How many of you go to a Church with a "Youth Pastor"?

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ReformedWretch

ReformedWretch

Puritan Board Doctor
This is breaking off from the thread about reaching todays youth with reformed theology. I am wondering how many of you attend churches that have youth ministers. If you do, what do you think of it?
 
Yeah, our church has a youth pastor, me. I am also the toddlers. young adults, middle age, and senior citizen's pastor.

:lol:
 
PuritanBouncer said:
This is breaking off from the thread about reaching todays youth with reformed theology. I am wondering how many of you attend churches that have youth ministers. If you do, what do you think of it?
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Adam,

What do you mean by Youth Pastors? Do ya mean a person, other than the pastor, that organizes events, etc. for the youth. Or do ya mean that the youth is together and he teaches them while the adults are with the pastor? Or do ya mean something else ...?
 
"Youth Pastor" typically means someone who is hired specifically to shepherd (too strong a word for many in such positions) the youth of the church. Usually this is NOT a 'replacement' for the pastor as you asked - that is, while the 'adults' are in with the 'normal' pastor, the youth are listening to the 'youth' pastor. That would be exceedingly odd (though I know some of the monstrous mega churches in the south do this, where the youth watch music videos and such during the normal church service).
 
JonathanHunt said:
Yeah, our church has a youth pastor, me. I am also the toddlers. young adults, middle age, and senior citizen's pastor.
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We have two pastors, who minister to the congregation as a whole. Children are with the adults during the worship service, so there isn't any need for a special "youth pastor".
 
That is what I suspected but Adam threw "Youth Minister" into the mix :) which can be interpreted as something a "little" different.

We have an elder that is facilitates a ton of the youth curriculem, activities, etc. but besides 4 and under (we have our 3 year old in with us), children usually come in with the adults.

I have been a member of a church with a youth pastor as you described and yes the youth watched a lot of things and dressed in a way that suggested that they, well, they dressed terrible but that is Off Topic. :um:
 
"Youth Pastor" typically means someone who is hired specifically to shepherd (too strong a word for many in such positions) the youth of the church.
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That's what I'm talking about, and no I don't mean the youth have a separate service on the Lord's day but they may have special services/meetings say on Sunday evenings or something as well as mission trips and other such things lead by this person.
 
Someone kicked around the idea of trying to make me this for about an hour...

Then they realized I'm horrible with kids and way too wordy to ever convey anything intelligible to them.

They still kept me on as their Sunday School teacher. :p

Personally, I wouldn't want to put someone akin to a "youth pastor" in charge of shepherding children. Usually, this type of job isn't given to someone who is mature enough to actually shepherd anyone, much less kids. The Pastor should still be keeping tabs on those kids instead of deferring to the youth pastor.
 
Yes, we have a TE that is charge of shepherding the youth in our church. He writes the curriculum for the Reformed Youth Fellowship and leads the youth in going through the WCF. His official title is Asst Pastor but one of his main focuses is the youth of the church.
 
At my church we have one pastor and all the kids, teens, and adults are together for the worship service to hear him preach. However, we do have a youth leader who is a seminary student and who occasionally provides pulpit supply at our church and other OP churches in the area. He leads a youth group meeting on Saturday nights, organizes youth events, and meets individually with the youth in our church. He has been a great influence on the youth in our church and the youth group meetings typically include an hour or more of good, deep, reformed teaching.
 
We have no "youth Pastor" as such, we have a RUF Pastor connected with the Church, that is about as close as we get.:popcorn:
 
ChristianHedonist said:
At my church we have one pastor and all the kids, teens, and adults are together for the worship service to hear him preach. However, we do have a youth leader who is a seminary student and who occasionally provides pulpit supply at our church and other OP churches in the area. He leads a youth group meeting on Saturday nights, organizes youth events, and meets individually with the youth in our church. He has been a great influence on the youth in our church and the youth group meetings typically include an hour or more of good, deep, reformed teaching.
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what you've explained here is exactly what I am talking about.
 
