Tom McKee
Don Baker, now pastor of First Evangelical Free Church in Rockford, Illinois, still remembers his first full-time youth minister. Jim joined the staff fresh out of seminary, filled with energy and enthusiasm. He greeted Don the first day with “Hi, Boss—what do you want me to do?”
Baker knew exactly what he wanted, but he did not want to take the time to tell him. After all, he thought, Jim was a seminary graduate; he should already know what needs to be done. So Don told the new youth pastor to go to his office, get on his knees, and ask God.
That is not bad advice; however, it is often a cop-out to avoid personal responsibility. As Baker recalls, “God kept telling Jim to do the dumbest things.” And when Baker corrected Jim for not doing what he expected him to do, Baker became painfully aware that he had never really given Jim any direction.1
At a youth pastor’s conference in southern California a couple of years ago, I talked with dozens of discouraged youth pastors. The word I kept getting from them was “I just wish my pastor would spend time with me. I feel so alone.” A few months later I was at a luncheon with a group of pastors who were discussing the problems with staff members. Several of them said, “I just wish he would grab the ball and run. He seems to be floundering, and I don’t know how to help him.”
Recently a young woman in youth ministry at another church in town sat in my office crying. Full of enthusiasm and talent, liked by the young people, Julie had started her work with high hopes and wanted to “turn the group upside down.” But she was defeated and ready to quit after only a few months.
Churches hurt too. One church, for example, has had four youth pastors in the last four years. The church is dynamic, but for some reason they cannot seem to hold a youth pastor, and the young people are beginning to leave the church for another one in town.
How can these problems be prevented or at least minimized? How can we find the right person for youth work? When we have found the proper person, what kind of working relationship should we establish? And if we already have an effective youth pastor, how can we keep him?
Calling the Youth Pastor
There’s more than one place to look for candidates to lead the youth ministry. Many churches fail to check out their own congregation. I had lunch with a pastor recently who was looking for a pastor for college students. “We need someone who will not only keep the program going but will really carve out a unique ministry and penetrate the college campuses,” he said. Then he told about a Bible teacher in a local Christian high school who was currently heading up the group. “I’m so afraid that this dynamic leader will get a better teaching job somewhere else, and we will lose him.”
As he spoke, he stopped. A light went on in his head. “Why didn’t I think of it before? He would be a perfect candidate for the position. I think I’ll call him tonight.”
Or the potential youth pastor may be someone who was once in your church. One of the greatest thrills in my life came when I was called to serve my home church in Los Gatos, California, as youth pastor. To the older people there, I was still Tommy. They saw me baptized when I was seven, watched me grow up, watched my hopped-up ’36 Ford roar in and out of the parking lot (some were against my coming on the church staff because they had good memories). But I spent seven years ministering to the youth of my home church after Bible school before going to seminary, and some of those who voted against my call became my most ardent supporters.
My firm conviction is that often we can find excellent staff members in our own churches. Our children’s director, Peggy Dorei, and our youth pastor, Paul Thome, are from our congregation. One of the biggest problems I have with reading résumés is that many people look good on paper. The same problem applies to interviews. Most pastors know how to sell themselves, and they do a great job with pulpit committees. Youth pastors are no exception. But when you call someone from your own church, you already know the weaknesses and strengths. You know how the person works with others and with teens.
But this is not always possible. You may not have anyone in your church who would fit the bill, so you begin to search outside.
We wrote to seminaries, denomination leaders, fellow pastors, and asked our congregation to supply us with prospects. We then collected résumés, sent out forms to references, and followed up likely candidates with extensive phone calls to them and their references. During a salary discussion one time an elder said to me, “I want to make sure this person gets enough, because I sure don’t want to go through this process again!” Granted, to follow all the procedures and then be turned down—or turn someone down—is discouraging.
