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27 Jan 2025

I’m a Youth Pastor and… What if I Don’t Want to be a Youth Pastor Anymore?

By Ronald|2025-01-07T11:09:51-08:00January 27th, 2025|Leadership|2 Comments

Let’s rip the Band-Aid off: what happens when you realize the passion that got you into youth ministry isn’t there anymore? Is it burnout? Mid-ministry crisis? Or—dare I say it—a sign that God’s calling you elsewhere?

If you’re wrestling with these questions, you’re not alone. Ministry isn’t a static journey, and passions can shift over time. The important thing is learning how to navigate these changes without guilt or fear.

Recognizing the Shift

The first step? Acknowledge what you’re feeling. Here are some signs your heart might be moving in a new direction:

1. Changing Interests

The stuff that used to light your fire—lock-ins, small groups, and dodgeball marathons—might now feel like just another thing on your to-do list.

2. New Desires

Maybe you’re dreaming of something different. A new type of ministry? A different career path altogether? These feelings don’t make you unfaithful—they make you human.

3. Feeling Drained

Tasks that once energized you now leave you exhausted. This might be a sign it’s time to reevaluate where you’re investing your energy.

Embracing the Change

Change can feel unsettling, but it’s also an invitation to grow. Here’s how to lean into it:

1. Self-Reflection

Spend time praying, journaling, and asking yourself some hard questions. What excites you now? What feels lifeless? Honest self-assessment is the foundation for meaningful change.

2. Seek Guidance

Reach out to trusted mentors, friends, or even a counselor. They can help you process your feelings, offer perspective, and encourage you to take steps forward.

3. Explore New Opportunities

Be open to where God might be leading you. This could mean exploring a different role in ministry, a new area of service, or even a different career path.

4. Don’t Force It

If your passion for youth ministry has faded, it’s okay to let go. Forcing yourself to stay in a role that doesn’t align with your calling can lead to frustration—for you and the students you serve.

Finding Fulfillment

Once you’ve embraced the possibility of change, it’s time to move toward something life-giving:

1. Follow Your Passion

God’s calling for you might look different than it did before, and that’s okay. Pursue the things that genuinely excite and fulfill you.

2. Embrace Change

Change isn’t failure; it’s growth. Trust that God is with you in the transition and that He has a plan for your next steps.

3. Stay Connected to Your Calling

Even if your role shifts, your ultimate calling to love and serve God remains the same. Keep seeking ways to live that out in whatever context you find yourself.

4. Prioritize Self-Care

Change can be exhausting. Take care of your physical, emotional, and spiritual health so you can step into the future with clarity and energy.

The Key Takeaway

Realizing you don’t want to be a youth pastor anymore doesn’t mean you’ve failed—it means God might be stirring something new in your heart. Embrace the shift, seek guidance, and trust that God is leading you into a season where you can serve with fresh passion and purpose.

You’ve got this.

And hey, if you need more encouragement (or just want to hear some great stories about burnout and surviving it), check out the video conversation I had with Josh Boldman, Derry Prenket, and Todd Pearage [You can watch it here].

6 Jul 2017

When to Report Up

By Jen Bradbury|2017-07-06T11:05:55-07:00July 6th, 2017|Youth Pastor Life|0 Comments

As a youth pastor, as much as you might like to be the one who’s in charge of your church, you’re not. Whether it’s another person in the youth ministry or an associate or senior / lead pastor, you’ve got a boss who directly supervises you.

One of the best things you can do for that relationship is to learn what you should report to your boss and when.

Right about now, you might be wondering: “Isn’t it my job to problem solve? Shouldn’t I be trying to keep things off my boss’s radar?”

Well yes… And no.

Here’s what I mean.

My first year in ministry, I led a mission trip that went horribly wrong. One of our adult leaders said something that deeply offended a number of our students. Those students promptly called home and proceeded to tell their parents what had happened. Before long, those parents called our senior pastor (my boss) and told him what had happened.

By the time we returned home, I’d worked with my team to resolve the conflict. Unfortunately, that part of the story never made it home.

So I arrived home to an irate group of parents and a boss who was ready to fire me for my gross incompetency.

While I’d successfully resolved the conflict on the ground, that didn’t matter because I’d failed to report ANY of it – both the conflict AND its resolution – to my boss. With no information from me, he could do only one thing: Believe the one-sided story he was hearing from the parents.

That botched reporting incident has deeply shaped me and helped me learn what to report to my boss and when to do it.