We have a Pastor of Students. Our church has 4 Pastors. A senior pastor (whom Preaches on the Lord's Day morning and evening, and leads our Wednesday service as well) a pastor of Evangelism/education,a pastor of music and senior's. Our youth services are before the Sunday night worship service and the Wednesday night service, they are never set apart from them. The Pastor of Students is the head over all the SS classes of the 5yrOld to College Singles. He makes arrangements for and brings the children and youth to their church camps and also is head over there other events/activities. He is in his mid to late 30's and is an ordained elder with a degree or two from seminary.

At my old church there was a 22 yr old guy with no biblical understanding who hung out with the youth and taught them the type of things you might hear Joel Osteen say. "Just love everybody and try to be a good person."
 
At my church we have one pastor and all the kids, teens, and adults are together for the worship service to hear him preach. However, we do have a youth leader who is a seminary student and who occasionally provides pulpit supply at our church and other OP churches in the area. He leads a youth group meeting on Saturday nights, organizes youth events, and meets individually with the youth in our church. He has been a great influence on the youth in our church and the youth group meetings typically include an hour or more of good, deep, reformed teaching.
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we have much the same at our church, but the teens get together during the week or Sunday nights for Bible Study.

he also goes with the teens on Mission's trips over the summer, and there are some Sunday's when he steps in and teaches from the pulpit.
 
We are blessed to have four "Pastors"- one each primarily for teaching, pastoral care, a younger teaching intern, and one for youth. Generally, but not always, all are ordained teaching elders.

The youth Pastor coordinates a lot of events with youth and is an interface with the parents of the youth. This seems to work well as there is enough of a biblical focus and involvement of youth with others in ruling and teaching authority.
 
I started during seminary as a part-time youth pastor. Upon graduation, the church called me as a full-time associate pastor with primary responsibilities for youth. In my next two churches (as solo and senior pastor), I always had a youth pastor on my staff part-time or full-time. Typically, they were seminary students or young pastors in their first placement after seminary. In my last pastorate, we had four full time pastors/directors who were seminary grads and a few part-time folks. So, there was a full-time man and a part-time one covering the range from jr. high through college aged.

As far as what I think about it . . . it is a mixed bag. Generally such persons lack the requisite maturity or time needed to really do a first-rate job of discipleship. During 22 years of my pastoral work, I always went with the kids to camp (one week with sr. highs and one week with jr. highs) along with 10 or more other senior pastors and their youth staff. We took turns providing the teaching and speaking tasks to between 350-500 teens.

It would be VERY unusual for an evangelical congregation (other than a tiny one) NOT to have a person as youth pastor.
 
I recall reading a compelling article by a youth pastor who became convinced that the there really should be no need for a youth pastor if PARENTS would only do their job. Rather, parents typically want to outsource this primary God-given responsibility to another "professional" at the church. The time of bible study, fun and games, etc, should be done in the context of families doing these things. The author then decided to shift his ministry to training parents, with the ultimate goal of "working himself out of a job".

I appreciate that kind of attitude.

My church has about 220 members, with a healthy sized youth group. We do not have a youth pastor, and with the healthy level of parental involvement, I don't anticipate we'll go down the road of specialization.
 
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We have a college pastor, a pastor for the high-school youth, a director for middle-school youth, and a director for younger children. The first three are full-time staff positions; I don't know if the latter is full-time. The pastors are not actually TEs.
 
We had a youth pastor, but he and his wife are leaving for missionary work in Kurdistan (northern Iraq) in six days. We're getting a new youth pastor as soon as he can sell his house in upstate New York. He graduated from Liberty University and is a big Falwell fan, so I'll have to indoctrinate him on some Reformed teachings. :cool:

Yeah, sorry, I don't attend a Reformed church. :( That will change this coming school year, though. Praise the Lord.
 
mvdm said:
I recall reading a compelling article by a youth pastor who became convinced that the there really should be no need for a youth pastor if PARENTS would only do their job.
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Do you recall where that article was from?
 
toddpedlar said:
"Youth Pastor" typically means someone who is hired specifically to shepherd (too strong a word for many in such positions) the youth of the church. Usually this is NOT a 'replacement' for the pastor as you asked - that is, while the 'adults' are in with the 'normal' pastor, the youth are listening to the 'youth' pastor.
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Are you saying that some churches have a 'normal' pastor???
 
