Enjoyed reading Jeremy’s post over on REYouthPastor talking about burnout and youth ministry. He asks some good questions, and I’d love to read some of your thoughts on the subject or burnout. Here’s a clip of his stuff, head over there to read the whole thing and comment if you would like:
Pain is part of the youth pastor job description. Does experiencing pain and exhaustion season a youth pastor? One of the biggest negative aspects of being a youth pastor is that working with students stunts our emotional and life growth.
Many youth pastors try so hard to dodge the ?burn out? bullet.
We try to take more days off, vacations, see a psycho-therapist, take a monthly spiritual retreat, and pursue spiritual formation but it seems like we are only left with more exposed pain, exhaustion, and burn out. There is this belief that if you burn out, you are a bad youth pastor because apparently you didn?t take enough days off or establish healthy boundaries. I think the exact opposite is true.
America?s best youth pastors are the youth workers who have learned and persevered through their many painful and hurtful church experiences. The youth pastors that persevere make it, but the youth pastors that live in the past and become jaded don?t make it.
My point ? the best youth pastors are the youth pastors who burn out or get burned because very early on they learn to forgive and to let go.
JG
We are excited to finally roll out the new SYMC website for 2011. The new site has the speaker line-up (although there’s more to come there), the great Training options, and all the registration details you need to know. There’s so much there you’ll have to check it out what Doug and the rest of the gang have planned.
We are so excited, I hope you join us in Chicago, March 4 – 7 2011.
1 September 2010
posted by Scott Rubin
Some of your churches are like mine, and you encourage some of your volunteers to ?take a breath? during the summer months. We push the pause button on our small groups in June & July so that our faithful volunteers can vacation, rest, and be ready to jump back into investing in junior highers once the school year begins. Honestly, our ministry is less effective during those months, and I miss those volunteers like crazy, but for us it?s the best choice in the long run. (and, it probably explains why so many of our volunteers have stuck around for years & years!)
So last week, I was anticipating the ?re-arrival? of our school year volunteers. I said to our staff team, ?Who?s one person that you?re really really looking forward to serving alongside of this year?? It was fun to hear people?s answers? and look forward to this fun we?re going to have together this year, as we point middle schoolers towards Jesus.
Later that day, I decided to take 4 minutes & jot a note to one of those volunteers? and tell them how much they?re valued around here ? and why. It?s a habit I?m trying to ?re-create? ? because honestly, I?ve gotten a little sloppy with it! (Which is crazy, because when I get an encouragement note, sometimes I?ll carry it around with me for a few days!) Thoughtful words are really meaningful to me — and in about 4 minutes, I can put some fuel in someone?s tank just by jotting them a snail-mail note. In a mailbox full of credit card offers and cable-tv-advertisements, a card from you would be a welcome site!
This may make the live bloggers a little miffed, but apple announced they will live stream their event tomorrow. I love that they made this move.
From their site: Apple will broadcast its September 1 event online using Apple?s industry-leading HTTP Live Streaming, which is based on open standards. Viewing requires either a Mac running Safari on Mac OS X version 10.6 Snow Leopard, an iPhone or iPod touch running iOS 3.0 or higher, or an iPad?. The live broadcast will begin at 10:00 a.m. PDT on September 1, 2010 at www.apple.com.
I’ll be sure to log in, how about you?
UPDATE: Here the link for the live stream: http://events.apple.com.edgesuite.net/1009qpeijrfn/event. Here are the system requirements: Safari 4 or 5 on Mac OS X Snow Leopard or Safari on iOS 3 or later. Sorry PC friends.
Yesterday I was on an hour long live radio show with Faith Radio in Saint Paul, Minnesota. We talked about the book I wrote with Reggie and Abbie called, The Slow Fade. They asked me a bunch of questions, people called in and sent emails to ask questions. If you’re interested in listening to that interview via podcast, click here.
Here?s a thought-provoking twist on an old game that you can use at a youth group meeting to help kick-off your fall and to generate a great discussion about community and commitment to each other. With this new twist on the classic Hide and Seek, from back in the day, your youth will have to make a decision that will provoke deeper thoughts as to: “Why we hide sometimes,” “Why do we not seek others out” and “How does it feel to be ‘found’.”
Hide and Seek (with a twist)
Ur YM has kicked off for the fall or is about to. How’s ur voluntold team looking?
Mark DeVries in his epic book, Sustainable Youth Ministry, says u should have 1 adult volunteer (engaged and relational I would add) for every 5 of ur youth. How’s that going for you?
Some of u are doing great. Skip the rest of this blog then and go back to chatting on FB.
For the rest of you: having trouble getting enough good volunteers?
Three reasons why: 1) Have you asked the right people?
2) Have you given them a specific job description with clear cut expectations, boundaries, plans and purpose?
3) Are you spending more time with ur teens than w ur volunteers?
Let any one of these three facts go awry and that’s a place to start figuring out why ur begging and pleading for help. Why ur pulling out hairs u can’t spare from ur head. Why uve even resorted to asking the SP if he would like to help “chaperon” the MS lock-in. Ur are one desperate YP if it comes to that!
Stephanie
PS-u can always tell when i’m posting from my phone. grammer, spelling and abbreviations don’t seem to matter to me.
A good friend and mentor of mine (Carol Timmons) has been helping me hear God’s voice through my journey of “rewiring”. She is amazing and sent me this great article about doing too much.
Give it a read, its quick and insightful. Click here.
I definitely think its applicable to our lives as well as the students we work with.
My favorite line, “…something’s getting buried. And I think it could be our souls.”
Great stuff to think about.
I can relate to everyone of these posts in some way! It can be so hard to juggle all that goes on with life in the ministry.
My husband and I have come to the prayerful conclusion that we are called to full-time ministry but we are also NOT called to withdraw from the rest of life. If there is an important family function or a child has a band concert etc…it is put on the calendar first. We have a hard time understanding how neglecting our own children makes us better youth ministers!
I know it can be a thankless, demanding job and it wasn’t till I was much older that I realized just how much my own youth pastor gave up for me. Now I pray all the time that I honor God with all my commitments and sometimes that means he is MORE honored by something I am doing outside the church.
You can’t please everyone so pray unselfishly about what to do and then honor GOD in doing it.
I’ll be praying for all of you 
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This is so true Amanda! It’s crazy that is exactly what my husband and I have been talking to our students about recently. since when do you need all AP classes, 2 sports at a time, play an instrument, etc. etc just to get into college? Is it really that competitive? I was a high achiever in HS too but now it just seems too crazy. All of our students are stressed and the reason why they stop pursuing a relationship with God is always “too busy”. When I think about the effect this has on our spiritual life it scares me but not many seem to agree.