I am Youth Worker

By Shawn Michael Shoup on February 17 2012

I am Youth Worker. I am the 99. 

I am underpaid and overworked - working a full time job to pay the bills and doing my best to honor God and my students with the spare time that I have to put together the service each week for youth group.

I stayed up late last night talking to a student who's relationship break-up resulted in their crisis and many tears. I'm up early this morning on my way to work.

I want to be involved in the youth ministry network in town but it's just not feasible. I need the encouragement, resources, networking, and tools that they offer, but I can't make it with my work schedule. 

I often times compare what I have to the youth worker down the street with interns, a monthly budget, and a youth building and recreation center. It's not like I'm trying to compete (How could I?), but I sometimes finding myself wishing I had more of what you do.

I'm just as passionate and work just as hard as the full time, paid guy, but I do it after my day job - not as my day job. As a result, I'm burnt out, tired, and sometime - no, many times - feel like giving in. 

I apologize for the sensationalist tone and for comparing the average youth worker to the Occupy protest's 99%. But I'm hoping to catch someone's attention. As a district guy in our denomination, I've come across stories of so many youth workers that have so little to work with. 99% might be too high of a percentage to compare it to youth workers that are not at full time capacity, but in reality, it's probably not that far off.

I was having a conversation with a youth pastor yesterday that was telling me about their first visit to a local gathering of youth workers. I asked her if it was encouraging and her response was, "Yes, it was helpful hearing about all the different resources and ideas from other youth workers, but I also came away a little bit discouraged at how little I have to work with compared to some of the others. They were sharing ideas that were really cool, but just weren't feasible without interns and a big budget. It made me feel somewhat insignificant." 

When you stop and consider how many youth workers are part-time or volunteer, it really is the wide majority of us. Many churches want to hire on a full time youth pastor and give them a budget to work with but just don't have the financial resources to do so. Which leaves a lot of us youth workers feeling a bit stretched thin.

So here's the thing: if you are the "one percent"  -- meaning, you are a full time youth worker and you have the luxury of having a ministry budget and other things that the majority of your peers maybe don't -- consider taking care of some of our own.

• If you have some books that you've already read through, why not consider donating a box to another ministry wanting educational resources?

• If you write and package your own sermons with slick PowerPoints, in-house media, and illustrations, share it with others who don't have the time and/or resources to do so.

• If you are planning a student ministry outreach, invite other churches without as big of budgets to do it with you. They want to be involved in loving their neighbors, but a lot of times don't have the know how or have the resources to do so. Partner with them.

• You know that big retreat you've spent months planning? They don't have the time to do that either. Invite them.

• Offer your time. Take them out to coffee and chat about life and youth ministry. Don't try to be an expert. Lean more towards trying to be an encourager and equipper.

• Budget some time in your weekly or monthly calendar to invest in other NextGen leaders.

It's been said before, but it bears repeating: our best resource is each other. Let's take care of our own. 

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