Archive: Who’s training our youth ministers?

By Duffy Robbins

Who’s training our youth ministers in the United Methodist Church? Sad to say, the short answer is: almost nobody.

Now, that might not send chills up your spine or get your adrenalin pumping—but then again, maybe we don’t understand what is at stake here. Before we can be concerned about who is training our youth ministers, we may need to ask if specific training for youth ministry is even necessary. I’m convinced that it is.

I grew up in a large UM church in the Western North Carolina Conference. During those growing-up years, our church had five different senior pastors, four different associate ministers, two different directors of Christian education, a business manager/church treasurer, and a minister of music.

During that same period in which we had full-time people handling our money and our music, we never once had a full-time person to work with youth. I think that may be one reason · why I dropped out of the United Methodist Church while I was in high school. Eventually, I received Jesus Christ at a Young Life club.

Another reason why I’m convinced of the importance of this issue is based on my own ministry, over the past 14 years, with junior and senior high youth. I have found among them an openness to the Gospel that confirms to me the need for the church to reach young people at an opportune time.

Statistically, most people who ever make a decision for Christ do so by the time they are 21. Only a small percentage of people who have not made Christian commitments by that age will ever do so. Granted, the teenage years can be the years when youth drop out of the church. But with the right kind of outreach and discipleship, those years can be the time when people get established for a lifetime of service. Why then are we not giving specific training in our seminaries so we can reach junior and senior high youth during those critical years?

I’m also convinced that this issue is important because of something that happened while I was youth minister at a UM church which is located “in the backyard ” of a Methodist-related seminary. Every spring, I would be besieged by students from the seminary who were about to graduate and receive their first appointments.

To their dismay almost all found themselves facing some direct responsibility for youth ministry. And they felt ill-equipped for the task. I can’t count the number of times a panic-stricken senior came to me with the request, “Tell me everything you know about youth ministry in the next hour.”

The average seminary graduate is not going to be appointed to the senior-pastor role in a large church. If he or she is appointed to a large church at all, it will likely be as an associate with youth responsibilities. And if the new minister is appointed to a small church with a staff of one, youth ministry will be part of that pastor’s responsibilities. Who is training United Methodists for these very typical scenarios of ministry?

Keeping youth ministers

Probably the most important reason for United Methodists to confront this question is that we have an extremely poor record of keeping youth ministers in our churches for more than 12 months. And if you are a teenager, you aren’t going to open up much of your life to a stranger who, “like the other two guy before this guy,” is going to be gone in a few months. We must reverse the trend in which the name on the youth minister’s office has to be penciled in because it is changed so often.

Training people for youth ministry can help make that happen. A basic management principle is that people like doing what they are good at doing. If someone is well-trained for youth ministry, chances are he will enjoy doing it and maintain some continuity in that position. If he is ill-trained and unprepared, he will seek as quickly as possible to “graduate” to a (more comfortable) senior pastor’s role.

The question of youth ministry training is vital, as well, for anyone with a concern for the perpetuation of the Methodist heritage and tradition. Simply put, this is because many of the folks who know how to do youth ministry and are eager to do it do not come from a Methodist background.

Since there is virtually no UM-related seminary with specific training in youth ministry, it is no surprise that persons interested in it will go to schools where they can receive such training. For the most part, that means going to a Southern Baptist- or Presbyterian- related seminary. The result is that United Methodist churches across the country have to go outside of their tradition to find youth ministry professionals for their congregations.

What sort of training is now available?

A person seeking seminary training specifically in the area of youth ministry has few choices. I do not claim to know of every program of every seminary, but my informal surveys have been discouraging.

I know of only three major seminaries that offer intentional youth ministry training. By “intentional” I mean that these schools provide courses in which youth ministry is given not only attention (“These are principles that can be applied to youth”), but intention (“Let’s explore some ways this can be applied in a church youth program”). Most schools simply offer a course or two that is broad-ranging enough to mention or encompass youth ministry, but gives little focus on the “how-to’s” and “why-to’s” of such ministry.

Of the three seminaries that currently offer the most thorough training in youth ministry (at least ten specific courses are listed in their respective catalogs), Gordon-Conwell in Boston (largely Reformed Presbyterian in theology), Fuller in Pasadena (interdenominational), and Southwestern Baptist in Fort Worth (Southern Baptist), none of these trains the bulk of seminarians who minister in the United Methodist Church. And only Southwestern has a concerted emphasis in youth ministry within the local church.

I have had occasion to take a close look at the seminary that trains more United Methodist ministers than any other seminary in the country. What sort of intentional youth mini try training is going on there? In my opinion, not nearly enough.

What are offered are some excellent general courses on moral development, a general course related to camping ministry, a course related to “church music for youth and adults,” and a catalog full of superb courses related to ministry in general. The only course specifically devoted to youth ministry is an annual three-day seminar. The same seminary offers 27 different course titles in church music.

However, within the United Methodist tradition, this inter-denominational seminary is the leader in youth ministry training! The denominational seminaries generally offer one course every other year.

What should be done?

To begin with, we need to recognize that the training issue is symptomatic of our tendency to relegate youth ministry to a position of low priority. “As long as the kids don’t go in and mess up the sanctuary, who cares about youth ministry?”

We have made it very difficult for men and women to pursue a call to youth ministry and become ordained within our denomination. And once they have been ordained, our message to them, too often, is that they should get out of the minor leagues as quickly as possible and become a “real” pastor.

While serving as youth minister in a United Methodist church, I once introduced myself to our bishop and explained that I was the youth minister.

“Oh, well,” he responded, “you’re not really a minister then, are you?”

I fear that this attitude is reflected and engendered in our approach to seminary training.

Secondly, I am not suggesting that all UM-related seminaries should institute a youth ministry major. That would prove too confining, and it is not necessary. I recommend to ministerial students that they pursue the Master of Divinity degree so they can maintain flexibility in where they choose to serve.

But I am suggesting that a student should have the option of taking several courses that focus solely and thoroughly on ministry to youth. Eastern College, where I now teach, offer ten different courses that focus specifically on youth ministry. Course titles range from “Youth Ministry in an Urban Setting,” to “Youth Ministry Skills,” to “Ministry in the High School Setting,” to “Youth Ministry in the Wilderness” and a special senior seminar in youth ministry. Course work is coupled with field experience in youth ministry placements.

Granted, much of what makes a youth minister effective is not transferable in a classroom. But the same can be said of any minister. It takes more than being young and funny to disciple today’s youth. Our ministers need training if they are to adequately meet the challenge.

David W. (“Duffy”) Robbins is director of the department of youth ministries at Eastern College. St. Davids, Pennsylvania. He is a veteran of numerous leadership posts in youth ministry.