#1. Adult: “Oh, you work with teenagers. That’s nice. So, how long are you gonna do that before you start a career?” (Translation: Youth ministry is a job for people in their 20s who aren’t sure what they wanna do with their life.)

#2. Parent: “Susan can’t come to Bible study because you scheduled them for Wednesday nights when she has soccer.” (Translation: My daughter’s athletic development is a higher priority than her spiritual development, so why can’t youth group fit in when there’s nothing better going on?)

#3. Property manager: “We need to paint a couple rooms in the church and the lawn needs to be mowed. I don’t have time to do it, so I figured we could let the youth do it.” (Translation: Even though there’s many other people in the congregation who aren’t plugged in to any ministry, the youth are an easy source of free labor.)

#4. Sr. Pastor: “We don’t see you enough in the church office. You need to be here more often and get work done instead of playing basketball and Xbox with the kids.” (Translation: I’m secretly jealous of your job.)

#5. Volunteer: “The problem with this youth ministry is that the kids are disrespectful and won’t listen to me teach them! We need to teach them more about respecting authority.” (Translation: My teaching doesn’t connect with the kids and I’m taking it personally. Train them to be puppets.)

#6. Student: “So what does a youth pastor do all day?” (Translation: Your Halo skills “pwn” mine, so you must do nothing but practice all day while I’m in school.)

Any others to add to to the list?

Posted on July 24, 2007