I have a rather large and growing file of churches looking for full-time youth ministers.
We now have many more paid youth ministers in the UK than ever before and we have tended to recruit from a younger age group, often as young as postgraduates. What we expect of these 22-year-olds is an ability to teach and pastor a youth group and also lead a team of people, most of whom will be senior to them. There will be people in youth teams who have many years’ experience and they will be led by someone who, only three years earlier, was a member of a youth group.
Scarce on experience
Now it is certainly true that people of postgraduate age have a great deal to offer youth ministry, but should they be put into paid employment by churches to lead established or even pioneer youth ministry? I have heard of a few churches who started their experience with a young appointment and their appointee had little idea of the principles of youth ministry and that appointment came to an unhappy end.
