Effective Youth Pastor

There has been a lot of discussion recently on what an effective youth ministry looks like. It is clear that there are some aspects of youth ministry that need to be re-thought and re-tooled. You will find some of my thinking on the subject here and here; two posts I wrote back in September of last year.

Greg Scandrett just wrote a great post entitled, Text messaging, playlists, MySpace, oxy and youth minitry. The post nets out 5 important elements for effectively ministering to students. It's a very good and thought provoking read.

It made me think, while we need to know the Word of God and how to present it, we need to know how to present it in ways that are relevant to todays students. We must know and understand today’s youth culture. In doing so we earn the right to be heard and followed. In knowing and understanding students and their culture we are communicating to them that we care. When we care, they will listen and they will follow.