What's Different about Women's Challenges
Many leaders face the same challenges, but here's what's unique for women in youth ministry
Much of my work and writing revolves around the challenges that women in youth ministry face. I’ve said it before, but want to make sure I say it clearly: I don’t believe that all these challenges only affect women. All ministry leaders face challenges, and when it comes to many of those I’ve named — such as loneliness, compensation and benefits, a lack of work-life balance — we’d be right to recognize that these are common to ministry leaders. Heck, many of them are common to just adults in general.
At the same time, where these challenges exist for ministry leaders in general, women in youth ministry likely feel their impacts more acutely.
Why’s that? Because they tend to have less power, influence, and visibility. As part of the youth staff, they are at or near the “bottom of totem pole” in the church world. As women, they usually have less visibility to leadership, since their relationships with leaders are often weaker. And as both youth staff and a woman, they tend to have less influence. Therefore, they often end up neglected and overlooked — not intentionally, but just by virtue of the fact that those with more power, influence, and visibility are going to be seen and taken care of better.
Therefore, the challenges of a woman in youth ministry may serve as an early indicator light of something that’s unhealthy in a church and its work culture.
When a woman in youth ministry is facing issues with her compensation and benefits, it’s possible this means that she’s the only one facing this issue. But it could also mean that the church isn’t fairly compensating any of its employees, and she’s compensated the least fairly. It could also be that the church is proactive in compensating some of its employees well (the men, the ordained staff, or some other group), while it neglects to compensate the rest of its staff well. She may not be the only one facing this issue, but she may be amongst those facing it with greatest intensity.
When a woman in youth ministry isn’t getting the training and development she desires, it could be that she’s the only one on staff experiencing this issue. But it’s also possible that the church is only providing sufficient funds for development for specific classes of employees, or that none of the supervisors on staff have sufficient time in their schedules to coach and develop their direct reports. It could be that the pastors all receive mentoring, or that all young guys on staff are taken under the wings of an older man on staff, but she as a female is left out of these formal or informal development structures. Either everyone is falling through the cracks, or she is falling through more cracks than others.
When a woman in youth ministry is facing disrespect from students, adults in the congregation, or other staff and leaders, I suppose it’s possible that she’s the only one facing this issue. But it’s more likely that this is an issue in the church culture, and that everyone is facing it or whole classes of people are dealing with this all the time. As a woman in youth ministry, she’s likely found herself fitting within several classes (youth staff, woman, being or merely looking or acting young) that earn her even less respect than the average staff person.
With many of the struggles that women in youth ministry face, they are not the only ones on staff facing them, but they may be facing harder and more complex, multi-layered versions of the struggle.
Moreover, there are often less pathways for women in youth ministry out of these struggles. Take a ministry leader who’s lonely in their job and wants to connect with other ministry leaders like them. Youth leader networks are usually primarily filled with guys, and most of the females in them are 25 or under, so these end up lonely places for women in youth ministry, especially the older they get. Many guys are also able to look to their denomination for connection with pastors in their area, too. But these sorts of networks aren’t filled with options for the women. Or, consider a youth leader in an unhealthy church, where the solution to the challenges they face is to leave and find a job at a healthier church. The reality is, less youth ministry jobs are open to female candidates, so she has less options here, too.
So, while women in youth ministry aren’t the only ones facing the sorts of challenges I’ve been naming, let’s recognize that these challenges may hit them harder and be more complex and difficult to solve for them. That’s worth doing something about, don’t you think?