Giving Advice to Youth

What do you say when a youth tells you she or he is considering a career in ministry and wants your advice?

This kind of question doesn’t come often, but it does come – and oftentimes the people who are on the receiving end are youth workers. It is helpful to have given this kind of question some thought before it’s ever asked. But how do you do this?

By Meg Lassiat with Deborah Bushfield*

Abby had been quiet all day. While the rest of the youth group had been their usual rowdy selves on the park trail, running down ravines and hollering in the canyon, she had hung back by the leaders, Jodi and Rob.

While walking beside Rob, she had inhaled a couple of times as if to speak, but then had remained silent. Finally, when the rest of the group had stopped to splash in the shallows of the canyon’s creek, and Jodi went down to supervise, she turned to him.

“I have a question for you,” she said, looking past him at the creek. Then she glanced up at him, making direct eye contact. “I think maybe God is trying to tell me something. First, tell me this: can you see me as a minister?”

Get Prepared

The best way is to think seriously about each youth you work with. You might make index cards, or maybe use a spiral notebook. In any case, set aside time to do some serious thinking, and one-by-one ask yourself the following questions about each youth. Don’t hurry; you want to give this considerable thought. Write down the answers as they come to you.

How do you see this youth practicing leadership?
How do you see this person helping others?
What gifts does this person exhibit?
How can you help strengthen these gifts?
What is this person’s hidden potential?

As you consider and write down each youth’s possibilities, you will become consciously aware of their potential. It becomes very exciting to realize those possibilities – they are practically limitless! Your new awareness of each person’s gifts and talents will also help you as their youth leader to relate to them more personally and even joyfully.

First, Make a Practical Response

So, back to the question – once a youth asks you for advice in considering a ministerial career, what do you say?

It can be helpful if you approach this question like you would a question about any other career. First, you need to help them determine if they have the necessary skills for the job, and if not, would they be able to learn the skills? Beyond that, ministry requires a number of natural gifts and talents, as well as a strong personality. Those things also need to be taken into account.

Here are some questions you could ask to help the youth focus:

What is it about the ministry that interests you?
What’s your ideal place to serve – do you see yourself working in a local church, or doing ministry somewhere else?
What skills might be necessary for a person who serves as a deacon, elder, or chaplain?
What gifts and talents are necessary for those people?
What skills do you think you bring to the type of ministry you want to do?
Do your skills, gifts, and talents match those that fit the job you’re thinking about?

If the youth has trouble defining her gifts and skills, you can highlight them by pointing out that she seems to enjoy mission trips, reading in worship, leading in the youth group, helping with the nursery, or whatever is appropriate.

If you’re working with a youth who doesn’t seem to have traditional pastoral skills, think of other possible ways this person can serve. Give some thought to vocations such as military chaplaincy, youth ministry, ordained deacon, music, etc.

Focus on the Call

Once you’ve talked about the practical possibilities, it’s important to talk about the emotions and desires that are the drivers for this exploration. What moves this person?

You might ask:

What makes you have this thought?
When did this first come into your mind?
What were you doing?
What was the thought you had immediately before that?
What makes you think God is directing this?
Have people you know talked with you about working in ministry?

Move to Exploration

Now that you’ve looked at the practical possibilities and the call itself, you can help this youth move from a place of feeling to a plan of exploration. You want to point him to self-discovery, and to finding out how God’s call in his life can take shape. It may or may not be in traditional pastoral ministry; however, he needs to know the options.

The best way for you to be ready to help these youth is to familiarize yourself with the way people can serve. Learn enough so that you can tell the youth about the church’s ordained ministries of deacon, elder and chaplains. Find local people who are serving in unusual kinds of ministries and ask those people if you can give their names to youth who have questions for them. Consider hosting a Ministry Night on which you invite a chaplain, a minister of music, and others who can explain their own unique calling and career. Develop a contact list of these people to use as resources.

Realize Your Own Call

In your position as youth leader, God may be calling you – no, God is calling you – to help these youth find their place in God’s world. Sometimes youth need that extra encouragement to consider answering God’s call – is there a youth you need to encourage? Many people enter ordained ministry because as teen-agers someone helped them explore the possibility.

When they ask the question, you want to be ready.

The Rev. Meg Lassiat is the director of student ministries, vocation and enlistment, the United Methodist General Board of Higher Education and Ministry.

Deborah Bushfield is a freelance writer who is a lifelong United Methodist and the co-author of the book, Things They Never Taught You in Seminary (Herald Press).

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