{"id":61,"date":"2012-03-03T04:37:02","date_gmt":"2012-03-03T04:37:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/engage.augsburg.edu\/jpmyers\/?p=61"},"modified":"2018-09-16T21:21:31","modified_gmt":"2018-09-16T21:21:31","slug":"rebranding-youth-ministry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/engage.augsburg.edu\/jpmyers\/2012\/03\/03\/rebranding-youth-ministry\/","title":{"rendered":"Rebranding Youth Ministry"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/VcQHwYOAlK0\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>In the six years I\u2019ve taught <a href=\"http:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/yfm\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Youth and Family Ministry<\/a> at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Augsburg College<\/a>, I\u2019ve noticed a decrease in the number of students in our program. However, I\u2019ve also seen an increase in the number of students across the college who are interested in and involved with youth ministry in some form. These students want to work with youth in the context of a faith community, but have no interested in earning a degree in youth ministry. In fact, many of them don\u2019t see themselves serving professionally in youth ministry <em>in the traditional sense<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>This is both troubling and inspiring. The problem is not a lack of interest in ministry with youth. The problem, I think, is linked to the branding of our profession.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>I know many talented, innovative, young adults (20-somethings) with a passion for faith-based youth work. This is inspiring! Yet, they have no desire to pursue it professionally because the current brand of youth ministry doesn&#8217;t resonate with their own sense of call.\u00a0 This is troubling and I\u2019m not sure if the church is willing to do the hard work of rebranding youth ministry. I&#8217;m not sure this need is even on the church&#8217;s radar.<\/p>\n<p>In January <a href=\"http:\/\/www.studio360.org\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Studio 360<\/a> ran a story on their project to rebrand educators\u00a0for the 21<sup>st<\/sup> century. Teachers had grown tired of what they called the \u201capple-crapple\u201d branding associated with their profession \u2013 apples, ABCs, 123s, one-room schoolhouses, rulers, etc. This branding did not express the vital work they do on a day-to-day basis and causes society to trivialize their work. This makes me wonder if the same can be done for youth ministry.<\/p>\n<p>Watch the 5-minute video above, ponder these questions and then post your thoughts. I\u2019d love to find out if there is a need to rebrand youth ministry and (if there is) what it might look like.<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Do we need to rebrand youth ministry? Why or why not?<\/li>\n<li>What are the icons and descriptors currently associated with youth ministry that need to be trashed (i.e., the equivalent of education&#8217;s apples, ABCs, 123s, etc.)?<\/li>\n<li>What might be some new images and words that would better describe the vital work we do on a daily basis?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Please take a minute and post your thoughts. Maybe this can happen!<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the six years I\u2019ve taught Youth and Family Ministry at Augsburg College, I\u2019ve noticed a decrease in the number of students in our program. However, I\u2019ve also seen an increase in the number of students across the college who are interested in and involved with youth ministry in some form. These students want to [&hellip;]<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":206,"featured_media":158,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/engage.augsburg.edu\/jpmyers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/engage.augsburg.edu\/jpmyers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/engage.augsburg.edu\/jpmyers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/engage.augsburg.edu\/jpmyers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/206"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/engage.augsburg.edu\/jpmyers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/engage.augsburg.edu\/jpmyers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":149,"href":"https:\/\/engage.augsburg.edu\/jpmyers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61\/revisions\/149"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/engage.augsburg.edu\/jpmyers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/engage.augsburg.edu\/jpmyers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/engage.augsburg.edu\/jpmyers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/engage.augsburg.edu\/jpmyers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}