He could have blonde or black or blue hair. Her eyes could be hazel, blue, yellow, or purple.
They don’t sound like a girl.
They may sound like one sometimes but not always.
He doesn’t come from wealth.
She doesn’t speak English.
They aren’t married yet.
He doesn’t have 1 youth ministry conference lanyard.
What does a youth minister look like?
I was misguided as I narrowed my focus. Looking for college age students and young adults who looked like me to help me run the ministry.
What I want now are people of differing ages who don’t always look like me and I want to support them as they share the ministry.
I’m a believer that youth ministry leadership should seek to be as diverse as those we seek to reach with the love of Jesus.
As a mosaic of ministry leaders comes together, the ministry gains depth and perspective, color and value, mutuality and equality. We encompass the investment with owndership and care. Each of them, whether they are experienced educated extroverted esteemed…or not…are deeply vested. ALL are interested.
When leaders like this are interested in our ministry. We give them a short application to fill out and then we meet up. We get to know each other. We run a background check but we rely more on relational intelligence and cultural IQ to help guide our assessments. We pray a lot over each other.
