. Consult with the pastor on plans and activities, in order to coordinate with the church calendar. Submit monthly report to the pastor by the first of each month. Attend monthly Ministry Team Meetings. Prepare and lead weekly IGNITE meetings. Coordinate and schedule outside youth events. Plan and coordinate, and lead yearly mission trips. Coordinate with Sunday School teachers to oversee curriculum. Maintain regular correspondence with youth and parents regarding upcoming events and scheduling. Visitation to the youth as needed. Help to identify and encourage youth to consider full time professional service to Christ and His church. Recruit volunteers to assist in meetings and events. Must make sure that all volunteers are Safe Sanctuary Certified. Other duties assigned by Pastor. APPLICANT REQUIREMENTS This person must be a member of the United Methodist Church. This person should have experience leading youth, and youth activities. This person must be a role model for our youth. They must maintain a strong Christian character in all aspects of their lives. They must demonstrate a close relationship with God through personal devotion, worship, and prayer. This person must be passionate about youth. This person must be energetic, a self-starter, and encourager, and a visionary. This person must feel comfortable addressing small as well as large groups. This person must be comfortable sharing the Christian faith and the United Methodist understanding with both Christian and unchurched children and youth.

Before I go on, I do not know this church or their situation.  This church can have a big heart and only want to do what is right.  They may not have that much money and this is all they can offer.  I get all that but it doesn't change the rest of the blog.  


Now, in case you didn't catch the problem.  The hours they want to pay a youth pastor is only 15 per week but the work is really a full-time job.  They want them to be at all church services which is about 5 hours alone and then do the rest of the job description on top of that.  The sad part is, I know the church isn't trying to hurt the incoming youth pastor.  They are like any other church and want t reach youth.  The problem is that they want to pay the bare minimum and get the same as a full-person.  The sadder part, is that some poor person will get this position and will eventually burn out.  If they church is lucky, they will find someone who is coming in with their eyes open and willing to give more time than is being requested.  but more than likely, not.  This position will 
probably be available in a year or so because whoever is hired will burn out fast.


So, how can this be fixed.  Here are a couple of my thoughts for the church:

1. Know what you want and what is realistic.  Everyone knows that there is no such thing as part-time youth work.  If the church knows the direction it wants to go and hires a youth pastor who can help them get there, that goes a long way.  If you are looking to hire someone to build the ministry without any guidance from the church, that person will fail.
2. Heap on the love.  When you are only paying a part-time person to do youth work, more than likely they have another job.  Give this position as much leeway and love that you can. Be the biggest cheerleader for the position.  Help them find good adults.  When you hear something good that happened, make sure the whole church knows.  I would also do everything you can to get this position as much training as possible.  There are tons of training opportunities, conferences and networks that a local youth pastor can get involved with.
3. Squeeze out more money.  15 hours a week isn't enough to live on, no matter the city.  This position will be filled with someone who either already has a job or who just really needs the money.  As a church, I would urge to try to find more money to help this position reach its full potential.  If youth ministry is important to you, see what in the budget can be cut to help pay this position more.

Here are a couple ideas for the potential youth pastor who will take this position:

1. Open  your eyes.  You should know what you are getting into.  If you aren't clear on everything being expected, ask them.  The church probably has never had a youth pastor besides a parent or local volunteer.  When you talk with them in the interview, ask if the job description can be change.  Help them know what you are capable of.
2. Set boundaries.  Doing youth ministry in a small church on a part-time basis is hard.  More than likely you will have to work another job in order to support yourself.  Determine when you are actually working and when you aren't.  Let the pastor, church and students know ahead of time.  Set some specific hours when you are open to do ministry and when you aren't.  This will save you and your family a lot of headaches.
3. Be ready. Part-time ministry is hard work and never really part-time.  The students and the church will always ask you to do more.  Not because they are trying to take advantage of you but because they need your help.  No matter your background, you are the professional youth pastor to the church, students and parents.

I know that with some work, this position can be a blessing to both the church and then youth pastor who takes this position.  I also know that if not done right, we could lose another good youth pastor to the wrongful expectations of a church who really doesn't know what kind of youth ministry it wants.  I pray that the first part happens.

My Daily Reading: 1 Kings 11 - 17

My reading today was short (I am still behind the schedule though). I am


still loving how the story is coming together. I have never read the Bible straight through like this before, so I am really seeing how all the pieces fit together.

The start of todays reading shows Solomon being visited by the Queen of Sheba. The Queen had heard about Solomon's wisdom and wanted to test it for herself. She found out that he was as smart as everyone had said. Chapter 11 also talks about the vast kingdom that Solomon had including the treasures, wives and servants.

Unfortunately, Solomon wasn't as strong as he needed to be and allowed his wives to turn him toward idol worship. God punished Solomon for it by splitting the kingdom of Israel into 2 pieces, the Kingdom of Judah and the Kingdom of Israel. God anointed Jeroboam over the kingdom of Israel, but he too turned from God and did evil.

The rest of my reading with through the different kings that were in charge until we get to King Ahab and his wife Jezebel. This means tomorrow I will be reading about Elijah and Elisha (love those stories).

One interesting piece of the reading today was a chapter on an unknown prophet of God (at least I think he was unnamed). This prophet spoke with Jeroboam about his sin and then was told to not eat or drink and to go home a different way. Apparently, another prophet decided to trick him into disobeying God by lying and using the great phrase "God told me to tell you". The unnamed prophet followed the lying prophet and it cost him his life.

