After being at Refuel in the Rockies this past week with a group of 30 youth workers, I’ve had some time to think through everything that we processed together as a group, and there are three big observations I made about the needs of youth workers.

1. Youth Workers Need Community

It was amazing to see 30 different youth workers who didn’t know each other build relationships over the course of three days. The way they poured into each other, encouraged each other, and called each other out was amazing. One youth worker even wrote on his evaluation that dinner with the whole group was the highlight of his trip because it allowed him to be himself with a group of people who truly understood him. Pretty awesome stuff.

2. Youth Workers Need a Retreat

While many youth workers out there have given youth ministry a bad name by being lazy and unprofessional, the truth is majority of them work their butts off to push the ministry forward. They disciple students, they build into adults, they work with parents, they run trainings, they meet with their senior pastors…the list goes on. Youth workers need to be intentional about taking time to retreat and be with God. They need to let him refuel them. You cannot give what you do not have.

3. Youth Workers Need to Take Risks

One of the biggest things that stood out to everyone who came was how God was calling them to continually take risks for his sake. We live in a culture that is constantly telling students to desire the biggest house, the biggest car, the highest paying job, and a life of security above all else. It’s the American Dream. Yet we are members of Christ’s family and he constantly calls us to take risks, to put ourselves on the line, to reach past our limitations. If we do not model risk taking for our students, they will learn how to live comfortably, and that will be a slow death.