One pastor doesn’t write the job description until he has a particular person in mind. He looks for someone who can communicate with young people and would be in harmony with the philosophy of ministry of the church. He evaluates that person’s gifts. Then he writes the job description. If he finds someone with a strong music background, the youth program will definitely have that emphasis. If he finds someone with a strong athletic background, the youth ministry will utilize that tool. This method is reported to be effective.
I have not used that approach. I write the job description, then look for the person who fits. This, too, has proved effective. When we were looking for a youth pastor, we also had some musical needs in the church. I wanted someone who would be able to help lead one of our worship services. We interviewed a lot of young men who would have made great youth pastors, but we did not call them because they did not fill the other need. We waited a long time to get the person we wanted. Paul has now been with us more than three years. He leads the first worship service and has developed a very significant ministry outside of his very effective youth ministry.
When we interview a prospective staff member, five different groups in the church participate. I attend all of the interviews and keep injecting case examples: “What would you do if …?” I even try a little confrontation. I try to point out things that did not go well in the interviews so I can see how the person responds to confrontation.
This takes time, but it pays off. We spent a year and a half looking for our last staff member, but he was worth waiting for.
I personally enjoy working with those right out of seminary and training them. I like spending time with staff, talking about ideas, helping them write goals. That’s why I look first of all for people I enjoy and, secondly, for those with whom I sense I can share openly.
In contacting potential youth pastors, I’ve found it is important to give as much information as possible. When I was graduating from seminary, the First Baptist Church in Collinsville, Illinois, sent me an impressive packet with a profile of the church and information about the town, including maps, brochures, and clippings from the Chamber of Commerce. When I finished reading all that, I felt I had a pretty good perspective on the church. The last paragraph of the letter mentioned the pulpit committee chairman would be calling me in a week to see if I was interested and if I had any questions. I wrote a pageful, and that telephone call began a very positive relationship. Little wonder I decided to go there.
Managing the Youth Pastor
“I don’t like surprises,” I often tell my staff. “I want to know what is happening.” I guess this goes back to the phone call I got from a parent saying, “Tom, did you know the kids are planning to paint their Sunday school room?” I desperately wanted to answer, “Yes, in fact, the board knows all about it, and we bought the paint!”
Good communication between the pastor and youth pastor can solve major conflict. David Sarnoff of RCA has said, “The power to communicate is the power to lead.… Good communication, not structure, is the cement that holds any organization together.”2
I believe communication is the major problem in staff relationships. I have learned not to assume anything but to keep asking questions and be aware of all I can. The problem is, a great deal of friction can develop in this. The following four ingredients provide good lubrication.
The Weekly Written Report. While in seminary I was on the part-time staff of Galilee Baptist Church, Denver, Colorado. Pastor Bob Frederich required weekly answers on paper to six simple questions. At first I resisted. I had worked in successful staff positions for ten years and was a self-motivated, goal-oriented person. Why did I need to fill out these reports? However, since it was part of the job, I complied.
Within two months I was convinced of the value of the procedure. Controversy began to surround my plans for a youth choir tour. As Bob began to answer questions, he had all the information he needed on my staff reports. He knew what was happening before the calls came. He defended my position. I began to realize what an asset it was to have a pastor running interference for me.
I use the same form with my staff today. The six questions are:
1. What significant decisions have you (or your committees) made this week?
2. What significant discipleship experiences have you had this week?
3. What projects have you completed?
4. What projects are in the planning stage?
5. What problems are you facing in your ministry?
6. What personal problems are you facing in your ministry?
Sometimes a question can be left blank. I don’t want the staff taking a lot of time to fill this out.
But it is from these reports that I make the agenda for individual meetings with staffers. Sometimes these meetings run only ten minutes; at other times they go more than an hour. Anytime a staff member writes something for the last two questions, we talk about it.
