Youth Ministry That Transforms

Merton P. Strommen, Karen Jones, Dave Rahn

• Publisher: Zondervan
• Year: 2011
• eBook ISBN: 9780310864905
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

A first-of-its-kind study of Protestant youth ministers reveals the hopes, frustrations, and effectiveness of today's youth workers.Of the 7,000 youth workers assembled in 1996 under Atlanta's Georgia Dome, a sample of 2,130 full-time youth ministers from dozens of Protestant denominations and parachurch organizations answered a battery of exhaustive, deliberate questions covering:What they liked best about youth ministryWhat particularly pleased them in their work with youthWhat they found most encouraging or discouragingTheir biggest obstacle to an effective youth ministryTheir biggest concern in youth ministryTheir answers revealed a dedicated group of professionals, concerned a out the students in their ministries, but troubled with a variety of perplexing issues. And their answers form the backbone of Youth Ministry That Transforms, a comprehensive analysis of this groundbreaking study (funded by the Lilly Endowment) focusing on the hopes, frustrations, and effectiveness of today's youth workers.Spearheaded by Merton Strommen--one of America's most exemplary and influential thinkers and authors in youth and family ministry--the research-writing team is joined by Karen E. Jones and Dave Rahn of Huntington (Indiana) College's Link Institute for Faithful and Effective Youth Ministry, and acknowledged leader in the task of undergirding youth ministry with a research base. These three deliver thorough analysis and sound interpretation regarding the state of youth ministry at the dawn of the 21st century.Youth Ministry That Transforms belongs on the desks and in the classrooms of all who are concerned with this developing profession, including denominational and parachurch leadership, professors, youth ministry students, and thoughtful youth workers themselves. It is also an insightful resource for any who want to understand youth ministers and their profession: senior pastors, executive pastors, and other individuals and committees charged with hiring and supervising youth workers.

Chapter 2

Congregational Initiative: To Erase Six Concerns Troubling Youth Ministers

Merton Strommen

The first building block in the conceptual model deals with initiatives that a congregation needs to take in preparing the way for a youth minister—initiatives that can mitigate or eliminate six concerns, or roadblocks to an effective youth ministry.

These six concerns are usually precipitated by such things as—

• A congregation’s tendency to load extra tasks and expectations on a youth minister.
• A congregation’s providing too little help with administrative details.
• A disconnect between youth and the church.
• Disinterested and apathetic youth.
• An inadequate salary and youth budget.
• Low perceptions of the job’s importance among the congregation, and even outright disrespect toward the youth minister.

Triggered by any of these problems, the six concerns we’ll be discussing in this chapter can have a devastating effect on the morale and spirit of a youth minister. For that reason it is foundational that congregational leaders assume responsibility for addressing these issues. The concerns they create have the power to gradually push a youth minister out of the profession. Suggestions will be given as to what a congregation can do—suggestions that will make for healthier congregations.

Concerns that undermine effectiveness and confidence of youth workers

These six concerns were compiled from how respondents completed item stems, the supplied part of an open-ended research question, such as these:

• What I like least about youth ministry is—
• Regarding a balance of my youth ministry job and my personal life, I—
• The hardest thing about being in youth ministry is—

The range of expressed concerns was so extensive that a total of 70 items had to be included in our survey. This list enabled every respondent in our survey to find items that adequately described their concerns.

The patterns of response that youth ministers in the survey gave these items caused them to form 12 clusters—six clusters that can be identified as external concerns, or ones a congregation can alter; and six clusters that are internal concerns, which describe inner battles many youth ministers face.

The internal concerns are listed here in order of severity—concerns that seriously undermine the work and confidence of a youth minister:

Six clusters of congregationally created concerns

• Time Conflict: Job demands versus personal needs
• Time Conflict: Administrative duties versus youth contacts
• Disconnect between Youth and Church
• Disinterested and Apathetic Youth
• Inadequate Salary and Youth Budget
• Lack of Personal Support in Ministry

When concerns are not remedied

The concerns are usually personalized by youth ministers, even when there is no actual basis in fact for the youth worker’s poor perception of himself or herself. This fallout is personalized by Mark DeVries, associate pastor for youth and families at First Presbyterian Church, who relates this anecdote in Family-Based Youth Ministry:

Several years ago I heard the surprising news that my good friend Jim, an incredibly well respected youth pastor in Texas, was leaving the youth ministry. This guy was one of the most effective youth ministers I had ever known. He had over 200 teenagers meeting weekly in small discipleship groups and creative programming that drew young people from all over the city.

Certainly, there was nothing shocking about youth workers changing jobs. But I wondered why Jim was quitting—and quitting not only his present position but also youth ministry altogether. Did he get a better offer somewhere else? Was he moving on to become a “real” minister? Maybe he was going to start a profitable curriculum business? I thought of all the possibilities, but his answer hit me cold. “I am leaving,” he said, “because I feel this overwhelming sense of failure.”

