Do you have an undergraduate degree in youth ministry? Are you currently in youth ministry? Would you like to share how you think your degree did and did not prepare you for “real life” ministry? Then Youth Ministry Degree Blog Day is for you.

The fall is a prime time for people to do some serious college searching, so I thought it might be good to let people who are looking for an undergraduate youth ministry degree know from those who have graduated and are currently in ministry what they thought of their programs.

I am trying to organize this blog day for Tuesday, November 3, so you have four weeks to write your post and spread the word.

These are the only qualifications to participate:

• You have an undergraduate degree in Youth Ministry (or a similar degree that was meant to prepare you for youth ministry, such as Religion, Bible, Christian Education, etc.).
• You must have graduated no later than 2008. That means you have over a year out of school.
• You must be in some sort of paid youth ministry position, whether that is part- or full-time.
• You need to know enough about the current program to be able to speak authoritatively on it. So, if you graduated 20 years ago and none of the faculty are left from when you went to school, chances are you can’t speak to the current quality of the program. As a rule-of-thumb, graduating over 5 years ago might be a bit much unless the faculty is very similar or you have maintained a close relationship with the school.
• Your post must contain a link to all the other blogs that are participating in the Blog Day. I will supply you with the list of blogs participating (hence the need for someone to organize this).
• You agree to post the morning of Monday, October 26 Tuesday, November 3. Obviously, I recommend writing the post ahead of time and scheduling it to post on the 26th 3rd.
• You are not on faculty at the school you are writing about.

Here are some things to include in your post:

• Your school with appropriate links
• The year you graduated
• What makes your program unique?
• How did the program best prepare you for ministry?
• What were the weaknesses in the program?
• What did you wish you knew before your first job out of college?
• What kind of graduate did the program produce?
• Other stuff as you feel appropriate

If you want to participate, email me at cleaverm [at] gmail [dot] com (or use the contact page on my blog) with the following information:

• Your name:
• Your school:
• Your degree:
• Graduation date:
• How long you’ve been in youth ministry:
• Current position & church:
• Your blog address:
• Name of your blog (if different than your name):

Feel free to pass this on to your friends. You can also have people contact me via twitter (@mattcleaver) if they have questions about this. I look forward to helping inform the those searching for a program about the real life experiences of those of us in youth ministry.