This week I start my role as a youth minisry coach with the Baptist churches of WA working 12 hours a week. My job is simply to meet with local youth pastors and help them be more effective in their roles.
Its not about influencing them to be like me or to buy into my psycho wacky missional ideas yada yada yada. It is about respecting the ecology of their own church environments and helping them to function within them as best they can.
And I am fine with that. I wouldn’t have it any other way, but…
I sat down yesterday to begin making a database of who I needed to be in contact with and set up appointments with and discovered there aren’t a whole heap of youth pastors out there. It feels to me like there are fewer youth pastors in Baptist churches than when I was in the thick of it 7 years ago.
I could be reading it wrong, but I’m wondering if its ‘a fact’, if there are reasons for this, if we need to be concerned for it.
As I surveyed the churches in our denomination – 105 or so – most are small and do not have a dedicated’ and paid youth pastor’, 10 are ethnic (and usually very small), several of the larger churches do not have a dedicated youth staff member although they have ‘associate staff’.
I guessed at around 11 paid youth pastors and 3 or 4 churches seeking part/full timers to fill positions.
Is this saying something?
What are others discovering?
Thank you for the insight! I was writing a post titled “Are Youth Pastors a Dying Breed” and googled it and came across your page. I cited you in my blog post too~ Thanks again!