Nowadays, any time there is a serious conflict in my ministry (especially one that has the potential to escalate), I let my boss know as it’s happening, not just when it’s been resolved. Doing so does three things.

Reporting conflict allows me to control the story and to tell my boss what’s happening from my perspective.
Reporting conflict keeps my boss from being caught off guard by a frustrated parent, student, or parishioner. Information allows my boss to better respond, support me, and sometimes, defend me to angry parishioners. Information also unifies my colleagues and I. Although we’re responsible for different aspects of church programming, we work together and keep one another informed about what’s going on in our ministries.
Reporting conflict gives my boss the chance to help. Sometimes, this means my boss can call me out (in private) about something I’ve mishandled. It also allows my boss to help troubleshoot the conflict. This can be especially important if your boss has been at your church longer than you have. In that instance, they know the players better than you and can often provide you with unique insights in regard to how to deal with a particular person.

In addition to reporting conflict, I also let my boss know about any injuries that occur at youth ministry events, any property destruction that occurs (we’re in youth ministry… it happens), as well as upcoming events and topics of discussion. Essentially, my goal in reporting is to keep my boss in the loop so they are never sideswiped by information they should have heard from me.

Since I never want to create the perception that our youth ministry is nothing but trouble, whenever I have something negative to report, I try to balance it out with something positive, like a way that I’ve seen God recently move in our youth ministry.

In the 14 years since my failure to report something I should have, I’ve learned that reporting up has never made my boss question my competency. Instead, reporting up has always led to guidance, support, and the formation of genuine community.

29 Jun 2017

The Youth’s Pastor

By Jen Bradbury|2017-06-29T05:42:25-07:00June 29th, 2017|Leadership, Youth Pastor Life|0 Comments

After three years without an associate pastor, my church finally hired a new one. He’s a former intern from my congregation that I genuinely respect and enjoy working with. He’s also young, cute, and far cooler than I am (or ever hope to be).

Part of our new associate pastor’s job description, as presented to our congregation at the meeting in which we voted on him, is “youth”. As the person who serves as my church’s youth worker, this struck me as odd. Isn’t that my job?

Because of this (and a few other things), our associate’s first few weeks in his role were rough for me – especially since he kept showing up at my youth ministry events. (Mind you, he always asked first but nevertheless, despite being in youth ministry for 15 years – 9 in my current context – his constant presence still made me feel insecure.) I wondered, “The next time our congregation has a budget shortfall, will my job be eliminated because people will think our new associate pastor can do it?”

My insecurities grew until they finally reached a boiling point.

For about a week in late April, I seriously contemplated quitting.

But then early in May, our associate pastor asked to meet with me. He was doing one-on-one’s with each of our staff members and my turn had come. So I sat down with him.

He asked me good questions – about what I need from him; how he can be supportive of me and my ministry; where our congregation is at; and my worries and concerns about the future of our congregation.

As I listened to his questions, I realized our associate pastor had no idea how much I was struggling – not because he’s oblivious (he’s a pysch major who’s actually really aware of other people’s emotions) – but because I’d carefully hidden my frustrations from him.

In that moment, I made a choice. I shared (rather vulnerably) about how hard his transition had been for me. I named my fears and told him that I feared his presence would ultimately cost me my job.

After a moment of stunned silence, he said this: “I don’t want to be the youth pastor, Jen. I want to be the youth’s pastor.”

That one comment has made all the difference for me, helping me to realize that our new associate is not after my job; He’s simply trying to be the best pastor he can be.

What a gift it is to have a pastor who wants to pastor not just the adults in our congregation, but the youth as well.

What a gift it is to have a pastor who’s supportive of the work I do in our youth ministry and who wants to participate in it simply to build relationships with the teens and show his support of me.

Years ago, I interviewed youth ministry expert Chap Clark for a Youth Worker Journal Roundtable. I no longer remember what we were even talking about, but I do remember this. Chap talked about the importance of reversing the 5:1 youth ministry ratio. Rather than have one adult for every five students, Chap urged youth workers to find five adults to invest in every teenager in your congregation.

This comment deeply resonated with me and ever since then, I’ve been trying to achieve it.

What a gift it now is to have an associate pastor who I can count among the five adults pouring into the teens in our congregation, who knows more about our teens than their names, who’s listening to their stories, sharing in their doubts, and investing in them and our youth ministry.

Our teens, our congregation, and our community will all reap the benefits of this.

4 Nov 2016