Called to youth work?
I came across this post from someone thinking about how they ended up in youth work and are they called to it.
It got me thinking about a theory I had a while back. Are people called to youth ministry? Or are they called to ministry/to work with people and they chose to exercise that among young people? So you have people called to be evangelists or pastors and they could be that in a church or in another culture, but they do it among young people.
Or may be not - maybe some people are called to work with young people primarily.
A few years ago I took part in research about youthworkers and calling. Not sure what the results were. But it's an interesting question. Especially with people like me who would say they are called to help churches engage and to build church rather than called to be youthworkers. Of course there is also the issue of longevity in youth work, and the fact that so many seem to move out to other ministries (which is valid).
I came across this post from someone thinking about how they ended up in youth work and are they called to it.
It got me thinking about a theory I had a while back. Are people called to youth ministry? Or are they called to ministry/to work with people and they chose to exercise that among young people? So you have people called to be evangelists or pastors and they could be that in a church or in another culture, but they do it among young people.
Or may be not - maybe some people are called to work with young people primarily.
A few years ago I took part in research about youthworkers and calling. Not sure what the results were. But it's an interesting question. Especially with people like me who would say they are called to help churches engage and to build church rather than called to be youthworkers. Of course there is also the issue of longevity in youth work, and the fact that so many seem to move out to other ministries (which is valid).
Labels: Calling, Ministry, Youth Ministry, Youth Work
2 Comments:
The night before I was ordained a bishop, who I had not met up to that point, read my file and said to me, 'I see you are interested in youth work.'
'Yes' I said.
'Go on being interested in youthwork,' he said.
Since he didn't know me I took that as a word from the Lord and decided to go on being interested in youthwork until someone of the status of a bishop told me to stop. They haven't.
These days I work mainly with older teenagers (young adults) but I can say that I have been involved in youth ministry for 32 years, 23 of them professionally.
I headed up a large youth organisation (CYFA) for 8 of those years but it was the face-to-face work that was the best bit of that job, doing ventures, camps, members events etc.
To go on being interested in youth work is my calling.
Thanks, helpful story to hear
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