If you have a volunteer who refuses your leadership, subverts your authority and doesn’t respond to coaching … it might be time to let them go. If you missed yesterday’s part 1 you may want to start there, and here are 5 other learnings I’m processing after recently asking a volunteer to step down:

7) THINK ABOUT COMMUNICATING THEIR EXIT: When people ask me what happened, it’s important to be honest but also respectful. I asked specifically what they would like me to communicate with students and other leaders if people asked. It was helpful to agree on a kind, but truthful communication that will give a clear picture for my students and other leaders. Perhaps the most important communication should be with the person we directly report to. It’s important that they are in the loop and have a clear understanding…

EXPECT SOME FALL-OUT: We should expect some fall-out. Again, it is always better than the long-term struggles and challenges of allowing a divisive leader to continue. This person is loved by a number of students and I know that some will take it hard. However, time will heal and God will always provide great adults to fill the void. In the past when I have asked someone to step down, the fall-out is often short lived.

9) BE CLEAR AND DON’T COMPROMISE: Because asking someone to leave can be so challenging, it’s important that our guilt or compassion does not lead to letting them stay. If we have struggled through and prayed earnestly, it’s important to stick to what God has called you to do. Today I was asked to reconsider, but I had to be clear that I had prayed for two months about this decision… I was not able to change it.

10) KEEP YOUR SUPERVISOR IN THE LOOP:  I gave my pastor a quick heads up that I would be asking this person to step down. I gave him a quick reasoning, and fortunately he is someone who supports his staff and decisions. Either way when you’re going to

11) I AM NOT ALONE: You are not alone either! As you struggle with volunteers, parents, or people at your church, know that there are many like you going through the same struggles. There are many who have gone before us who have navigated through these situations and have survived to tell the tale. Today, I navigated through a challenging conversation, and I am thankful for ministry friends to unload on!

This guest post was written by Anonymous.

Too often I hear youth workers say something like, “I love my youth group, but I wouldn’t go to church here if it wasn’t my job.” I honestly understand this sentiment, and realize that most of the time it is just a season of frustration with the style or leadership in a given period of time. But sometimes it isn’t a light statement, it is actually very serious. And if you find yourself in this situation, I think you’ve only got about three choices:

Get on board
I’d start with you – maybe you need a change of heart. Have some dialogue with the powers that be in your church to better understand the context of their decisions and choices. Perhaps you are frustrated out of ignorance and a little more knowledge will help you get a bigger picture of what they are trying to accomplish. Style preferences are unavoidable, some things you just have to learn to live with. You’ll never lose with humility so it is a good place to start.

Lead the change
Different opinions and outside perspective can be healthy to a church – being divisive behind the scenes certainly isn’t. If you’re frustrated with your church to the point you may even reconsider serving there, be a part of the solution and not the problem. Maybe you stepping up is exactly what the church needs to help them in a time of transition. Help lead the change.

Get out
This one isn’t to be taken lightly, but perhaps literally. If you wouldn’t attend the church you are the youth worker at and have no desire to lead them into a time of transition – get out. Don’t take a paycheck from the church, tithe money, if you aren’t all in. Remember a period of frustration isn’t worth leaving over, if youth workers did that our tenure would be even worse. But if there’s no hope and you’ve done all you can, it might be time to ask God what is next.

What do you think? Open to discussion/objections in the comments. Fire away!

JG

Looking for a youth ministry position? Is your church looking for a youth pastor? Simply Youth Ministry has just launched their Youth Ministry Jobs site – might be a great place to start! Excited about the potential of this new tool …

JG

There are all sorts of bad reasons churches let youth workers go – but there are some legitimately good ones as well. Here’s a few things that I think over time will cause youth workers to be shown the door, and some cautions before pulling the trigger on one of them if you’re the boss:

Incompetence - sometimes, it just doesn’t work out – the person you thought had the skills to do this job simply doesn’t. They were a great interview and not so great in the real world. Somewhere in the process the ball was dropped, and it is your fault. Be slow with this one, perhaps the learning curve is just steep, or it is The Dip before things get awesome. And please be a teaching/training church! If someone doesn’t have the skills, help them develop them on the job! Send them to a conference, a training event or build out their library. Even if things eventually don’t work out, you’ve made them MUCH more equipped for God’s work in the future.

