I just found this disturbing news from the Tennessee Conference (of the Untied Methodist Church): in a restructuring move, they have eliminated their conference staff person who worked with youth ministry. Here are the details from Gavin Richardson, the Conference Youth Coordinator for that Conference (this is a volunteer position, and one that I have held in Central Texas for five years.
I’ve been hearing for thirty years now that “Youth are the future of our church.” This is often said directly to the youth with a bit of triumphalistic condescension.
My question here is: if we overlook youth ministry, and eliminate staff positions for whom this is the primary responsibility, is it reasonable to expect that today’s youth will, in fact, be tomorrow’s church?
5 Comments
March 11, 2008 at 8:04 pm
I think this is a huge mistake, but it is the kind of mistake being made all across the connection in various ways. Here in Michigan i often feel that Youth Ministry is just “drying up” throughout our local churches.
Not that I’ve done a scientific study or anything – I’m just reflecting on the feedback I’ve been getting from District Youth Coordinators around here. They contact a lot of local churches that say “We hhave not youth.”
March 11, 2008 at 9:03 pm
Perhaps its related to Conferences trying to get out of the campus ministry business.
But let’s ask some more questions.
1. Why are they doing it?
2. Has the way they’ve been doing things been producing fruit?
3. You’ve mentioned familiarity with Wesley Foundations that are sinecures for Elders who failed at everything else. Has this ever been the case for a conference youth person?
4. What is the purpose of having a Conference Youth Staff Person – other than saying, “We care about youth?”
March 12, 2008 at 12:50 am
Conferences are trying to get out of the campus ministry business? Since (If) we haven’t been doing it well, we ought to quit trying?
I don’t know why they are doing it. Neither does Gavin Richardson, the Conference Youth Coordinator. I have no reasonable expectation to be part of this discussion; Mr. Richardson does.
Some if not several or all of the conference’s youth programs were fruitful.
March 12, 2008 at 7:02 am
richard, to give you 411
1.check in with jay’s post for a bishop response.
2.as for fruit, i have countless letters and phone calls pouring in from youth involved in church life, pastorship, wesley foundations, etc. i received one tonight from a college youth wondering what experience his little brother will have when he gets to youth age. i don’t know what more to do than to write letters, so they have.
3.our conference has been one of the more progressive in training and empowering youth and youth leaders under this person tenure, and i know she received a glowing job performance eval in december and the whole “new vision/direction” was no part of that eval.
4. we run a pretty active conference ministry to promote the connection and enable smaller & medium sized churches that are trying to meet the needs of their group. we have small 10 person events and 2500 person event, all youth led, with the exception of youth ministry institute and other ym training events. this summer we have calendared 5 major events that will encompass over 1000 youth, not counting summer camp in those numbers. our youth person also oversaw camping ministries as part of her job, which we restructured in the last two years.
March 12, 2008 at 1:38 pm
I don’t see a link to Jay’s post, Gavin, so I’ll keep looking for that and the Bishop’s response. It sounds like another case of god old UM top-down management: “We, the experts at the Conference Office, know best, so we will inflict it on you.”
I asked the questions I did partly because here in the Texas Conference we haven’t had a Conference wide Youth Staff Person, so I lack personal experience and familiarity with the position, and partly because I have enough experience with UM structures to know that they have, in the past generation, been only selectively effective. It sounds like you had a real winner there. I know a little from Steve about what they’ve done in the Central Texas Conference, and I got the idea that conference leadership often didn’t “get it.”