I’m A Youth Worker… Get Me Out Of Here!
I’m A Youth Worker… Get Me Out Of Here!
The average time spent in full time youth ministry in the UK is 18 months. This scary and tragic statistic often conjures shock and disbelief. Many see the life of a youth worker as one great big water fight with moments of jelly & ice cream thrown in, all the while being surrounded by admiring teenage converts.
Don’t get me wrong now, I love being a Youth Minister. It’s an amazing privilege! I’ve also had my fair share of water fights and eaten copious amounts of jelly and ice cream… sometimes without hands. Not to mention that there’s nothing better in the world than leading a young person to Jesus.
But Youth Ministry is drastically misunderstood by all but the few who have done it full time. A Youth Minister has to be event planner, taxi driver, counselor, scholar, administrator, personal shopper, book keeper, marriage and parenting consultant, multi-tasker extraordinaire, legal expert, technology wizz, first aider, professional sports therapist and ultimate diplomat. All the while it’s never entirely clear to people to whom a Youth Minister reports. Put another way, everyone thinks they’re your boss: parents, ministers, elders, teenagers, schools – everyone! Finally, just like an FBI agent, it’s often true that a Youth Worker’s successes are private, and their failures are public.
It’s hard to get all these things right for all these people. And because Youth Ministers work with the most vulnerable of people who sit in a context of highly reactionary adults, in a whole world of strong opinions – they often sit right in the cross-hairs of many a nasty situation.
With all this in mind I thought I’d take a minute to share some of my journey and give a few examples from the nitty-gritty side of my youth ministry experience so far.
I’ve been involved seriously in youth & children’s work for about 10 years now and in that time I’ve racked up a few messy, grouchy, painful, and sometimes oddly funny experiences. So here’s a few in mico-blog format!
If you’ve got stories and experiences too that fit the bill – leave a comment, I’d love to hear about them!
Why am I doing this? Catharsis maybe? I’m just hoping that it may give some background to those who sit outside the youth work world looking in, and I hope even more that this may serve as an encouragement to someone to keep going despite. For the joy set before Him, Jesus endured the cross scorning it’s shame – so we can endure a few niggling splinters along the way!
These are all random things that came to the top of my head:
– Getting slapped in the face by a drunk mum before she tried to put another leader in a headlock because I wouldn’t let her in to a youth meeting.
– Being threatened by a member of the ‘Welsh Mafia’ outside our youth cafe… after locking all the kids inside for safety.
– Fishing the locking mechanism of the toilet door handle out of the toilet itself from amidst… other things.
– Breaking up a fight between an adult leader and a young person. And all the hoohar that followed.
– Having a three page email of my faults sent to me by a leader very soon after starting a job (obviously copied into about 15 people). Subsequently having several meetings with other leaders about it as the original sender didn’t think we we’re taking it seriously enough. This lasted six months and was never fully resolved.
– Working with two people & having to provide legal testimony after they we’re denied CRBs due to safeguarding issues.
– Discovering a damming, heavily biased report about me had been sent to an entire mission team of about 40 people (including several teenage leaders) after a fantastically successful event. It was sent to everyone but me. Bless.
– Being dunked in a baptismal pool. Then driving home. Cold. Very cold!
– Being pied in the face, with multiple, simultaneous cream pies. Waking up in my office with no idea how I got there.
– Having team members (including teenage leaders) interviewed about my suitability as a leader, two months after starting a job.
– Getting my hair professional dyed pink to raise money for a building project which took 6 months to return to ‘normal’ – only to find out they didn’t name the new pink room after my hair!
– Being in three serious near misses in the car while traveling to events. Also – Putting my car down a ditch on the way back from a leader retreat three days after starting a new job.
– Having my wife’s mental health questioned secretly by members of a church leadership.
– Being seriously and hurtfully advised to seek professional relationship counseling before I had married by wife by a person who had known us a week and seen us together for about twenty minutes.
– Having a supervisor call me on a day off to abandon a shopping trip with my wife to pick him up and give him a lift 30 minutes walk from his house.
– Having three concussions to date.
– Living in a church house for two years without a working boiler.
– Having an awesome outreach event canceled after meticulous planning the day before the event for very stupid reasons. Having to turn 30 kids away from hearing the gospel because a PCC member was trying to be ‘above reproach.’
– Having gap year students I supervised being interrogated by a mum asking why I was so sexist.
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I remember a brilliant story about a man who was tired of carrying his cross and so he went to ask Jesus for a new one. “Certainly” replied Jesus. “Pop yours in the corner and pick out one you like.” After looking at all the incredibly huge, heavy, impossible looking crosses, the man spotted a small, manageable looking on in the corner, “I’ll take that one!” he said. “Of course” said Jesus with a knowing smile. “That’s the one you came in with.”
I know my experiences pale in comparison to so many others. However difficult sometimes, youth ministry remains a blessing everyday, and I won’t change it for the world. I’ll question my suitability for it many times, but as long as Jesus says “go,” I’ll happily keep going! I wonder what’s next?