The average youth worker got into the field because he or she wanted to disciple young people. But something happened along the way. The youth pastor embraced a flawed model of discipleship, and so, charted a course to ineffectual ministry and ultimate burnout.

That doesn’t mean that many youth pastors aren’t successful; it’s just that the most prevalent model of youth ministry sets youth pastors up for failure. They are trapped by expectations, calendars, and a risk-averse evangelical culture which embraces a theologically sanitized, politically correct version of Jesus. A Jesus who would never take on religious authorities, much less try to cast out a demon or raise somebody from the dead.

It’s time for youth pastors like Pete Keady to stand up and post their own 95 theses on their church’s Wittenberg Door. Pete is a photographer-turned-youth-pastor. Somewhere along the line he got on a church’s payroll and all of a sudden, found himself accountable for stuff that has nothing to do with discipleship. And now he is asking, “How many other youth pastors are in my shoes?”

I was talking to a group of youth pastors and posed the question: What pressures to compromise do you face as a youth pastor as you fill out your schedule?

A veteran youth pastor shared the following: “Just in the past twenty-four hours, I have talked to five different former youth pastors. One has begun attending an obscure mainline church just to disappear and heal a bit, one is birthing a church in his home beginning this weekend, another is meeting us to talk about our church for young people, I will have lunch with another tomorrow, and the last has begun to pray about pastoring a church.

“All of them spent at least five years in their most recent positions, but their desire to ask more of their young people was met with resistance. Add me to the list, after spending ten years at my last church. All are hurting because they buy your premise, and their churches were not interested.”

“Yeah, that’s me too,” you may be saying. “But what in the world do I do?”

If you’re a youth minister, you need to recognize this flaw in the system. It may feel like I’m being too negative, but the point is that in most churches, the system needs to change. If you feel like a hired gun with a future as precarious as your next paycheck, you’re not a bad person, you’re being asked to do an impossible job and you need more support. Maybe if you asked for it and got it, you could be a change agent, and if not, maybe you’re in the Matrix and need to find a fire exit.

There is hope once one recognizes reality. Here are a couple of blogs where I took a
stab at some answers.