Inside the Mind - Excerpt

Over the next few weeks I'll be throwing out some excerpts from the book for dialogue.

"When a church is in a hurry to hire a youth pastor, it’s a sign that something is wrong. If you learn to read the signs, you can educate yourself on what you’re getting into. A healthy church can wait indefinitely for a new youth pastor. If it takes a year, the church can wait. If it takes three years, the church can wait.

Hurry is a sign that something is wrong, because it suggests pressure from within the organization to take action more quickly than it naturally would. If, for instance, there’s a pressure to hire a youth pastor soon out of fear that students will stop coming, then you can read the sign that says, “The youth pastor is the center for all relationships with kids in our church, and we don’t have enough volunteers.”

If there’s a pressure from parents to find a youth pastor, you can research the origins of it by asking questions about what kind of leader the senior pastor is and what kind of authority parents have in making day-to-day decisions in the church.

Youth pastors and churches who take their time in the hiring process to get to know each other are more likely to be a healthy fit."

taken from Inside the Mind of Youth Pastors, Chapter 10 (Before you say Yes)