Sense of failure? I was stunned. This man had been a model for me, someone whose ministry I was actively seeking to imitate. And he tells me he feels like a failure. It just didn’t make sense.

But since Jim left youth ministry, his words have begun to make more and more sense to me, and I am starting to see that his experience may actually be more the norm than the exception. In fact, as I talk with more and more “successful” youth ministers, I am seeing that almost everyone suffers from a frustrating sense of failure. All have wondered more than once, Am I really making any difference?¹

After reading the list of 70 concerns, another youth minister wrote—

Unfortunately, I can completely identify with most of the frustrations of the ministers mentioned in this study. The struggle to please parents, keep elders happy with growing numbers, and at the same time point to the truth of the cross—quite frankly stresses me out in some fashion throughout a normal day.

Although feelings of failure may not make sense and are in fact irrational, those feelings still constitute a very real roadblock for many youth ministers. So real, in fact, that when youth ministers in the study answered survey items describing concerns, they answered in ways that caused the items to form distinct clusters. Each cluster described one of those “irrational” feelings that most people in youth ministry know only too well.

Yet these feelings of inadequacy, brought on by any of the six concerns listed above, can be reduced in strength and even eliminated—but only by asking congregations to become intentional in eliminating concerns that contribute to youth ministers’ feelings of inadequacy.

The thesis of this chapter is that if congregational leaders take the initiative to eliminate or mitigate these six concerns, the work and effectiveness youth ministers will be vastly enhanced. More than that—congregational initiative will cultivate volunteer leadership, develop realistic expectations of staff, bring youth and adults together in a sense of mission, give responsibility and meaningful tasks to youth, and encourage a community of believers.

Concern 1
Time Conflict
Job demands versus personal needs

Of the six external concerns, the most pervasive and widely felt is time conflict. It is the feeling that hours in the day are too few for all that needs to be done.

The 2,131 youth ministers who filled out sentence completion questions in 1996 were very conscious of this struggle, evidenced by their responses to this sentence-completion item: Regarding a balance of my youth ministry job and my personal life, I—

An unprecedented number, a total of 46 percent of the respondents, wrote: “It is a continuing struggle to balance the two.” No single item gained such a uniform response.

It may be difficult for members of a congregation to understand the unique demands that are placed on conscientious youth ministers. Yet what is it that that effective youth ministers seek to do?

The information below comes from a Search Institute study that began by developing criteria for effective youth leaders. Once the criteria had been established and ranked, we asked the heads of national youth organizations to nominate high school youth workers who exemplify the highest-ranked criteria.

Ninety-one youth leaders were named, 75 from 11 major denominations and 16 from Young Life. These 91 workers then told us through questionnaires why they intervene in the lives of youth, how they approach them, and what accounts for their effectiveness. The eight methods they described explain why a youth ministry is time-intensive: being available, showing interest, building relationships, communicating, leading, teaching, creating a community, and encouraging involvement.

Approaches used by outstanding youth leaders

Being available

Going to their events when adults are welcome

Spending time with them and their friends

Working and playing with them in various activities

Taking kids to away games

Inviting them home for dinner

Initiating interviews

Showing interest

Remembering their names

Learning about their world

Being able to speak their language

Listening to their music

Adopting their symbols

Finding areas where one might help

Making phone calls and writing letters regarding their accomplishments

Building relationships

Exhibiting deep, sensitive, personal concern for them

Helping them if they ask

Coming to know them—their home life, school, friends

Participating with them as an equal

Sharing one’s own feelings about life

Communicating

Talking to them every opportunity one can about a personal faith

Quietly listening and waiting for youth to share personal feelings and faith

Listening with the third ear for emotions

One-to-one counseling

Leading

Discovering and using their talents and interests

Involving them in planning, decision-making, and executing

Facing them with the issues

Giving them provocative, challenging books to read and discuss

Offering them a host of options

Getting them interested in trips, projects, and studies that benefit them

Creating celebration and experiences for free expression

Getting them to camps and retreats

Teaching

Training them to reach out to others on a one-to-one basis

Educating parents for helping roles with their youth

Teaching Scripture, presenting the message of Christ

Teaching a class relating the Bible to youth and culture

Personally confronting each youth with the claims of Christ

Creating a community

Helping them to get to know each other

Developing teamwork among youth in their activities

Making them aware of others in the community who may be experiencing loneliness, deprivation, and friendlessness

Helping forgiveness and acceptance to happen

Encouraging group awareness and sensitivity in everyday life

Developing groups who share at the deepest possible level

Encouraging involvement

Involving kids in...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• History
• Concerns
• Concerns
• Priorities
• Evaluating Priority Outcomes
• Evaluating Priority Outcomes
• Evaluating Priority Outcomes
• Setting Ministry Goals
• Setting Ministry Goals
• Gaining Broad Support
• Gaining Broad Support
• Seeking Professional Growth
• Appendix
• Bibliography
• Index
• About the Publisher