A couple weeks ago I received this question through my youth ministry website… I’ll edit for brevity:

Jonathan,

I recently moved churches, from a church in MN to a church of the same denomination in FL due to my husband’s job. When I got to the church, a lot of feelings were hurt because the prior, very much loved youth director had left to go to the mega church down the street. He took with him a good amount of people.

There were three student leaders in place, each running ministry on their own. I talked about changing that and was met with lots of anger and resentment from them.

My issue is that the youth have let the power go to their heads. They do not want adults involved with their teams. They want to be the head of the teams. They feel as though any adult would micro-manage them.

So now I am unsure of what to do. While I explained that the purpose of the adults is to support them and encourage them; they were not at all ready to have it.

Do I fight them on this? Do I require adults involved in each team or not at all?

Thank you!!!

Christine

What would you tell Christine? I’d love to hear your two cents in the comments below.

If you’re curious how I responded to her, you can see my answer on our ASK THE SOURCE page.

Posted on October 5, 2011