Tom's take: What do you do if your youth minister dies?

Today Tom and I are both writing on the same topic. You can check out what I wrote on his blog here. And yes, he is significantly higher on the hilarity scale then I am...

Also, with the absence of any noteworthy search results for this question, Tom and I are now the primary sources of information on the topic.

"What do you do if your youth minister dies?" Baldock posed this question to me when we were out to lunch a few weeks ago. I was a little worried when he posed it. I thought he was about to tell me he was dying. Turns out he's not. Or at least he's not dying any quicker than the rest of us.

So I don't know why he asked the question, I guess he thought it'd make a good blog topic. He may not be dying by he certainly isn't right in the head.

That said, let me tackle this most pressing of topics. What should you do if your youth minister dies?

1. First call emergency services

If the youth practitioner has died in some freak dodgeball or Honey-if-you-love-me accident you should call for an ambulance. And the police too. There could be foul play involved, it may just look like an accident. Don't disturb anything around the body. It's probably a crime scene. Youth Ministers make a lot of enemies. Chances are the cleaner, the church handyman and the lady who does the flowers all have a motive to kill the youth minister.

2. Provide counselling

If a 13 year-old was to see their beloved leader decapitated during a sock wrestling episode, it would seriously freak them out. You'd need to get in a team of trained professionals to look after the kids. You might also want to bring a change of clothes for them all. I know from experience the severed neck can spurt blood a very long way.

3. Organise the funeral

Turn that frown upside down. A funeral is a great way to bring the youth group together. Give each of the young people a role. You could get some handing out orders of service, some showing people to their seats. Have the drama group perform a skit and the dance group express themselves to some dc talk. You could even get one of the kids to do a sermon on death with an short clip from The Matrix to illustrate that the departed chose the red pill.

4. Hire a new youth minister

The best way to help kids deal with death is to replace the youth minister quickly. Young people have short attention spans. Especially the YouTube generation. Find a new youth minister and they'll forget the old one in a week. Just make sure you have the cleaner do a good job on the blood stains in the hall before youth starts on Friday, as long as he's not in jail that is.

I'm pretty sure this is exactly was Baldock was hoping for.