“Fit” – this one is tough, because it can quickly become a catch all for whatever whim someone has that day. But there is something to be said for a genuine “fit” argument. I’d encourage you to investigate if you are a fit before you ever sign on. Maybe there’s something you need to change as the supervisor, or a particular reason/pattern why people are not fitting into your staff culture. You need to infinitely know your culture before you bring them on. I believe that having to let someone go because of fit is the church’s fault, despite it being incredibly hard/almost impossible to truly know a candidate after just 1-2 meetings or calls.

Character Issue – if the youth pastor has a character issue that cannot be addressed effectively and appropriately while they remain in a position of leadership, they need to be removed and take that season to concentrate on their personal life. Youth workers are not without sin, so please don’t be hunting for them to make a mistake so you can kick them in the butt on the way out. In fact, a great church would be prepared for their pastors to be imperfect, instead of being surprised or shocked by it. Be prepared to coach/counsel spiritual health in the youth worker on your staff.

Insubordination – the youth pastor is not the leader of the church. He/she is under the authority, vision and leadership of their supervisor/senior pastor. They must be willing to follow and lead from the position God has entrusted to them. When that doesn’t happen – there’s bound to be conflict and rarely does the person in 2nd place win. As an employer, make sure you’re not wrongfully identifying passion or naivety as insubordination. Please be genuinely open to new ideas and ways of doing things. But if there’s no resolution, they might have to be let go.

Divisive -  I think this one is a lot like insubordination, but instead of directly to a boss/supervisor, it is within the staff or church body. There is nothing worse than a divisive person, unless it is a divisive pastor on the team. Again, be slow to jump to conclusions, quick to correct and coach before doing something drastic.

Here’s the crazy thing – I think that I could have been fired (or still could be, hey) for almost any of these today!

I still don’t always “fit”, I still sin and make mistakes, I sometimes err toward being divisive and do my own thing instead of listening to my manager’s direction. If you’re genuinely going to let a youth worker in your church go … please pray intensely about it. Make sure you’ve done everything you can to coach them toward health. Take a long look at yourself, your church and the host of outside factors that have led you to this moment of decision. Try to be impartial, maybe even consider a 3rd party or mediator.

And above all, if it has to happen … be graceful. God isn’t quite finished with them just yet.

Are there other good reasons to let a youth worker go? Or maybe give another caution in the comments, too!

JG

Stumbled on to an older post from Len Evans that had some great insight into the etheral concept of “fit”. Here’s an excerpt of his thoughts on how to fit on a team, in a youth ministry or at a church. Good stuff!

1. Theological Fit: This should be obvious but too many youth workers who grew up Baptist wonder why they have a difficult time in a mainline church, or the other way around. Unless you plant your own church there will rarely be a 100% theological match so know your theological non-negotiables.

I had a perfect fit theologically at my first church because the entire pastoral staff went to the same seminary. The differences do make a difference. Just because you are able to get along with someone that holds different theological views doesn’t mean that you can serve in the same church with them. I have a lot of friends from the entire spectrum of Christianity, we can pray together and I know they loved Jesus but I would never be able to work in some of their churches. It’s a matter of conviction and integrity.

2. Philosophical Fit: You and the church may value evangelism but if you don’t agree on how to do evangelism eventually you will have conflict.  If one person in your church wants to hand out Chick tracts to anyone and everyone and another person wants to have a holistic approach to reaching their friends, there will be a conflict when they discuss evangelism.  If the church defines youth worker as events coordinator and you think of yourself as a pastor who is about equipping others for ministry, there will be problems eventually.

3. Personal Fit: This applies primarily to the working and personal relationship with the senior pastor, although it also impacts other church leadership and personal interactions.  A friend of mine spoke to almost 400 senior pastors at the ’96 National Clergy Conference in Atlanta. He asked “Who’s really close to their youth pastor”?  Only one pastor slowly raised his hand.  Everyone in a church setting should do what they can to ensure that more hands are raised at the next Pastor’s Conference when that question is asked.

