Even though youth ministry has come a long way and there is a lot of good stuff that is pretty much standard fare, I think there are still a lot of unsettled issues in youth ministry. Among them:
- Are teenagers children or adults?
- To what extent can youth lead?
- How do we cultivate true leadership?
- What is the balance between congregational integration and peer-only segregation (or should there even be a balance)?
- Do we even need paid youth ministry staff?
- Is youth ministry a necessary way to minister in our culture or a structure that is reinforcing unhealthy cultural assumptions?
- Is the fairly widely documented failure of youth ministry worth the continued investment?
- What are the best alternatives to hiring inexperienced 22 year olds fresh out of college?
- Should youth ministers be grown in house or hired from the outside?
- What is the best way to train and identify quality youth ministers?
- What on earth do we do about seniors moving away to college?
- How do we provide alternatives for non college bound students?
- Is there such a thing as missional youth ministry?
- How do we best implement the stuff that we do agree on and still keep our jobs (or can we)?
- More?
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