Reminders: Hang out with other Youth Workers

This is part of my on-going series on reminders in which I take a look into my personal reminder system and share the items that have made the biggest impact on my ministry to students.

This has been one of the coolest habits our team has taken on this year. There’s a similarly sized church a few miles up the road from us. After a few years of co-existing, we decided that it was completely stupid that we’ve never met their youth guys. Now, many lunches and coffee-dates later, I’m proud to consider these guys my friends.

Our time hanging out together has done some really cool things for us:

• Let off steam - We all have crap to deal with in our communities, and sometimes we need to talk about it. Its great to be able to do some healthy venting to someone from outside of your community.
• Share ideas - No matter how cool your ideas are or how long you’ve been in ministry, the folks down the road are probably doing some cool stuff. And there might be a couple of things they can learn from you, too.
• Kill unrealistic expectations - Its easy to imagine that other churches have it all together. I was relieved to hear that our neighboring youth workers deal with the same problems that we do. It normalized the problem and helped me to stop beating up on myself about silly things.
• Provide encouragment - Most of us spending a lot of time encouraging others, but may not receive much encouragement ourselves. I walk away from every meeting with another youth worker feeling a renewed enthusiasm for ministry.
• Initiate collaboration - Sometimes two youth groups really are better than one. Teaming-up is a great way to make a bigger impact in your community than you otherwise could.
• End the isolation - Youth ministry can be incredibly isolating. If you work in an accounting firm, you may work with lots of other accountants. If you’re a youth pastor, you are likely the only one on staff at your church. I found it exhilarating just to spend time with someone in my own field.

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