KMK said:
toddpedlar said:
"Youth Pastor" typically means someone who is hired specifically to shepherd (too strong a word for many in such positions) the youth of the church. Usually this is NOT a 'replacement' for the pastor as you asked - that is, while the 'adults' are in with the 'normal' pastor, the youth are listening to the 'youth' pastor.
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Are you saying that some churches have a 'normal' pastor???
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That's a rare bird.
 
SRoper said:
The pastors are not actually TEs.
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Then scripturally... should they be labelled pastors at all?

I know that these days the term 'pastor' gets bandied about a lot - some churches have 'Administration Pastors', 'Outreach Pastors', 'Youth Pastors' when really what they have is a typist, an evangelist, and a Sunday School Teacher.

One of these days there's going to be a 'Pastor of Sanitation' who has charge of the fifty restrooms in the megachurches of today...
 
I have yet to see a valid biblical argument for segregating a church based on demographic distinctions. Such arguments are invariably philosophical and pragmatic in their reasoning, with no clear biblical precedent or foundation. To answer the question, in a word, "no." But, every parent of a youth is, in essence, a shepherd of youth. Our vision is to facilitate the discipleship of every youth/child by the shepherd that God has already assigned them, their fathers.
 
Wannabee said:
I have yet to see a valid biblical argument for segregating a church based on demographic distinctions. Such arguments are invariably philosophical and pragmatic in their reasoning, with no clear biblical precedent or foundation. To answer the question, in a word, "no." But, every parent of a youth is, in essence, a shepherd of youth. Our vision is to facilitate the discipleship of every youth/child by the shepherd that God has already assigned them, their fathers.
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I'm not in favor of "segregating", but I do think it makes good sense to allow for specific pastoral attention to be given along some demographic lines. The Church is certainly one and much of what is done should be done together. Still, we as a church and I as a father have found it helpful to have a pastor lead some specific ministries that build up our young people. Such activities/ministries are not in place of parents, but an assistance to parents.

While not meant to be an apologetic for hyper-segregated youth ministries, I do think 1 John 2 displays some demographically specific and particular instructions:

1 John 2:12 I am writing to you, little children,
because your sins are forgiven for his name's sake.
13 I am writing to you, fathers,
because you know him who is from the beginning.
I am writing to you, young men,
because you have overcome the evil one.
I write to you, children,
because you know the Father.
14 I write to you, fathers,
because you know him who is from the beginning.
I write to you, young men,
because you are strong,
and the word of God abides in you,
and you have overcome the evil one.

There are other passages that address particular demographics in the church (employers, employees, widows, etc.). In this light, demographically specific focuses in the church are certainly not unbiblical.

Our youth pastor is a faithful discipler who comes along side myself and other parents in order to uphold and enhance the training we are providing our children.
 
Wannabee said:
I have yet to see a valid biblical argument for segregating a church based on demographic distinctions. Such arguments are invariably philosophical and pragmatic in their reasoning, with no clear biblical precedent or foundation. To answer the question, in a word, "no." But, every parent of a youth is, in essence, a shepherd of youth. Our vision is to facilitate the discipleship of every youth/child by the shepherd that God has already assigned them, their fathers.
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This in my experience is how "reformed" Christians seem to feel over all (majority), and while I respect it, I disagree completely. I don't think a youth pastor "segregates" a Church but instead if doing his job correctly, brings it closer together. While every parent may be a "shepherd" of youth, that doesn't always happen. Also, there are fatherless children in our churches that I feel are getting ignored by many answers in this thread. I think some make the mistake of believing all church families are healthy families.
 
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