Sometimes I wonder how I ever even made it as a youth minister through my emerging adulthood years (think: Dr. Jeffrey Arnett and his book, Emerging Adulthood: The Winding Road From Late Teens Through The Twenties). The first position I held as a "solo" youth minister I was only 22 years old. Those years were largely a time that I would characterize my life's experiences as experimental and transitory and my inner life as self-absorbed, unbalanced and stuck.
Disclaimer: I am not generalizing about a stage of life here; I am telling you who I was and at times, still am.
I took a call today from a youth minister in the Midwest who sounded a whole lot like I did when I was his age (25) and in my first few years of youth ministry; energetic, idealistic, optimistic, self-assured, and fearless. The conversation was frightening in the sense that it took me back to mistakes I had made over a decade ago, words I had spoken in absolute certainty that I wish I could take back and statements I made to myself like, "I can handle this" or "I don't need any help".
The difference between the youth minister I spoke to today and me at his age is this; he knows enough to long for and look for a mentor, I thought I could do it all on my own. The problem this minister is having is that he can't find one--maybe he isn't looking that hard or looking in the wrong places. I don't think that is the issue however, as today's conversation was one of a dozen or so I have had over the last year.
I certainly don't have anything against a 25 year old being a youth minister and being called on to guide the spiritual formation of a dozen or sometimes ten dozen teenagers. Much of my life is spent training and equipping 25-year olds. What I do have a problem with, however, is what I perceive as the outright neglect of older more mature men and women to mentor the emerging adults.
Am I the only one who sees a huge gap between the expectations we place on the lives of emerging adults to lead our youth ministry's and the mentoring those ministers are getting? Is it that youth ministers don't want to be mentored? Is it that others (church boards, pastors, etc.) won't take seriously the role of mentoring?
I had and currently have wonderful mentors in my life. I must say that the mentors who have taken their role with me seriously have undoubtedly changed and continue to change the way that I live, pray, work, play, etc. I continue to wonder if much of what concerns us about youth ministry today isn't at the very least reduced by commitments to mentoring. What would youth ministry be like if the churches who hired emerging adults to lead their youth ministry's were as passionate about mentoring the minister as they were about the minister mentoring the students?
Maybe I am trying to tackle an issue that really isn't all that noticeable to anyone but me, that is possible. I'd love to hear from all of you on this, however, I'd especially love to hear from some of you who are youth ministers and would be classified as an emerging adult (late teens through the twenties). What do you think? Do you think a mentor might help you be a better youth minister? Do you already have a mentor? If so, is it working? Why or Why not? Are you looking for a mentor and can't find one?
Add to Del.icio.us
Add to Technorati
Add to Digg
Add to Newsvine
Add to Facebook
Add to StumbleUpon
Subscribe
It seems to me that the difficulty is indeed in connecting mentors to mentees. I'm a 46 year old lay person with tons of ministry experience as a volunteer. My wife and i recently moved to a new city and wanted to jump in an get involved with college students on some basis. This move was a 1-year temporary move (I'm on sabbatical). After this year, we move back home.
Myy wife and I decided we wanted to jump into a local church and get involved with students and/or some of the younger staff at the church as mentors. It was *extremely* difficult to find our niche. I interacted with 3 different staff people before eventually finding a very small niche close to the end of our time here. I'm able to spend a few weeks with 3 great guys, but now my sabbatical is nearly done and we're back home. The bottom line is that our time here was largely wasted in terms of ministry.
The problem was not a lack of willingness on our part. Some of it was, I think, fear on the part of staff. "Who's this guy coming in here? we don' We don't know him, so what are his intentions?" Some of it was the fact that the staff was busy. And, I think another part of it was that young staff members didn't think they had much to learn from a lay person.
In my experience, our wasted time here is primarily due to problems with the staff, not problems with possible mentors.
I certainly agree that in other contexts, the problem is reversed-- willing staff, but unwilling possible mentors.
My point is this-- how do you connect willing people with each other? How do you help those who are unwilling to grow a bit? I think simply saying things like "they don't understand the emerging generation" are not helpful, even if they have a grain of truth to them.
So, I'm left with lots of questions and not many answers!
I'm blessed to be a 24-year-old director with a 38-year-old student ministry pastor as my mentor and friend. It's less like a traditional mentorship and more like a dialectical approach, where we shape one another based on our own strengths and weaknesses in humble dialogue and sharing life together. He's got wisdom from years of experience; I have the paradigm of the emerging generation. The key in our relationship is having teachability and being willing to learn from one another. We don't agree on everything, but we've taken years to build that trust so that we can speak into each other's lives.
When I have conversations with other younger leaders, I recognize that my situation is a rarity amongst my generation. I'm not sure how we made this mentorship work. I agree with MattDB and Alaina that either elder generations seem to misunderstand and avoid the emerging generation, or we end up coaching others about the emerging culture (I've had numerous conversations in staff or elder meetings where the question, "Joel, how would the postmodern generation view this?")
Here's my experience:
I'm 26 and a student ministry pastor. I have experienced a fair amount of hurt over the past few years in ministry, but have a really hard time sharing those parts of my journey with men (people) at our church. This makes finding a mentor difficult. I feel that I need someone who will help me through the hard things, and the hard things so often have to do with the church and with people.
