Every weekend there’s an open spot for one GUEST POST on MoreThanDodgeball.com. Shoot yours to me today and if it makes the cut it’ll be set to go up in a few weeks! Send it in today and read this great guest post about a youth worker’s job description from Joe Thompson over at his blog, Beth’s Husband:

I have the privilege of helping to write my own job description. I’ve always had a job description, but to be honest, I hadn’t really looked at it and probably didn’t even have a copy of it until about a year ago. I work in one of those positions that it’s pretty much understood what I’m supposed to do. But recently, we’ve decided that we (the staff) need to have some job descriptions that are more updated and concrete. As I’ve been working with Rick (our senior minister) on mine I’ve learned a few things…

-It’s not easy! You would think that it’s not that big of a deal to basically boil down what a job is all about. But what I’ve found is that it’s not so simple to just say what my job is. It may be just the nature of the work I do, but how do you really define and lay out the idea that my job is to create opportunities for youth people to grow into Godly men and women. How do you set simple, tangible benchmarks for spiritually and maturity without just being hung up on the typical criteria of being good and doing good things. I’m not saying that it’s impossible. I think it is possible but it’s just not easy.

-It’s necessary vital! At first I thought it was just necessary to have a job description, but the more I thought about it the more I realized that it’s vital! Let’s face it…even though ministry is something that never ends and doesn’t always have a “job completed” point, ministers need to be able to look at what they’ve done at the end of the day or week or month or year and be able to say, “Yup, I did my job” or “Nope, I really missed what I’m supposed to be doing.” It’s not good enough to just say in vague terms what you’re “supposed” to be doing. I need to know what my leadership, students, and parents are expecting of me.

-It’s more than a job! The most important thing to remember when it comes to job descriptions especially for ministerial positions is that this is more than a job. People are more than consumers. And God/discipleship is more than a product. Some times the job has to take a backseat to ministry and you kind of just have to come alongside people and share in life. I guess in the long run, that’s what I love the most about my “job.”

It’s more than a job!