Lars Rood is the Lead Youth Minister at the 4700 member Highland Park Presbyterian Church (PCUSA) and the author of the forthcoming book Youth Ministry on a Shoestring: How to do More with Less (2011). Recently, he blogged about youth ministry job descriptions. In contrast to the common expectations of job descriptions that emphasize either a youth director/minister’s relational skills or programming and administrative skills, Rood proposes a third way:
. . . I want to throw out a new idea that might help you envision your role. What if we looked at our jobs in the Youth Ministry world as the people who were the “advocates” for students. That means in every setting we are in we speak as someone who gives voice to the teenage world. So if we are in a board meeting we present the teenage point of view, if we are in a budget meeting we talk about the needs of teenagers, if something bad happens in the facility we don’t let anyone blame the students without any proof. Our job then becomes the “translator” who brings the world of students to everyone else.
Teenagers for sure need adults in their lives who care for them, spend time with them and listen to them. But, increasingly I feel like they need adult advocates who spend time introducing them to other adults, speaking truth about what their culture is really about, not allowing stereotypes and assumptions about teenagers to shape any decisions that the church makes. They need people who believe in them and even more than that are willing to use the power and status that comes with being an adult in many churches to also say that same thing about teenagers. This is a way we can care for them and make them feel they are being listened too.
So What?
Newcomers to local churches can often rather easily identify whether the youth ministry is primarily relational or programmatic. Regardless of which of these two complementary sides of the youth ministry coin is emphasized in your parish, how might both be enriched with a youth minister/director who understands him or herself first as a youth advocate? Is the idea of youth leader as advocate equally necessary in congregations of varying sizes and traditions? Why or why not?