I talked with one pastor who uses a similar approach but without the written report. He discusses three areas at weekly staff meetings:
1. Personal. “How are things at home? How are you feeling about your ministry? Your workload?”
2. The calendar. This opens up all the areas of program.
3. People. They discuss sponsors, youth leaders, elders, and those people in the church they are discipling.
Monthly Relational Meetings. The second ingredient to nonthreatening communication is a monthly meeting with each staff person. I take Paul, our youth pastor, out to lunch, and although we go over the weekly staff report, the conversation is more often a time to laugh and just talk about anything that comes up—books we are reading, issues of the day, theological questions, personal needs. I look forward to these times. Since I have selected staff people I enjoy, these luncheons are a bright spot in my month.
Lillian Toms, pastor’s wife at Arcade Baptist Church in Sacramento, California, does the same thing with staff pastors’ wives. She has a regular lunch with the wives in a home. Our staff and their spouses have a fall retreat each year and a social gathering several times a year. It is easy to get so involved in our own ministries that we do not make relational and social time together a priority.
Owning One’s Goals. How do I get the staff to perform to their greatest potential? How do I evaluate them without threatening them? By making sure their goals are theirs, not just mine.
Julie, the youth pastor who came to see me, was frustrated because she did not know how to put her ideas into action. She had potential and always seemed to be just around the corner from progress, but nothing ever happened. And her pastor didn’t seem to know how to help her.
Leadership must liberate people and, at the same time, provide guidelines for productivity. Julie told me that when she was really down, she had gone back to her college pastor from her former church and asked him what to do. He helped her evaluate first of all the needs of the youth group. They sat down together and wrote out the needs, followed by measurable goals to meet those needs.
But he pushed her one step further, which was the key. He asked her to write down three things that she could do that week to begin to accomplish those goals. She was to report back the next week. Julie told me that when she saw it on paper, she became so motivated she not only did the three things but “did forty other tasks along the way” (again, her natural enthusiasm shows in her overstatement).
Julie was in desperate need of two things. First of all, she needed accountability. It is sad that she had to go back to her college pastor to find this. Second, she needed someone to help her outline the job to be done.
I require my staff to turn in six-month goals, written in three steps:
1. What are the felt needs of the ministry? In 99 percent of the cases, they know exactly what needs to happen. One year, for example, Paul said he was really concerned about the lack of personal one-to-one discipleship in our high school department. That was indeed the major thing to correct in the next six months.
2. What are your measurable goals to meet these needs? Paul decided to train disciplers to work with the high school youth. His measurable goal for the next six months was to recruit and train at least four—two men and two women. (Of course, this was just one of his goals; others dealt with other aspects of the high school, junior high, and college ministries, plus his personal life.)
3. How are you going to accomplish these goals?
This is the step often left out, yet I think it is essential for accomplishing anything. Paul set up a summer training program for college-age people to learn how to disciple. He met with them twice a week and taught them principles of personal Bible study and of teaching. Out of that group some of Paul’s key disciplers have emerged.
When we recently brought Dave Shelley on our staff, I wrote his first six-month goals. I told him he would be the quarterback of the team in the music/worship ministry. But for the first six months, I would be a play-calling coach. At the end of that time, I wanted him to begin to call his own plays.
As part of the team, I also write my goals and share them with the staff. I want to be accountable to them as much as they are to me. We write these goals in January and early summer. Because we each write our own, we own them; they are ours. It is not a case of the board or the church or the pastor telling anyone what to do. We sense the Lord is telling us what to do as we evaluate our various ministries.
Six-Month Evaluation. The last part of nonthreatening communication is evaluation. Is that a paradox? Can any evaluation be nonthreatening?
Recently I heard about a man who decided to fire an employee. This was his first time to let someone go, and he didn’t know how to go about it. So he called the person into his office and asked, “How do you feel about your work?”
By the time the employee finished talking, the boss had given him a raise!
But that did not solve the problem. Without any system of evaluation, the worker had no criteria for improvement. Therefore, there was no change, and he was fired anyway.
