How to Keep a Youth Minister
Pastors of high schoolers don’t need to graduate each June.
Paul Borthwick
January 1, 1983
This issue's article for pastor-board discussion deals with a universal concern in the church: youth ministry. Again we suggest that you photocopy this article and distribute it prior to a board meeting, so each of you can bring a contribution regarding its content. Not every church, of course, has a paid youth pastor- but volunteer youth sponsors are just as subject to discouragement and burnout. With a small bit of adapting, Paul Borthwick's advice will be useful to churches large and small, regardless of staff size. The youth group at Edgewood Baptist is barely surviving. After the departure of Jim (the third leader in four years), most of the youth are pessimistic. Some, with their families, have started attending the United Methodist church because of its solid youth ministry. Other teenagers have abandoned any aspirations of Christian growth, and they show up at church infrequently. Jim had come in the fall with high hopes and long-term commitment. Some of the students had been hopeful when he talked about "going with you through high school," but others were hesitant to believe him. His two predecessors had said something similar. Jim had intended to stay a long time, but discouragement, a few failures, and a better opportunity on the horizon caused him to give his departure notice in April. Adults were surprised and disappointed; the teenagers mostly shrugged their shoulders as if to say, "Who's next?" Jim is not a real person, but this experience could be reproduced across the country every year. Despite Gallup and Poling's warning that "the future of the church will rise or fall on its success with young people" (Search for America's Faith, p. 114) and their exhortation that "each congregation should endeavor to have ...
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