For 25 years, YouthWorker Journal has promoted professionalism in youth ministry. To find out how things are progressing, we spoke with four pros.

Mark DeVries is founder of Youth Ministry Architects, a consulting team that helps build sustainable youth ministries and increase the longevity of professional youth workers. He’s also author of the book Sustainable Youth Ministry (IVP, 2008).

Veteran youth worker Danny Kwon is the youth pastor at Yuong Sang Church outside Philadelphia. He’s also part of the Youth Specialties One Day Training team.

Andrew Root is a professor of youth and family ministry at Luther Seminary in St. Paul and author of the book Revisiting Relational Youth Ministry: From a Strategy of Influence to a Theology of Incarnation (IVP, 2007).

Before he planted Vintage Faith Church in California, Dan Kimball’s first call to ministry was as a high-school pastor. He’s also the author of several books, including Sacred Space: A Hands-On Guide to Creating Multisensory Worship Experiences for Youth Ministry (Youth Specialties, 2008).

YouthWorker Journal: What cumulative grade would you give youth workers for their overall proficiency and effectiveness?

Mark DeVries: We’re seeing extraordinarily effective folks in youth ministry who seem less the typical “youth ministry superstar” and more the moderately gifted leader who’s learned how to lead without being in the center. I’d give these youth workers an A-plus. At the same time, many youth ministries are repeating the same tired strategies that haven’t worked for 20 years, with the perceived exception of a few short years of glory under the selectively remembered superstar. In some of these churches, youth workers are laboring sacrificially in almost impossible, dysfunctional environments.

Andrew Root: B-plus. Overall, the people who are involved in young people’s lives are doing something extraordinary by giving of themselves and being present.

Dan Kimball: It all depends. There are some youth workers who get As for being in community and as worshipers but Bs and Cs in terms of theological depth and mission, and vice versa.

YWJ: How has the crusade for greater professionalism progressed during the last quarter century?

Mark: If by professionalism we mean that we’ve created respect for our profession in the wider church, that churches are now willing to pay a decent wage for youth ministers, that youth ministers have power in the church now, that we can take master’s-level classes in youth ministry—then yes, the crusade has been successful. If, on the other hand, by professionalism we mean that youth workers have begun to live with the humility of Jesus, have come to know the depth of our own brokenness and the richness of God’s grace, and out of that humility and brokenness are leading more young people to smell the aroma of Christ for themselves, I’m not so sure.

Andrew: I think it’s been successful. That success has been a good and bad thing. The good thing is these organizations have drawn attention to the fact that there’s something particular about youth that demands they be attended to in their uniqueness. The downside is youth ministry often is being separated from the larger understanding of the church.

YWJ: What’s contributed to the development of youth ministry as a profession? What’s keeping it from developing?

Danny Kwon: One of the things keeping it from developing is that we have stereotypes of youth workers as immature people who are great with kids. We need to be more intentional about working with parents, senior pastors and church leadership so we can gain credibility with those who are older than we are.

Andrew: The state of the church. In a conservative context, there’s a fear of what culture will do to young people that leads churches to invest in youth ministry to help kids navigate through this difficult cultural reality. In more mainline communities, it’s had to do with the decline of church memberships. Our job becomes convincing youth to stay in church. I wonder if the better question is, “How can we be faithful to the humanity of young people and to God?”

Dan: Many youth leaders today are readers, learners and thinkers. This is increasing their professionalism because they don’t stay focused on youth activities and youth messages but are growing themselves. This leads to a better perspective of life, Scripture and their view of church. Many senior pastors also now realize youth leaders are vital in the life of churches. What keeps youth ministry from further developing is youth leaders not taking care of themselves personally, churches not taking care of their youth leaders, and senior pastors and parents putting too much pressure on the youth leader for things that may not be attainable, leading to an unhealthy youth leader under stress.

YWJ: Youth ministry has a patchwork approach to certification that differs widely among various churches. Do you think there’s anything that should be done about this?