I have found that the best criteria for evaluation are the short-term goals each staff person has written. When I meet with a staff member for the six-month evaluation of ministry, we go over these goals. How many were realistic? How many were accomplished? How many are still in the planning stage?
What makes this nonthreatening is that the evaluation measures whether they have accomplished their goals. This helps the members of the staff improve and grow in the ministry. Our goal is not to fire everyone who does not reach a standard but rather to help each person become more effective.
Keeping the Youth Pastor
When we have done our homework in calling the right person and following the steps of communication, work becomes a pleasure. A church staff is much like a marriage. It takes a lot of work to be successful, and you don’t want to see it break up. I want to keep my staff, and I have found I am more likely to do that if I make sure they are affirmed in the following areas:
Public Affirmation. If the youth pastor has preaching potential, he needs the opportunity to preach. I am thankful my senior pastor allowed me to preach once a month in the evening service when I was a youth pastor. If youth pastors do not have these gifts, we need to make sure they have some public opportunity to present the youth ministry. This may be in a special service put on by the youth, or a report after retreats, mission trips, camps, or a special outreach. We also need to use every opportunity to mention the youth department and our staff in sermons. This affirmation publicly proclaims to the church that you and the youth pastor are a team.
As I mentioned, our youth pastor, Paul, leads our first morning worship service. This puts him in front of the worshipers, ministering to the entire church, not just the youth. He receives much affirmation from the people in that service. This wider exposure is good for Paul.
Private Affirmation. Many churches have only two staff members, but the younger one feels totally out of the planning of the church. In our church, every staff pastor is a member of the church board, voting on all matters of planning. When we began working on plans for a worship center, we spent time in our staff meetings sharing ideas. I wanted to make sure each person is an important part of the team.
Churches with ten or twelve pastors find it more difficult, I know—but it is not impossible. In 1984 I was inspired by the leadership of Peter Ueberroth, the mastermind behind the Twenty-third Olympic Games. To boost spirits, Ueberroth wore a different uniform each day: a bus driver’s suit, a kitchen staffer’s whites, a blue-and-gold usher’s shirt.3 When the workers saw him in their uniform, it was an affirmation of their place on the team.
If Ueberroth could take the time to identify with the many volunteer and paid workers on his massive team, we have no excuse.
I constantly look for ways to affirm the staff person’s work, especially ways they have helped me. It’s all right for a church staff to be a mutual admiration society.
Financial Affirmation. I was talking with a member of our church who works for a credit union that seems to have an unusual record of employee tenure. I asked what was their secret. I learned they had done a comparative salary survey of credit unions across the country, then decided to implement a merit system that put their best employees a step above their competitors. Each individual employee is reviewed regularly, and if they merit an increase, management awards an incentive raise in addition to a cost-of-living raise.
Obviously, other credit unions have not been able to steal their best workers. Of course there are other considerations beside salary in keeping an employee; however, we should never minimize the financial aspect. Each year I try to research what other churches are paying and pass this information along to the board so they can carefully consider the salary of each staff member.
Perks. Many pastors plan mission tours or trips to the Holy Land, but the youth pastor rarely has this opportunity. Why not? When I was in my sixth year in Los Gatos, I got to lead a youth mission team to Europe for a month. What a privilege!
Some churches offer study leave or sabbaticals. Many times a youth pastor is burned out after five years, and a month off to study or a mission tour would do more for him than a change of churches. Sending a youth pastor and his wife to youth worker conventions is a wise investment, another of the perquisites that encourages a team member.
Many pastors say, “I’m weak on administration—that just isn’t my gift.” Even so, if they are going to lead a church staff, they must learn the principles of calling, managing, and affirming. We can all grow to become not only adequate but successful church executives.
Don Baker, Leadership (Portland: Multnomah, 1983), p. 3.
“Man of the Year—Master of the Games,” Time, January 7, 1985, p. 38.
© 1986 Christianity Today