...
So many questions come up when reading about the kings of Israel and Judah. The biggest being, why couldn't/wouldn't they follow God if they knew that he would bless them for it? I would say we deal with teaching ourselves that same question...

My Daily Reading

I normally don't do New Years resolutions. If I do, I usually (like most people) never follow through with them. This year, I decided to make two. The first is to lose weight. I am about 80 pounds overweight and want to be in better health. My wife and I have started a diet and I am committed to working out more.

The second resolution is to read the Bible in 90 days, at least once this year. I started using the reading plan out of YouVersion to help me keep track. I actually started the plan at the beginning of December and should be finished sometime in March. I have tried really hard to keep the reading. doing the Bible in 90 days is pretty intense and if you fall behind, it is hard to catch up.

I have decided to help me keep myself accountable, I am Ginger to blogg each day about my reading. The post won't be super extensive but just some notes about what I got out of it. I am also not going to try to go back with what I have already read but just start from where I am.

Today's reading was from 2 Samuel 22 to 1 Kings 7. The reading covered the end of David's life and reign as king and the ushering in of Solomon as king. Reading about David and his life was very interesting and insightful. I loved how he tried to do what God wanted and when he didn't, he would repent and make it right. As a great leader, he had faithful leaders under him who did what he needed when he needed. They sometimes questioned him but still followed him.

Solomon took charge and cleaned up a mess that started before his father passed away. David asked Solomon just one thing before giving him the kingdom and that was that he follow the will of God and do what God wanted. god promised David that if his family followed Him, then God would bless David and his family. Solomon started out right and vowed to follow God. Because Solomon was faithful to God, God said that he would give Solomon anything he wanted. Solomon was humble Nd asked only for the wisdom to rule his people. This pleased God and he gave Solomon the wisdom plus whatever else he wanted.

The last few chapters of the reading were about Solomon building the Temple of God. The description was amazing. The cost and times was enormous but Solomon was able to do what his father was not.

Very interesting stuff. I am enjoying reading the Bible straight through as the whole story comes together with each verse and chapter...

Looking Back

I was going through some videos and thought it would be interesting to put up.  Here are 3 videos from 2008, 2009 and 2010.



Decisions - Refuel 03/22/2010: Lesson starts at 21 minutes



Refuel 2009 from Roy Probus on Vimeo.



Refuel 2008 from Roy Probus on Vimeo.

Philosophy of Youth Ministry

I remember back in my days of college that during my youth ministry class, I wrote a paper on my philosophy of youth ministry.  A why I do (or wanted to do) what I do.  I remember that writing the paper was hard for me because at that point, I had not actually done youth ministry.  I had been a part of a few youth ministries but never led one.  I remember struggling through the paper trying to come up with the correct answers.  


I don't have that paper anymore (I wish I did) but I remember the focus being on relationships.  I remember writing about spending time with students, talking to them and just being there for them.  I now know that there is more to youth ministry than just hanging with students.  You have events to plan, parents to deal with, adult leaders to train and a church staff to work with.  All of these things have shaped my "philosophy" of youth ministry over the years.


My philosophy is kind of a mixed bag of different ideas that I have read about and adopted over the years.  My youth ministry philosophy is called RSS (Relational, Sustainable, Simple).  I believe these three components are the core of why I do what I do.  I believe that these three pieces help to form a youth ministry that will withstand the test of time.  I have never been a big fluff person. I don't have a super dynamic personality.  RSS, to me, will help build a ministry that isn't lost in programs and isn't tied to any single person.  Let me explain.


Relationships are the key to any ministry within the church.  If people don't feel accepted and loved, then they will find some where they will.  In youth ministry, this has to be more than the youth pastor.  We must teach others to be relational.  We must teach them how to talk to a student, be friendly and let others know they are willing to listen.  This is scary for most adults, and some students, but it is essential to making students feel welcomed in your ministry.


Sustainable ministry is a concept by Mark DeVries, that I believe all ministries need to adopt.  The goal is to build a ministry that is a church ministry, not just based on a single person (normally the youth pastor).  The churches role is to provide the resources (money, facilities, personnel) to put the ministry in a position to succeed.  The youth pastors job is to build a structure of ministry that goes beyond themselves.  I believe this is replicating yourself to allow other adult leaders to be the youth pastor to a group of students.  This is not an easy concept for some to follow but is essential to building a ministry that will last once the youth pastor is gone.


Simple Student Ministry is a concept by Jeff Borton.  (Simple Student Ministry was written to follow the book Simple Church by Thomas Rainer.)  The thinking is that our ministries do not have to be so complicated that students get lost in programming and events.  How many of us as youth pastors have complained about being to busy.  I believe this to be a very clear message to everyone.  I have learned over time that students aren't drawn to programs or events but to people.  Yes, they may come to your events but will they stick around.  I have taken this concept in our ministry and built not only simple one but one that is consistent.  Most of our events take place on Sunday night (our normal worship time) or Friday and we try to stick to the same night each month.  We also simplified our ministry by using our small groups to have events on their own, so we weren't always planning large events.


Some might look at this and find it to be very elementary in thinking but believe me, putting RSS to work is something else.  My philosophy will continue to change and develop as I learn new things and get into different situations but I believe that right now, this is a great way to run a youth ministry.