Ridgell's Originals

 I recently had a church ask me what I thought about their hiring a second youth minister.  Specifically they wondered if it should be a Middle School youth minister in addition to the High School youth minister.  Or should it be a female youth minister to really help with their teenage girls.

So I asked a few questions and also gave an opinion.  Never heard back. 

Here were the questions:

How many evangelists are on your staff?

How many elders are supported by your church?

Do you want to be inward or outward focused as a church?

Which is more important to you:  equipping and strenghening our young people or making disciples from the world around us?

I then gave my staffing recommendations.

    Hire an local evangelist immediately.  Two if you can.

    Supplement income or hire two or three elders to do spiritual teaching and preaching.  Pay more if you have a preaching elder.

    Tell your preacher/senior minister/pastor that his main job is to reach those outside the Kingdom, not minister to those inside.

Teach on the Biblical hierarchy for equipping our children:  parents, elders, older men and women, church.

I don't know about most churches, but in the Churches of Christ we have a very different model.

    Preacher to do the majority of preaching, visiting, and counseling.

    Youth minister to do all that for teenagers.

    Children's minister to do that for our kids.

    Senior's minister, involvement minister, communication minister

    Admin elder

And this is not a slam on all the incredible Christians I know staffing many of these positions.  And many of them do see their role as primarily evangelistic.  

But most of them do church business and admin way more than ministry.  And ministry way more than evangelism.

That's fine if that is the model you choose.  Just remember, you get what you pay for...

# posted by Steve @ 5:00 AM