Has it really been 25 years? I still remember the staff meeting at Youth Specialties when we made the decision to launch this humble rag. One big debate was whether to name our new journal YouthWorker (one word) or Youth Worker (two words). We decided to go with one word, unaware this would generate an annoying squiggly red line every time it was typed into a future word processor with a spell checker. (This technology hadn’t been invented yet!)

We also created a clever marketing

slogan: “YouthWorker: The journal

that takes youth ministry as seriously

as you do.”

Truth was, not many people took

youth ministry—or youth workers—

seriously back then. We were perceived

similarly to activity directors on a cruise

ship. We wore whistles, kept a pile of

idea books on the desk (if we had a

desk) and held keys to the church bus.

We played guitars and told jokes; we

organized lock-ins, car washes,

Disneyland excursions, Chubby Bunny

tournaments and “World’s Longest

Banana Split” contests.

Most people considered youth ministry

a stepping stone to something else

(“When are you going to get a real job?”).

We wanted to publish a top-notch journal

that would provide quality content and

promote youth ministry as a legitimate

calling and career.

Fast forward a quarter century; it’s safe

to say youth ministry has arrived.

Attend any youth worker convention

(there are dozens now), and it’s plain to

see youth ministry is no longer a junior

profession. A multi-million-dollar

industry has emerged with the same

quality of resources and celebrity

spokespeople found in other professions.

Christian colleges and seminaries, which

once scorned youth ministry, now offer

courses taught by professors with Ph.D.s;

churches now employ youth pastors

(often more than one) with salaries

and benefits rivaling those in the

private sector.

So are things better now? Have we

succeeded? Are we doing better youth

ministry with better results now that we

have become professionalized?

A good deal of research and debate is

going on right now concerning the

answers to those questions, but I’d like to

make one observation.

Youth ministry degrees, nice

paychecks and all the resources in the

world can’t help a teenager the way a

caring adult who loves Jesus and kids can.

I always have believed the best youth

workers are those who are irrationally

committed to teenagers—they love kids

and are willing to get involved in a

young person’s life even when it makes

no sense to do so. Most people I’ve known

like that (including many who touched

my life when I was a teenager) were not

professional youth workers.

Perhaps our biggest challenge in

youth ministry today is the challenge of

un-professionalizing youth ministry—

figuring out how we can get more of

those irrationally committed people to

come alongside our kids just like

YouthWorker Journal has come alongside

us. I’m very proud of the contribution

this journal has made in the past

25 years, but I hope we’ll never lose

sight of the fact that it takes more

than a professional to make disciples

of teenagers.