It\u2019ll usually be asked rather innocently out of sheer lack of knowledge of what else a youth pastor could possibly do once that half hour of sermon preparation time is done with. (I\u2019m joking here, by the way.) Other times it can come from a student, parent, or even leader in the church who is convinced that their youth pastor is a glorified, paid, Call of Duty<\/i> expert, at best.<\/p>\n
However, there\u2019s so much more to youth ministry than meets the eye. And what I present to you here below is probably just scratching the surface of it. But I wanted to take an opportunity to answer this important question of what a youth pastor actually does.<\/p>\n
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You see, in any given week a youth pastor doing their job will really be doing a plethora of different jobs. Here are some of the most common in no specific order:<\/p>\n
Grief counselor:<\/strong> Without warning tragedy can hit and a youth pastor\u2019s phone is one of the first to get hit up.<\/p>\n Guidance counselor:<\/strong> Whether it\u2019s making it through middle school, high school, or planning for what\u2019s after graduation, it\u2019s not the school counselors alone that carry this job!<\/p>\n Janitor:<\/strong> You didn\u2019t think that lock-in or weekly youth service cleaned up after itself, did you??<\/p>\n Head of advertising:<\/strong> In order to get the word out about the youth ministry and all its events someone has to let the world know…and to make sure it actually looks appealing!<\/p>\n Social media director:<\/strong> It\u2019s definitely connected with the job above, but here we\u2019re talking about building online community that keeps teens connected through the week.<\/p>\n Small group leader:<\/strong> Chances are high that a youth pastor is also the leader of a small group and carrying the responsibilities of leading and loving those 5-12 students well.<\/p>\n Financial manager:<\/strong> Offerings, fundraising funds, retreat deposits, camp money, student scholarships and the list of times where a youth pastor is supposed to manage money with absolute integrity and perfection goes on.<\/p>\n Fundraising coordinator:<\/strong> In order to have finances to manage, many youth pastors are responsible for coming up with creative ways of raising money to fund their youth ministry. This, in and of itself, could be a full-time job at times!<\/p>\n Worship leader:<\/strong> Now, I realize many youth pastors don\u2019t lead the songs in their worship services (and yet there are many who do!), but they\u2019re still responsible for organizing and creatively structuring that worship service. Good youth pastors don\u2019t let that happen by accident.<\/i><\/p>\n Professional speaker:<\/strong> This one gets taken for granted quite often! But imagine the time and effort it takes to communicate weekly (most likely) to the same people with different content and make sure that you\u2019re creative and compelling enough that they actually want to keep coming back.<\/p>\n Guest services manager:<\/strong> When it comes to greeting new people, involving them in the group as a whole, and following up with them in the days after they first visit, you can expect that the youth pastor finds this as one of his\/her greatest responsibilities.<\/p>\n Stage designer:<\/strong> Whether it\u2019s for a creative series or a special night or event, the youth pastor is often found with a hammer in one hand and a busted thumb in the other hand creating a visual \u201cspider web\u201d that immediately catches students\u2019 attention.<\/p>\n Office worker:<\/strong> There is a LOT of paperwork at times in youth ministry as well as a lot of emails to respond to. It\u2019s pretty rare for a youth pastor to have someone they can pass all that tedious work off to.<\/p>\n Public pollster:<\/strong> Youth pastors regularly find themselves asking students what topics they want to hear about or consulting them on what\u2019s going well in their youth ministry and what they need to improve. And then there\u2019s the wild expectation people have that they\u2019ll then do something with that information.<\/p>\n Group analyst:<\/strong> As a spiritual leader, a youth pastor is prayerfully watching their youth ministry to spot the trends – both good and bad – that will help them to know what they need to do, stop doing, or do differently based on where things are at right…now!<\/p>\n Relationship counselor:<\/strong> So it\u2019s not marriage counseling (which is much more likely to be paid work) but sometimes we\u2019re dealing with a lot more people who are sleeping together than they are! I\u2019m mostly joking!!! But seriously, romantic relationships can consume teens lives and it is often up to the youth pastor to counsel wisely on how to handle them well.<\/p>\n Operations manager:<\/strong> For all the different leaders to work together on all the different parts of all the different youth events, you need someone who can organize all the moving parts to get them to move towards the goal.<\/p>\n Leadership consultant:<\/strong> Youth leaders are the youth pastor\u2019s secret weapon. However, they still need guidance, encouragement, and training on how to lead at times from their head leader.<\/p>\n Mail clerk:<\/strong> You know all those youth newsletters or postcards for the upcoming event that were sent out? You can bet money that some movie or TV show was being watched as the youth pastor mindlessly spent hours putting labels and postage onto each of them.<\/p>\n Event planner:<\/strong> Great youth ministries often have some pretty great events that they pull off. All the calls and connections it takes to arrange for every little detail come from time a youth pastor spends planning and organizing.<\/p>\n Head hunter:<\/strong> Youth pastors are almost always looking for new, passionate and gifted leaders to join their team of youth workers.<\/p>\n Market analyst:<\/strong> It may sound a bit unspiritual to call youth pastors that, but we\u2019re constantly looking to understand students who aren\u2019t<\/b> <\/b>a part of our youth ministry but that we\u2019d like to be in our youth ministry so we can figure out how to change that.<\/p>\n Biblical scholar:<\/strong> Teens have a plethora of tough theological questions that they\u2019re wanting solid answers to, and the problem is that this is a job that\u2019s required almost always without any warning or a study guide.<\/p>\n