Before You Hire a Youth Pastor: A Step-By-Step Guide to Finding the Right Fit
Mark DeVries and Jeff Dunn-Rankin
Group Publishing, 2011, 124 pp., $7.99, SimplyYouthMinistry.com
If you’re looking for a youth worker, Before You Hire a Youth Pastor: A Step-By-Step Guide to Finding the Right Fit is a must-have. Using their experience with Youth Ministry Architects, DeVries and Dunn-Rankin have laid out a collection of easy-to-read chapters that provide clear steps for a team to find a sustainable fit for its church. Though the financials are shared with the candidate a little late in the process, the book brings a big-picture approach to the table that tends to be a weakness of many search teams.
The authors ask excellent questions to help a search team better evaluate who they are as a church before finding the best fit for their teens. As self-evaluation takes time, Before You Hire a Youth Pastor challenges search teams to slow down and not settle. The book also provides a number of appendices including sample interviews, letters and evaluation tools the team can use. With a resource such as this, churches could put an end to the revolving door of their youth ministry.
