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Domesticated Prophets
- By Dave Rahn
- Published 09/25/2009
- Practical Advice
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Dave Rahn
Dave Rahn is the vice president of YFC/USA ministries and directs the youth ministry MA program at Huntington University. Recent books include Starting Right: Thinking Theologically about Youth Ministry. He’s a youth ministry researcher, author, strategist, a part of the design team for The Journal of Student Ministries.
View all articles by Dave RahnDomesticated Prophets
Sure is nice to get respect. Having a PhD, teaching at a Christian college for 20 years, and looking a little gray in the few places I still have hair all make it easier to get respect than when I began in youth ministry 33 years ago. Back then, I was trying to grow facial hair just to gain a little stature. It didn't work.
Feels good to drive a car that's not an embarrassment. Heck, I remember coming back into YFC after getting my masters degree, having no money to work with, and buying a $25, 18-year-old station wagon that lasted for a year. My Trailblazer is definitely a step up.
I also like preaching in the big room with the grownups. People know how to set you up. I can use computer technology, wear a wireless lapel microphone, and sip on bottled water when I need it. Back in the day, if you wanted bottled water, you filled up an empty 2-liter from the tap.
No more 20-hour bus rides to Florida for spring break ministry trips. And when I get there, no more sleeping in a bunk bed made for a sixth grader. My 6'5" frame never did adjust to those arrangements, and my 51-year-old body won't tolerate it today. Get me a room in a nearby hotel, or it's no deal for this guy. Youth ministry is a big business now. Heck, we've even got an organization or two dedicated to helping us keep track of all the different organizations. My head spins when I dodge my way through the bazaar of vendors at conferences. There are people doing things to serve youth ministry that I didn't even know we needed!
Used to be we had to lobby hard to sell the need for churches to hire youth pastors. Not anymore. I even know some churches that think they need a full-time youth pastor when they don't have more than 20 kids. Now that's what I'm talking about—making some sacrifice for the right priorities. But nothing makes me prouder than seeing what's happened in Christian higher education. We've gone from a few schools offering some youth-oriented Christian education courses to a boatload of places offering undergraduate and graduate majors in youth ministry. We're a force to be reckoned with. Feels good.
Respect never felt sweeter. At least that's what I keep telling myself.
People like me who've been around for a long time have long sought this sort of professional advancement. We've worked hard for youth ministry to come of age. Believing that improved resources, education, and expectations would translate into a greater degree of ministry effectiveness with kids, we've flung ourselves into the pursuit of bigger, better, and more stuff. Our enthusiasm hasn't been dampened by the realization that more stuff requires more time, money, and expertise to keep it all humming along at peak performance—it just adds to the variety of meaningful professional opportunities available in today's youth ministry marketplace.
Sometimes it bothers me to think that more than a few really outstanding men and women of God can work in youth ministry without having a single meaningful relationship with a teenager. It can frustrate me to consider how many wonderfully gifted people seem hell-bent on developing the next national campaign, program, organization, curriculum, or speaker's tour that will launch us all forward into an unprecedented season of fruitfulness. I wake up wondering if running ministry leaders through the gauntlet of formal schooling may not exactly be what God had in mind for the Church.
We youth ministers once embodied a prophetic message that the rest of the faithful needed. Kid-rescue required fearless adventurers, personifying Jesus' profile of disciples who couldn't be dissuaded because there was no money, resources, or respect.
Our lack of regard for all things professional was simply an unintentional by-product. "Let's go, Jesus! I'm ready, if you can use me!"
Some called such bravado naïve. I prefer to think of it as childlike. And now that we've been properly domesticated, I fear we'll all settle for a Church we would've never tolerated 25 years ago.
Feels good to drive a car that's not an embarrassment. Heck, I remember coming back into YFC after getting my masters degree, having no money to work with, and buying a $25, 18-year-old station wagon that lasted for a year. My Trailblazer is definitely a step up.
I also like preaching in the big room with the grownups. People know how to set you up. I can use computer technology, wear a wireless lapel microphone, and sip on bottled water when I need it. Back in the day, if you wanted bottled water, you filled up an empty 2-liter from the tap.
No more 20-hour bus rides to Florida for spring break ministry trips. And when I get there, no more sleeping in a bunk bed made for a sixth grader. My 6'5" frame never did adjust to those arrangements, and my 51-year-old body won't tolerate it today. Get me a room in a nearby hotel, or it's no deal for this guy. Youth ministry is a big business now. Heck, we've even got an organization or two dedicated to helping us keep track of all the different organizations. My head spins when I dodge my way through the bazaar of vendors at conferences. There are people doing things to serve youth ministry that I didn't even know we needed!
Used to be we had to lobby hard to sell the need for churches to hire youth pastors. Not anymore. I even know some churches that think they need a full-time youth pastor when they don't have more than 20 kids. Now that's what I'm talking about—making some sacrifice for the right priorities. But nothing makes me prouder than seeing what's happened in Christian higher education. We've gone from a few schools offering some youth-oriented Christian education courses to a boatload of places offering undergraduate and graduate majors in youth ministry. We're a force to be reckoned with. Feels good.
Respect never felt sweeter. At least that's what I keep telling myself.
People like me who've been around for a long time have long sought this sort of professional advancement. We've worked hard for youth ministry to come of age. Believing that improved resources, education, and expectations would translate into a greater degree of ministry effectiveness with kids, we've flung ourselves into the pursuit of bigger, better, and more stuff. Our enthusiasm hasn't been dampened by the realization that more stuff requires more time, money, and expertise to keep it all humming along at peak performance—it just adds to the variety of meaningful professional opportunities available in today's youth ministry marketplace.
Sometimes it bothers me to think that more than a few really outstanding men and women of God can work in youth ministry without having a single meaningful relationship with a teenager. It can frustrate me to consider how many wonderfully gifted people seem hell-bent on developing the next national campaign, program, organization, curriculum, or speaker's tour that will launch us all forward into an unprecedented season of fruitfulness. I wake up wondering if running ministry leaders through the gauntlet of formal schooling may not exactly be what God had in mind for the Church.
We youth ministers once embodied a prophetic message that the rest of the faithful needed. Kid-rescue required fearless adventurers, personifying Jesus' profile of disciples who couldn't be dissuaded because there was no money, resources, or respect.
Our lack of regard for all things professional was simply an unintentional by-product. "Let's go, Jesus! I'm ready, if you can use me!"
Some called such bravado naïve. I prefer to think of it as childlike. And now that we've been properly domesticated, I fear we'll all settle for a Church we would've never tolerated 25 years ago.
