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.