JG

When I graduated college a year and a half ago I was excited about where my life was heading. I had a diploma, a new marriage, and was about to start a full time youth ministry job at the church I had been interning at for the last year and a half of college. Many dreams were coming true all at once. Although we made financial sacrifices to be at this church, I was receiving some of the biggest paychecks in my 22 years of life and thought for sure we would make it work. Fast forward to now: I am still excited about what God is doing in my life, though it’s more about His presence than hitting life milestones. The road has been bumpy. Less than a year into my first youth ministry gig I was told I wasn’t what the church wanted for their youth ministry. It was a blow to my ego, my calling, my vocation, and my young family. My wife and I felt tossed aside by a church that we had devoted ourselves to for 3 years, the church we were married at, the church we called “home.” I’ve wrestled with a lot of things in the months since then, yet had incredible confidence in who God is and that He wasn’t done with us. These are some things I’ve learned as I’ve dealt with what happened and prepared for what’s next.

1. God’s plans are bigger than my dreams and nightmares. I knew I wanted to do youth ministry since I was a young teenager. I never had specific dreams of what that meant, but I imagined it looking like the church environments I knew. I didn’t picture California (being from the Midwest), the leaders and students I would work with, or the mentors I would have, but all of these things turned out better than I could have expected at my first position. I never imagined losing my first position so soon or that the circumstances of it would be so difficult- it was a lot more of nightmare than a dream- but I have seen God do amazing things through this experience that I never expected. I am thankful for the things God has done in my life beyond my dreams and in my nightmares.

2. The people in my life are “better than I deserve”. I steal this from a phrase Dave Ramsey says, but it characterizes the humility I feel towards all of the people who have supported me. I can’t say enough about how much my wife has meant to me, how she has loved me and challenged me to move forward in faith. We have been supported greatly by our families and the family of God. Friends and mentors have been there to walk with us. I know this time would have been much more devastating without these people God put in our lives.

3. Purposeful ministry has to be planned. I have learned a ton about ministry in the last few months from a lot of people and books. My head is filled with ideas that make me anxious to get back to youth ministry and let them out. From choosing and empowering leaders strategically to accomplishing all that the church is meant to be, it takes intentional work from the person in charge. Some aspects of ministry I could do with little thought, but valuable ministry comes from doing things on purpose with God honoring vision, leaders, and programs.

4. My life is filled with God’s grace. I think I have seen God’s hand in my life more in my recent experiences than any other time. These manifestations of God’s grace remind me how thankful I am to be walking through life following Him. The encouraging conversations with others, more part time jobs than I ever thought I could balance (FIVE at one point), sunrises driving at early hours to these jobs, better gas mileage than average, my wife getting a job on the last day of my severance, frozen pizza sales, and new experiences have all shown me God’s grace and encouraged me to keep walking forward with Him. I am thankful for the simple, complex, meaningful, and bizarre miracles of my daily life.

Losing my job was difficult, scary, and confusing. Walking through all of this with God has given me great peace throughout it. My wife and I have seen how blessed we are, and often say to each other that we love our life, even through this difficult time. God has provided for our marriage, our finances, and faith beyond what we could have expected – and this utter dependence on Him has humbled us as a couple. He has blessed us with incredible people to support us. He has grown me as a learner and taught me countless things. Best of all He has been present. I still don’t know when I will be back in youth ministry or even what the next few months look like, but I am excited for them and to see where God takes this adventure.

Mike Shaffer is an intern in social media at Saddleback Church and praying about his future in youth ministry. If you want to get in contact with him, here’s his email address. We had coffee this week and I asked him to write this post after hearing his story – proud of him and excited to see what God has next!

Doug, Matt, Josh, and Katie return to the studio for more of your questions. Topics include: the best way to teach a purity series, and letting go of past church experiences.

JG

No leader enjoys the notion of failure.   In the split categories of good and evil, failure is considered evil, success is considered good.   Just thinking about certain failures in my own life brings back emotions that stir the depths of my being.  Why? Because failure in front of those we live, play, and work with is embarrassing.  It just plain hurts.

But we all fail.  And some of us are persistent failures.  It happens, it is how humans learn, and how we deal with it makes all the difference.

