Some Pitfalls in Youth Ministry

It has been 12 years since my graduation from Southern Wesleyan.  12 years since my interview and hiring at Central First Wesleyan Church as the youth pastor.  I have learned many lessons in those 12 years.  Some I have applied effectively and some I have not.  I guess today is a confession of those lessons I still have trouble applying.

1.  I am up front too much.  From the announcement to worship to speaking-I am always the one talking.  There have got to be other faces and voices in front of the group besides mine.  There isn’t because I hold onto things too tightly.  Instead of taking the time to train others and release their ministry potential, I just do it myself.  This can lead to burnout.  Ideally, Wednesdays would run like sunday mornings with others doing their roles and me doing mine.  Yeah, I’ve known this for a while, but haven’t done anything about it.  Chances are, you haven’t either.  If you have, add some dialogue in the comments.

2.  I drive too much.  I love driving the church van, but how much conversation am I missing out on in the back?  What if our youth group had “designated drivers” for different events which allowed me more bonding time with the kids?  What if I could have been in the middle of conversations all the way out to South Dakota?  Just a thought.

3.  Most of us have an hour a week for our main youth rally.  I used to feel bad when I would speak longer than 15 minutes.  Sometimes, I have felt like there has been an effort to cram too much stuff into that hour instead of building every thing that happens within that hour around a common theme/goal.  We are supplementing our Wednesday night meeting with a Sunday night Bible study that gets deeper into the word so that Wednesdays can be more topical.  Brad Cooper challenged me at Unleash this year when he said,”We do two things on Wednesday:  worship and the Word.  That’s it.  That involves some small group time, but we leverage our time towards those 2 things.”  I guess what I’m trying to say is I’m not going to feel guilty about preaching the Word for longer than 15 minutes.

4.  I don’t keep my wife in the loop enough.  An event may have been on my calendar for months, but it needs to be on her calendar first.  We are still trying to figure out how to do this electronically.  Women like surprises, but not that you have a cook-out at your house and people will be arriving in 15 minutes.  It’s called communication, and I shouldn’t get upset if I have to tell her about youth group stuff more than once.  How many times does she have to ask me to take care of the garbage?

5.  I don’t act my age.  I need more sleep than I’m getting.  I need to eat healthier than I’m eating.  On average, we put on several pounds a year just because we’re getting older.  Add that to what I already need to lose and it’s enough to make one relapse on Mountain Dew(oops, too late).  My 5 year old twins know I’m not supposed to be drinking it and they are quick to remind me.  It’s not about living slower, but living smarter.  You young pups would be wise to lay off the dang pizza before it’s too late.  It’s called metabolism and mine left the buidling with Elvis.