Youth Worker Vulnerability…

This is something I have struggled with for years (and continue to struggle with).  Everyone needs a group of people they trust.  A group of people they can confide in, share with, vent to, be pushed by, be challenged by.  The question for the youth worker is “who”?  Is these people in your church or outside your church.  I have been involved with local networks of youth workers since I started in ministry for this very purpose and have found it very helpful.  Yet, I continue to wrestle with if the transparency you might have with another youth worker outside your church context might also be healthy to have with a trusted few who are a bit closer to you and your context.

I’ve been reading “In the Name of Jesus” by Henri Nouwen because my co-worker and friend Kris Fernhout (@kriscanuck) suggested we read it as a student ministry staff.  I’ve loved it!  Nouwen suggests that “ministry is communal and mutual experience.”  Later he says “I have found over and over again how hard it is to be truly faithful to Jesus when I am alone.”  Okay, so I totally buy that and have lived it with other youth workers.  But then Nouwen goes on to say “Jesus wants Peter to feed his sheep and care for them, not as ‘professionals’ who know their clients’ problems and take care of them, but as vulnerable brothers and sisters who know and are known, who care and are cared for, who forgive and are being forgiven, who love and are being loved…Somehow we have come to believe that good leadership requires a safe distance from those we are called to lead.”  Ouch!  That hurts!  That suggests I need to be more transparent with people I minister to.

How can I do that?  My friends are elders in my church, parents of students in my ministry, and volunteers in our ministry (I am old you know).  These people used to be the “old” people in the church that I was intimidated by.  Now they are my friends.  My peers.  How do you tell the parent of a teenager in your ministry you’re not perfect?  Okay, I know they already know that, but in my insecurity, I want them to respect me, trust me, validate me.  They have PHD’s, I work with 12 year olds.  Sometimes that’s a bit intimidating.

How do you deal with this? What advice can you give another traveler in the trenches of ministry?