Redefining Your Role as a Youth Pastor (Reggie Joiner – Youth Ministry Exchange 2020)

Reggie Joiner is a great leader, whom I’ve really enjoyed learning from over the years. While I usually hear him talk about bigger vision topics, this was one of the first times I’ve heard him explain a specific leadership move. During one of his workshops at Youth Ministry Exchange, he talked about redefining our role as a youth pastor. Specifically, he instructed the importance of re-writing our job descriptions.

Here are my notes from his breakout:

There are 2 things we need to own as youth pastors:

Own your own inspiration.
Own your own identity.

Why we need to re-write our own job description:

Maybe someone else wrote it that’s not there anymore, maybe it’s really old, or maybe you don’t even have one right now.
If you don’t own your own identity, you’re setting yourself up for what might be an identity crisis, because everyone else has a picture of what they think you should do.
It will affect how you recruit, budget, hire, evaluate success, etc.

4 steps to re-writing our job description:

Re-write a one-sentence job description.
- When people ask, you can explain it under a minute.
- You want to see if your sentence matches your bosses one sentence for you.
- You need to know what is expected of you, and you have the power to morph and control what that is.
- It works as a compass and clarifies expectations.
- Example: My job is to create experiences and community where leaders, volunteers, and parents can influence teenagers to develop a dynamic faith.
Re-write the primary priorities that will help you accomplish your job.
- When people ask, you can explain it under 5 minutes.
- Examples of 5 priorities based on our talks with youth workers around the country:
  - Align leaders
  - Refine the message
  - Elevate community
  - Engage every parent
  - Influence service
- Parents, volunteers, staff, and teenagers are found in each of these priorities.
- These should be the same priorities for others.
Re-write a clear description for each priority.
- We need clarity around each of those priorities.
- Examples:
  - Align leaders: Align leaders to work together around a common strategy, values, and language.
  - Refine the message: Design a messaging strategy that communicates strategic truths to teenagers.
  - Elevate community: Recruit and develop volunteers to lead teenagers in weekly small groups.
  - Engage every parent: Engage every parent and guardian to partner with your ministry.
  - Influence service: Influence students to participate in consistent ministry opportunities.
Re-write the key activities you should do to accomplish each priority.
- If you don’t finish here, you will have a job description without any measurables.
- Examples (from 2 of those priorities):
  - Align leaders:
    - Champion vision and values of youth ministry throughout the church.
    - Facilitate effective meetings to collaborate with key leaders in your organization.
    - Manage budget and resources needed to make youth ministry successful.
  - Elevate community:
    - Implement a system to recruit and train small group leaders.
    - Manage group structure to connect teenagers relationally with peers and leaders.
    - Leverage digital strategies to enhance learning and relationships.

How to be a good youth pastor (3 principles of leadership):

Be a generalist and a specialist.
- Generalist for all ages.
- Specialist with teenagers.
Recruit to your weakness.
- Do what you are great at doing.
- Recruit for the parts you’re not best at doing.
Keep clarifying the win.
- These 5 priorities/categories become 5 gauges.
- If you can’t measure the win in some of those categories, you really can’t manage your ministry.

When you re-write our job description in this way…