Wednesday, September 17, 2003
I am going to digress from arts ministry for a moment and address one of my other passions: Youth Ministry.
I love teens. I love working with them I love ministering to them. At the moment, as a church planter, I am in the process of attempting to build a youth ministry. It is a slow process but it will be worth the wait. In the mean time, I qam busy helping our district develop youth ministries and developing resources but that is a different story for a different day.
My wife subscribes to a pastor's wives message board and the issue came up about what is a fair salary for a part time youth minister. The following is my response. Please keep in mind that I have never received a salary for ministry and have always been bivocational so here goes.
OK first off being a part time youth minister is a lot like being a part time parent, there is no such thing and a a YP that would actually work the 13 hours would be fired in no times or face so much pressure that he would quit. I was a volunteer and put in easily 20-30 hours a week and couldn't do enough. Second, if I succeed at nothing else in my ministry than to get people to stop calling kids the "future church" I will consider my ministry at least a partial success. If the youth are not the church of the right now you won't have them in the future. The church is in big trouble and part of it is the fact that many people in the are selfish when it comes to youth ministry. We can allocate money for every program under the sun, but youth ministry is too often over looked or they want everything for nothing. Here's the thing if we are truly an evangelical ministry, then we ought to be putting our money where it can do the most good and if 80% of the people that will ever accept Christ will do it by the age of 18 where does that tell you we should be putting our money.
I'd rather be a volunteer forever than ever be part time paid. It's hard to do it right full time.
(0) comments
I love teens. I love working with them I love ministering to them. At the moment, as a church planter, I am in the process of attempting to build a youth ministry. It is a slow process but it will be worth the wait. In the mean time, I qam busy helping our district develop youth ministries and developing resources but that is a different story for a different day.
My wife subscribes to a pastor's wives message board and the issue came up about what is a fair salary for a part time youth minister. The following is my response. Please keep in mind that I have never received a salary for ministry and have always been bivocational so here goes.
OK first off being a part time youth minister is a lot like being a part time parent, there is no such thing and a a YP that would actually work the 13 hours would be fired in no times or face so much pressure that he would quit. I was a volunteer and put in easily 20-30 hours a week and couldn't do enough. Second, if I succeed at nothing else in my ministry than to get people to stop calling kids the "future church" I will consider my ministry at least a partial success. If the youth are not the church of the right now you won't have them in the future. The church is in big trouble and part of it is the fact that many people in the are selfish when it comes to youth ministry. We can allocate money for every program under the sun, but youth ministry is too often over looked or they want everything for nothing. Here's the thing if we are truly an evangelical ministry, then we ought to be putting our money where it can do the most good and if 80% of the people that will ever accept Christ will do it by the age of 18 where does that tell you we should be putting our money.
I'd rather be a volunteer forever than ever be part time paid. It's hard to do it right full time.