Mark: I’ve been involved with a youth ministry thinktank hosted by the Center for Youth Ministry Training that’s been asking, “What does an appropriately trained professional in youth ministry look like?” Youth workers from a wide variety of theological perspectives must be able to articulate a common vocabulary for effective youth ministry in much the same way doctors from different medical schools share a common understanding of a core of knowledge in their field of discipline.

Andrew: In some sense, we should expect a certain standard—a seminary education. Sometimes I worry that would fall into technical rationality. We imagine that if we can get people the right knowledge they’ll become well-functioning, but ministry really isn’t about functioning correctly. It’s about being human with and for others.

YWJ: What kind of training and preparation are most effective to help youth workers succeed?

Mark: We’ve got to find more ways to integrate academic and practical training.

Danny: Mentoring, reading and nurturing the soul. After being in ministry, I’ve found it helpful to go back to school to think about ministry in more theoretical terms.

Dan: Someone shouldn’t just go to seminary and then enter ministry as a vocation. It should be the reverse. Someone should first be ingrained in the life of a local church, serving in ministry. Then as they’re growing and serving, if the church leadership sees his or her fruit and if the individual feels so passionate about what he or she is doing that they want to devote all their time to it, they should get training.

YWJ: What’s one common thing youth workers do that keeps them from being as effective as they could be?

Mark: The most common mistake youth workers make is the lack of focus on building teams. Every youth worker believes youth ministry is a team sport, but the vast majority has trouble developing effective leadership teams. Of that struggling group, only a fraction has spent more than 30 minutes in the past week recruiting or developing teams. When a youth worker fails to build a team, the default position is for the youth worker to put him or herself at the center of the youth ministry and try to play all the positions at once.

Danny: Time management. Be flexible, but have a schedule that plans out your professional and personal time. This keeps us from being lazy, unprofessional, overburdened and overworked.

Andrew: Because of this professionalization, we have this tendency to look for the next big idea. I wonder if youth workers just need to be—even if it means confronting our frail humanity and doubt.

YWJ: Youth workers don’t receive great salaries. Do you think that’s a problem in attracting and keeping quality people or part of the reason why some people treat youth ministry as a stepping stone rather than making it a lifelong calling?

Mark: I don’t know anyone who got into this for the money. I’m not sure there are many who get out of it for the money either. Some might get out because they can’t stand the people they work with and don’t like the messiness of living with other sinners in Christian community. Others might get out because God intended youth ministry to be a training ground for their next calling. Still others leave youth ministry because they’ve been deeply wounded by shrapnel from an unhealthy, explosive church. Salaries may be a supporting cause of short-tenured youth ministries, but they’re seldom the primary cause.

Danny: I think that definitely is part of the problem. At the same time, there are other factors that lead to people leaving youth ministry. In many Asian churches, a lot of people who work in youth ministry do it during their seminary years, so it’s seen as a stepping stone. There’s an idea of hierarchy in our culture so that youth ministry is seen as a lesser ministry. I’ve been at my church for 15 years. I have a great relationship with my senior pastor, yet he always asks me, “When are you going to do real ministry?”

Dan: Yes and no. I believe churches may not support their youth leader financially in ways they should. At the same time, at certain phases of the church, a highly paid youth leader isn’t affordable. What any church can afford is respecting a youth leader by including him or her in decision making about the whole church. I personally hate the “stepping stone” terminology. It sets up a false way of looking at youth leaders who leave youth ministry to do something else.

For many, it’s just a natural way to grow and lead. If a youth leader doesn’t care about teens and can’t wait to get out of it, that’s wrong; but if after a time a youth leader senses the desire to move to another area of ministry, that’s great!

YWJ: Anything else we should know?

Mark: Ironically, one of the greatest inhibitors to the development of effective youth workers may just be our exclusive focus on the development of professional youth workers. We have to move beyond a staff-centered approach and equip churches to approach youth ministry systemically. When churches build a solid youth ministry infrastructure, dependence on the outside superstars decreases dramatically. Unless churches are able to make this shift, “stuckness” will continue to be the norm.