Within the church, I haven't felt compelled to initiate that type of relationship. They go to the church, and know the people, and those are a big part of where I struggle. It'd be one thing if someone would come alongside me and want to share in the challenges and help me, but it's quite another to attempt to initiate a mentor relationship with an older person and thrust those things upon them.
So it seems best to find someone outside the church community who would fill that role. But where do I find such a person?
I have maybe 3 relationships that I would consider mentor-ish, but none are that substantial. At this point, I don't know if any would recognize/realize that they are in that role in my life. Maybe I should start by making sure they know that I view them that way.
I'm a 34 year old Pastor working in a church plant in inner city Adelaide (Australia). I've also worked previously in multi-staff churches, and am thankful that I've been encouraged by many people to make sure I have mentors.
The mentors who've impacted me the most have generally been from outside the church I've been involved with (makes it easier, as there's no worrying about what gets said and its impact within the church community - if I'm going to be mentored, I'm going to be honest!)
I do agree, though, that trying to find a great mentor/mentoree match is difficult and requires persistence. We're all made differently, and will naturally react to people with more or less affinity. That's why I've always sought to find mentors to address specific issues (I've currently got 2 mentors - one who is in his 50s and a Pastor at another church, who I sought out for the purposes of discussing "work" (ie how to respond to specific church-related issues). The other mentor is a retired Pastor who I've asked to focus more on my inner self (which obviously, inevitably impacts on the outer/work self anyway), but we talk more about how I'm feeling, what I'm thinking, etc. I don't know how I'd cope without either.) I think that takes a lot of the guesswork and awkwardness out of it - finding someone who you respect in a certain area and being specific about what you want to learn from them and be mentored in.
I also think it's important to be honest about the chance that it won't work out. Saying up front "if, at any point, you think this isn't working, please say so, and we'll wrap things up, and if I'm feeling the same, I'll do that, too" means that the hesitancy that comes from "what if it doesn't work out?" is taken away.
One thing that interests me is whether there is a difference between the way in which "Gen X" and "Gen Y" relate to "Boomers" (although I'm not really keen on generalizing people, there are differences between 60, 30 and 18 year olds...) and whether this may impact on mentoring. As I watched March Madness this year and listen with interest to the possible replacements for coaches in the AFL (Australian Football), I've been wondering about whether there is a re-emergence of the respect for Boomers by Gen Y (who are sometimes referred to as "Echo Boomers" because they have more in common in the ways they think than Gen Y and Boomers have with Gen X (again, massive generalisations)). I've even heard that at the footy clubs in Australia that have younger (35-40ish year old) coaches, they are employing older guys (ex-coaches, etc who are in their 50s) to interact with the players (who are all around 18-30). It seems there's a much greater opportunity for mentoring the current generation of younger leaders than there has been for the past 20 years when (and I count myself in this) many young leaders had quite an arrogance about "you don't know what you're doing... we do".
There is an absolute need for mentoring for anyone in leadership (and possibly anyone who's hoping to grow spiritually and personally), so totally agree, Chris (as usual!) - good job for raising it.
http://skillfulshepherds.blogspot.com
Timothy P
I'm 32 and a youth pastor in Singapore for half a year, and been a full-time ministry staff for 6 years.
Generally there is a lack of a mentoring culture across churches & denominations in Singapore, but in lay ministry among members, and further more so in full-time ministry among staff and pastors.
Some possible reason (of course I'm over-generalising here):
- sometimes it's a time & effort issue, as in most people just don't have the time, and perceive that it takes too much effort. Senior pastors and senior lay members focus on macro-level issues, and don't have the capacity and skills needed to spend time with fresh young men and women.
- it's also a Asian culture, mentality thing. Most Singaporeans are also pretty private about their lives, and we seldom confront or admonish in public, hence lack of accountability structures.
- lack of foresight as well as not seeing the importance, need and urgency of mentoring future generations. Many young pastors or full-time staff grow or emerge amongst the ranks incidently, or mainly because they were exceptional in their faith journey, maturity, experience, giftings, etc.
- pastors and leaders do not often model this in their own lives, hence it flows down to the congregation.
- many churches hire staff and pastors with the given expectations that they are already proven in ministry, gifted, experienced, mature, ready to lead and run ministries. This assumption tends towards throwing new staff/pastors into the deep end, and expecting them to take ministries and run, and excel without much hand-holding or guidance.
There is an urgent need for mentoring to permeate both from bottom-up and top-down. Both through my own life experience and with guiding biblical principles, all of us, especially full-time pastors need to have Pauls, Barnabas-es, and Timothys in our lives, to fully function and serve as God intends. We need Pauls, older mature and faithful men, to guide and mentor us. We need Barnabas-es, peers, friends, colleagues, to support and encourage us. We need Timothys, younger men who are earlier in their journey, whom we can invest and pour out our lives into.
I leave you with 3 Scripture passages which have proven a guide and reminder to myself.
1 Tim 4:16 - Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers.
1 Thes 2:8 - We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us.
2 Tim 2:2 - And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others.
Post a Comment
By submitting these comments, I agree to the beliefnet.com terms of service, rules of conduct and privacy policy (the "agreements"). I understand and agree that any content I post is licensed to beliefnet.com and may be used by beliefnet.com in accordance with the agreements.