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.