A while back I was not a Youth Director, but rather, I was a Youth Ministry Assistant.  In gradations of youth ministry scales, that is just above an intern, and just below a director.  You’re supposed to know a few things about youth ministry because you’ve already been an intern and now you are set loose to discover freedom with a few oodles of responsibility.

Upon being hired and oriented, I was given the reigns to a very important ministry in the youth group: the Friday night outreach program.  The youth director told me that I had the freedom to brainstorm, propose, and implement the program with hopes that I would be successful in creating a space that community youth would like to come.  The guidelines were that it would involve food, music, fun, and some form of evangelism.

Given freedom, I was terrified.  When someone is in charge of you and gives you orders, you can always blame the orders or the one giving the orders for failure.  Freedom changes that.  I had to take responsibility for what would be implemented and I would be making a culture all by myself.  In charge of the programs destiny, I began to worry.  What if my ideas were not received well?

I tossed and turned during the nights, and wrote up drafts and proposals for the program and presented what I had come up with.  It was very practical.  We had been moving into a new building with a gym,  a game room with pool tables and ping pong, and we had a stage in a gathering area with a nice sound board.  So I decided that each week I would bring in a local band.  We would start the night off with a big game in the gym that would bring everyone together, and those who didn’t want to listen to the band could hang out in the game room.  It seemed simple, and so I presented the whole shebang with schedule from band load in to sound check to a quick devotion and the night would end.  The presentation was well received and I was given the go.

And I was terrified.

As I thought through my simple plan I realized that there were many moving parts.  (1) I had to bring a team of volunteers along to get used to a new building and a new program culture.  (2) I would have to email and call and MySpace about 15 bands in order to fill in every Friday night for a season.  (3) I would need a sound tech to work with several servant oriented people to help get the bands in and ready.  (4) Amidst the hubbub, I would be giving a short devotion, a reflection, or a scripture verse.  And (5) I would have to build relationships as the host to all the students coming through the doors and ensure that they were connected to each other and to leaders in a positive way.  Lastly (6) I would have to get the gym game up and running.  Oh, and I forgot to mention (7) I would be self conscious of my evaluation from my director.

Thinking through all the moving parts made me more nervous than ever, and as the first date got closer I became somewhat paralyzed.  There was a point while I was searching for bands, in which I did not know if I wanted to move forward.  I knew I would, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to.  But I thought about how I felt and the notion of failure continued to weigh on me.

In passing with my director I decided to let him know how I felt.  I told him that there was a lot to get going and I wasn’t sure of the excellence of everything that needed to come together.  Time was going by and not all the t’s were crossed, nor all the i’s dotted.

I’ll always remember how he responded.  He said, “Don’t be afraid to fail.” It was simple.  He told me that I was allowed to try, and if it failed, then it failed.  What was I going to do?  Permission to fail!  I couldn’t believe it.  Suddenly I felt much better.  Being a perfectionist that often falls short of my own expectations, I realized that the possibility of failure should not stop someone from doing something that needs to be done.   So I went ahead and booted up the program.

After four years with spits and spurts of growth pains, and with the perspective and help of a new Youth Pastor to work with midstream, I would say that the program got to where I wanted it to be.  But it took many failures and people still believing in me to get it right.  In the end, students were getting connected, leaders were doing relationship evangelism, student leaders had developed, I scrapped the band every night idea (allowing it to be special when a band did come) and added video games and music from an iPod set list, and the gym games continued to be popular.  The program grew, and new elements added either failed or succeeded.  Even after leaving, that program continues to minister to students.

If only I had listened to Christ’s words on the Mount:

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?  -Matthew 6:25-27

All ministries are a risky venture.  Many of us will fail, but the weight is not squarely on our shoulders.  The spirit of God is looking out for us when we are trying to do good for Him.  Trusting, obeying, and in that, not worrying too much about failure is a part of serving God.  He is greater than us and takes us to places and builds things we cannot imagine.    Fear and trembling at anything other than God will paralyze you and you cannot do the work you are called to do in a state of paralysis.  Just start doing what God is calling you to do.  Persevere, and you will find something valuable at the end of the road.

Daniel Griswold is the Director of Youth at St. Andrew By-The-Sea UMC in Hilton Head Island, SC. Check out his blog at http://danielgriswold.wordpress.com or on Twitter.