1. Do the funeral of a Student in your Ministry.
2. Help hurting students as their Parent’s go through a Divorce.
3. Be with a student as they explain to their parents they are pregnant.
4. Say Goodbye to a Ministry you are leaving.
5. Explain to your Youth why you got Fired without causing further damage to the Church.
I would replace number 4 with guiding your youth group through a church scandal or church split, but that might be too rare of an occurrence. I used to think that working at church would be like working at Disney World. I pictured people praying spontaneously in the hallways, and the senior pastor plopping down in my huge office to pour into my life. We'll at Disney World sometimes Mickey takes off his head, and Pluto and Goofy don't get along. Thankfully, I have not checked off every number in this list, but my expectations of what it means to be a youth pastor has changed drastically in the past 10 years. What do you / did you think working in youth ministry would be like? How has your experience differed from what you expected?
1 comment:
#3 actually seems like it should be second to me.
I have experienced #5 up close about 6,5 years ago and I still struggle not to speak negatively about that church.
I used to have this idea that I would make a huge difference in students lives and I would get along really great with every student, like best friends. Well, that last thought definitely was a mistake :) But every now and then, just when I start thinking that I'm not being useful and everything I do is trivial, a student tells us how God has made a difference through those 'trivial' things
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