Monday, January 7, 2019

Why Youth Minister Sunday hurts not helps

In you're at a church who has more than just a sole ministry agent, then it's almost assured that there will be a day annually when the assistant/youth minister/family worker/children's coordinator will get a preaching gig - the Sunday after Christmas.

By then, the post-Christmas-minister will be sunning himself on a beach and the pulpit will be left in the hands of a ministry youngling.

Some call it "Youth minister Sunday." At least a lot did within the youth ministry groups did that I'm still attached with on Facebook.

I'm not sure this regular gig is a healthy growth strategy.

In theory, this allotted Sunday is useful to give an aspiring preacher experience and the church an opportunity to hear from other members of the ministry staff.

The practice... may not be all that effective.

First of all, if you work at a lectionary directed church, with set readings, then you'll inevitably get lumped with the same story - almost certainly the visitation of the Magi.

And, while every youth minister has preached on this passage, doing it for the third time, especially before the same congregation, is a daunting challenge.

Second, many people are away straight after Christmas, especially families, meaning the "target audience" for the junior minister may well be absent (even if they haven't gone on vacation, the church may shut down their youth/children's/creche activities so families are more inclined to skip church.)

Third, if the aim is to help develop a potential preacher than it's odd that they would only preach from select passages when their direct supervisor is absent!

Fourth, it means that the youth minister doesn't get to ever have this immediately-after-Christmas-season for vacation.

The danger of "Youth Minister Sunday" is that the weekend after Christmas has a degree of tokenism, which would be easily avoided if the ministerial junior had a reoccurring gig in order to both build their preaching proficiency and enhance their impact beyond just the subsection they oversee.

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