Comforting Words for New Youth Ministers - Part 5: Where Your Credibility Comes From

Dear First Year Youth Minister,

I know that one of the biggest questions and insecurities you face in your first year regards questions of credibility. You are probably in your early twenties, but to some, you look like you’re sixteen. You have a bachelor’s degree (and maybe even a graduate degree), but people talk to you like a high school student. You work sixty to seventy hours per week, but people still ask you if you’re paid for your job. (You resist the temptation to say, “By third world standards, yes.”) You take your position seriously as you plan, study, relate, manage, encourage, budget, teach, counsel, and basically fulfill the management functions of the director of a non-profit organization, and yet people ask you what you are going to do when you grow up, as if you play kickball eight hours per day. In essence, you are an adult with a very serious job, but often people condescendingly patronize you as if you are one of the kids you lead. They talk about your calling as if you do little more than entertain and babysit.

 Meanwhile, you face the reality that you have little experience. You probably have not attended seminary and need to deepen in your biblical and theological knowledge. You see a great deal of education in adolescent psychology and pastoral counseling. You may be finding your way in the “real world” for the first time as a young adult. 

 Be encouraged: You have credibility. What you do is important; it is serious business. You have authority in your space. But from where does this authority and credibility come?

1.) God chose you for the job.

You approached accepting your position prayerfully. You discerned God’s will for your next career step. While the church offered you a position, God ultimately called you to the position and you followed. He did not make a mistake. He has plans and intentions for your ministry. A great quote that I like to lean on is that “God equips the called; he doesn’t necessarily call the equipped.” 

2.) God gave you gifts.

The Lord gave you gifts for such a position, or else you likely would not have received the job. The leaders that offered you the position saw an ability in you to relate to students, a maturity in your faith, and a level of responsibility such that they would not trust you to take other people’s precious children on trips. While you do need to develop those gifts, understand that God graciously gave them to you.

3.) God gave you the Holy Spirit.

Whether you have been in ministry for eight days or eighteen years, you ultimately sink or swim based on your dependence on the Holy Spirit. God is with you in the Holy Spirit; you are not alone. Christ encouraged his disciples in John 16, by saying, “When he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth.” You will face impossible situations. You will teach Bible lessons without any clue whether they are efficacious. You will grow weak and discouraged. Understand that the Holy Spirit will work in measures infinitely greater than what you ever will know in this life. The Holy Spirit will minister to your teens. You simply need to trust Him in every step and faithfully follow him to what He calls. 

4.) You are the foremost expert on ministry to teenagers in your church.

Within about six months, you will be the expert on ministry to teenagers in your church. It is unlikely that any parent, pastor, or volunteer will know as much as you do. Your life will involve dozens of conversations with teens, where you are on the front row to the ever-evolving youth culture. You will spend weeks and weekends on trips with them. You may attend youth ministry conferences. You may read blogs and magazines about youth ministry. Trust me: you will be the expert, and it will happen fast. Take ownership of this and use this gift to help parents understand how to love and disciple their adolescent. Help your pastors understand the mentality of the youth in your church, so that their sermons and teachings will connect with the younger crowd. 

5.) You are enough; you are not enough.

You will wrestle with feelings of inadequacy right from the beginning. The reason for this is because as a sinner without the Lord, you are hopelessly inadequate in your position. Recall, though, that Christ has imputed his righteousness on you. Christ has perfected you in God’s eyes. You have nothing to prove and nobody to impress, because you are enough before the Lord by the righteousness of Jesus. You must constantly remember your adoption as a daughter or son of God, and that his grace is enough for you and your ministry.

Cameron Cole is the chairman of Rooted: A Theology Conference for Student Ministry and the Director of Student Ministries at the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, AL. He is a candidate for a Masters in Religion from Reformed Theological Seminary. 

Alone I Would Not Have Done It

In a recent high school youth group meeting I was teaching on Psalm 51. To illustrate a point about the nature of sin, I shared a passage from St. Augustine’s Confessions, in which he remembers stealing pears one night with a group of friends. This thievery, as he recounts, was not because of hunger, or even a particular delight in pears. Rather, it was because of a desire to do what was not permitted: “I stole something which I had in plenty and of much better quality. My desire was to enjoy not what I sought by stealing but merely the excitement of thieving and the doing of what was wrong.” I found this to be very insightful as I reflected on the nature of sin with our high school students. 

And yet, perhaps the most helpful part of this anecdote comes a few pages later. St. Augustine continues to reflect on this incident and discerns another, perhaps deeper, root for his thievery: “Had I been alone I would not have done it – I remember my state of mind to be thus at the time – alone I would never have done it. Therefore my love in that act was to be associated with the gang in whose company I did it.” Here we are reminded that at the very root of so many of our choices to pursue evil is a desire for acceptance among our peers (as well as an ignorance of our acceptance in Christ). St. Augustine concludes, “Friendship can be a dangerous enemy.” 

This is true. But we must avoid the simplistic conclusion that “friendship is dangerous.” The lesson here is deeper, teaching us that friendship is powerful, able to produce great goods as well as great evils. Certainly many of us have done evil things that we never would have done if we were alone. But the converse is also true. Many Christians have been inspired to pursue goodness, mercy, and justice precisely because of their company of friends. If this story teaches us anything it is that because of our associations we may do things we never would have done alone – whether for good or ill. 

As I reflected on these things with my students, I also thought more broadly of fellow youth workers and their ministries. Let us continue to remind our students (and remember ourselves!) that Christian community is essential for so many reasons, including this one that St. Augustine teaches us: because of friends we may be inspired to do things – for good – that we would never have done alone. 

“And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near” (Hebrews 10:24-25). 

Bijan Mirtolooi is part of the Youth Ministry staff at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City.