by Madeleine Collins

Our parishes are in mission mode to reach the youth of Sydney, but where are the workers? This is the question the Diocese’s youth arm is asking, warning that there are so few youth and children’s workers to fill the number of available jobs that it is putting the Diocesan Mission under threat.
The revelations come in the wake of new figures showing more young people attend a Sydney Anglican church than in any other Australian diocese, and between 1996 and 2001 the Diocese grew faster than the general population.
Yet the number of trained workers has not matched the growth. No individuals are currently seeking employment through the Anglican Youthworks College, the youth and children’s ministry training centre for the Diocese. Meanwhile 37 Australian churches are seeking youth or children’s workers through the college website and 27 of these in are Sydney.
“I regularly get calls from church leaders asking whether I know of anyone who is looking for a youth or children’s ministry position.  The answer is mostly ‘no’,” says Youthworks College Principal, Graham Stanton.  “Most of the students who come to College have positions already arranged with their home church. Almost every graduate who is looking for a ministry position has ended up with work.”
According to Youthworks Chief Executive Officer, Alan Stewart,  there is greater demand for full-time youth pastors than the organisation can cope with. “We’re scratching around to get enough people,” he said. “People are beginning to see how important it is to do youth ministry well for the health of the church,” he added. “Parents will go to a church if they have a good solid program.”
Mr Stanton said one of the reasons the college was established in 2000 was to provide a way to fill the many opportunities for youth and children’s ministry, especially part time positions that were available. But while the college has attempted to redress the shortage, with graduates now serving in ministries in the Diocese and further afield, he says “the situation hasn’t changed much”.
Mr Stanton said one reason for the increase in jobs in recent years is due to the number of smaller churches recognising a lack of children and young people in the church, and raising the funds to put on a part time children’s or youth worker for two or three years.
He added that as larger churches look to expand their ministry teams in light of the Mission, a number are looking for people to fill specialised ministry roles such as children’s or youth ministry, often with the aim of coordinating and training large teams of volunteers.
While a record number of students are enrolled at the college, with 40 full time and 42 part time students this year, Youthworks says issues surrounding the training and recognition of youth and children’s ministers is also part of the problem. The organisation is now encouraging those involved in full-time youth and children’s ministry to become lay stipendiary workers, which it says will give clear recognition of their role and salary expectations while not being ordained, giving more job security.
“Many lay workers feel the pressure of a lack of job security that ordained workers do not always have. At one level, if lay workers do their job and do it well their job will be secure,” says Church Resource Unit Director Tony Willis said. “However, in youth and children’s ministry the measure of this success is difficult and often those in lay ministry are removed from the position for the wrong reasons, putting pressure on young people in ministry. Numbers and income generation are not always valid measures.”
Mr Willis says Youthworks will request the Synod to investigate the ordination of youth and children’s ministers to a permanent deaconate, similar to the existing structure for women in the Diocese.
“If we’re going to have 10 per cent of the population in churches, almost half of that 10 per cent are youth and children,” Mr Willis said.
The Rev Graeme Howells is the Assistant Minister at St Luke’s, Miranda and has responsibility for the church’s 5pm youth service and youth groups. He says unlike him, very few people interested in youth ministry ‘take the ordination track’.
“It can be a double-edged sword,” Mr Howells said. “I know people who see becoming an ordained minister as a hindrance to youth ministry. They say, ‘I can’t be marrying people on a Saturday and be at a youth camp at the same time’.”
Rector Stephen Gibson says churches would benefit from clear, systemic training of youth ministers as there is at present for clergy. “If I have an assistant minister leave, there’s a procedure,” he said. “If I have the youth minister leave, I push the panic button.
“Finding a youth minister is like finding a truffle in the forest. If you find one, you rejoice.”
Youthworks believes key to the debate is the resolution passed at Synod in 2003, ‘future shape of ministry’. The Synod proposed that the Standing Committee and the Mission Taskforce reconsider current ordination procedures and the ministry of deacons in order to fuel the 10 per cent goal.
Bishop of South Sydney, Robert Forsyth, says the Mission Taskforce is in the early stage of discussions.