recently i filled out my self-evaluation for my job performance as director of youth ministries at hfumc. in this evaluation as in every other prior evaluation i have a statement that seems to find its way  in there that "i struggle with a constant tension between the relationship and administration of my ministry." what that means, and my staff parish understands this about me, is that i am a relationship minister at the core. i get rejuvinated from being around folks in conversation, helping them through tough times, praying for them, teaching something as a mentor to them. however, i find that most of my work is held up in the administration of my job. this isn’t to say that i do not appreciate that aspect of my job. in fact, if i ignored it, i would not be in my job now (is there a parallel that youth ministers avg shelf life is 12-18 months?). what this "tension" for me is that administration is not my gift and it takes extra energy, time, and planning to do it well. it just is not my natural person.

now, i don’t know, but this may just be methodist church culture phenom, but it might not. the methodist church seems to always roll with a solo youth pastor. they are a one person show. all communication, information, paper pieces, new ideas, training, finances, implementation, planning, etc comes out of that one body. if one is lucky, as i am, you have staff that serves the whole church, which is able to help you out. my church staff happens to be wonderful and they cover my butt constantly, but their help is, in ways, limited to their specific tasks (ie. finance person holds my books and covers all our cash flow needs, but they do not send my mail). it is strange this one person show and i started to wonder, why do we do this one person show. then i ran some numbers.

for my context

227 : youth on our roll currently (we added a few last night though)
454 : potential number for parents (not all youth have 2 parents, that is a max number)
25 : youth leaders that are not already parents
706 : total number of people in the HFUMC Youth Parrish

now, if i were a methodist pastor, appointed to a church with a roll attendance of 706 people what might my staff make up look like? it would not be a solo pastor. you would certainly have an associate, and probably would have one to two administrative people.

what are your numbers like?

my buddy mark devries has a bit of research they use at youth ministry architects that says that you need one staff person for every 50 youth and that adults can only keep around 5 deep relationships with youth at one time. so with a number like that in mind, is it any wonder that our real numbers of participation reflect about 28% of that population highlighted above?

no wonder i am tired all the time. i have to put on a mask of skills that is not my primary. in the last week we sent out a mass email, group text messages, a paper letter mailing to parents, a graphically enhanced postcard to all youth, and a number of phone calls. we had checks cut for future events, buying groceries and kitchen items to serve food with, driving youth to meetings, planning calendar, making copies, making more copies, cleaning our space, trashing my own office, cleaning a kitchen.. and the list goes on.

why does the church, as a general, see the youth ministry as some side piece of the church? they are a part of the church, and it is harmful to go off and create a separate church of youth, but administratively it seems logical to look at how you are staffing your church and give some equal value to youth, children, and other focus of the church community.