On youthworker.com, Brenda Seefeldt campaigns for a change in the role of youth ministry… The money quote:
Your role in this is crucial. Typically, a youth minister’s role is to lead all things youth ministry, which he or she does passionately because of his or her love for teens. May I suggest redefining your role? Instead of being the center of the teen relationships or developing volunteer staff to form relationship with teens, you become the go-between of the teen relationships with everyone in the church family. You become this great chess master. You have one big chessboard with the prize being the faith and formation of teens.
In this role, you are moving all the pieces of the church family to interact with the teens. Every person from the widows to the nursery workers can be players in the youths’ extended family.
Check out the whole article. <image source>
D. Scott Miller
D. Scott Miller is the dean of Catholic Youth Ministry bloggers which is a polite way of either saying that he is just plain old or has been blogging for a long time (since 2004.)
Scott recently married the lovely Anne and together they have five adult young people and also grandparent three delightful kids (so, maybe he is just plain old!) Scott presently serves at Saint John the Evangelist in Columbia, MD as the director of youth and young adult ministry.
He has previously served on the parish, regional, diocesan, and national levels as well as having taught within a catholic high school. He is one of the founders of RebuildMyChurch and has returned to posting regularly (keeping regular is important to old guys) at ProjectYM.
D. Scott Miller
D. Scott Miller is the dean of Catholic Youth Ministry bloggers which is a polite way of either saying that he is just plain old or has been blogging for a long time (since 2004.)
Scott recently married the lovely Anne and together they have five adult young people and also grandparent three delightful kids (so, maybe he is just plain old!) Scott presently serves at Saint John the Evangelist in Columbia, MD as the director of youth and young adult ministry.
He has previously served on the parish, regional, diocesan, and national levels as well as having taught within a catholic high school. He is one of the founders of RebuildMyChurch and has returned to posting regularly (keeping regular is important to old guys) at ProjectYM.
Your role in this is crucial. Typically, a youth minister’s role is to lead all things youth ministry, which he or she does passionately because of his or her love for teens. May I suggest redefining your role? Instead of being the center of the teen relationships or developing volunteer staff to form relationship with teens, you become the go-between of the teen relationships with everyone in the church family. You become this great chess master. You have one big chessboard with the prize being the faith and formation of teens. 
“You have one big chessboard with the prize being the faith and formation of teens.”
– This, I agree, should be the ultimate driving goal of our work.
“you become the go-between of the teen relationships with everyone in the church family…”
– This, however, is something I strongly resist, because not everything that deals with teens requires my involvement. Many times I’m approached in the parish to help with this-or-that simply because there are teens involved. But youth ministry has a specific calling within the whole parish’s efforts to help teens grow, and the skill set that I bring (ministry and evangelization, and training others to do the same) is not best used to organize sports leagues, schedule altar servers, or help high schoolers complete their obligatory service hours. I agree with Brenda that networking within the parish is important, but if I allow myself to get pulled into anything and everything teen-related I will only be doing many things poorly and nothing well, and the ultimate goal of _youth ministry_ to make disciples of Jesus Christ among the youth of the parish will go unmet.
My attitudes about this might change if we were actually seeing effective evangelization occurring on a broad scale within our parishes.
Fair enough, Jim….
The ultimate goal of making disciples of Jesus Christ in the parish’s goal as well.
Unfortunetly, not every youth minister sees the value and importance of their role as a go-between for the the parish and its relationships with young people like you do