# Job Description: Director of Youth Ministry
### [Church Name] · Approved by SPRC [date] · Reviewed [date]

**Reports to:** the pastor
**Works with:** [children's ministry / parents' team / youth council]
**Classification:** [full-time / part-time] · [exempt / non-exempt — see above]
**Hours:** [ ] per week, with published expectations for trips and retreats
**Compensation:** [rate], reviewed annually with the budget

### Purpose

To lead the congregation's ministry with youth — discipleship, belonging, and
service — in partnership with parents and volunteers, so that young people are
known by name and formed in faith.

### Core responsibilities — **FULL TIME (30–40 hrs)**

**Ministry with youth**
- Plan and lead weekly gatherings: [Sunday evening / Wednesday / small groups].
- Teach or coordinate teaching; select curriculum in consultation with the pastor.
- Be present in youth's lives outside programming — games, concerts, hospital
  visits — within the church's safeguarding rules.
- Plan and lead [ ] retreats, [ ] mission trip(s), and summer programming annually.

**Volunteers**
- Recruit, screen, train, and support adult volunteers. **This is the core of the
  job, not an adjunct to it** — a youth ministry run by one paid person ends when
  that person leaves.
- Maintain the volunteer roster and ensure every volunteer's screening is current.

**Parents and congregation**
- Communicate regularly with parents: calendar, permissions, expectations.
- Report to the church council or appropriate committee on a stated cycle.
- Connect youth into the whole congregation's worship and service, not only into
  their own program.

**Administration**
- Manage the youth budget.
- Maintain permission forms, medical releases, and emergency contacts.
- Handle trip logistics: transportation, lodging, insurance, and driver
  requirements.

### At **HALF TIME (15–20 hrs)** — what changes

Keep: weekly gathering, volunteer recruitment and support, parent communication,
one retreat and one trip, safeguarding compliance.

Cut or move: small groups reduce to one; midweek programming becomes monthly;
curriculum writing becomes curriculum selection; trip logistics move to a parent
team with the director advising.

Name the **trip weeks** in the description and say how they are handled — extra
pay, comp time, or hours banked. Every dispute in this role starts there.

### At **QUARTER TIME (8–10 hrs)** — what changes

Realistically: one weekly gathering, its preparation, and parent communication.

Everything else is a volunteer team's, or it does not happen: no trips led by staff
unless separately contracted, no midweek, no small groups. The director's remaining
job is **equipping the adults who do the rest** — which is a genuine and different
job, and should be written that way rather than as a shrunken version of the
full-time list.

Be honest in the posting. Quarter-time youth ministry advertised with a full-time
vision is how churches burn through three directors in five years and conclude that
young people are the problem.

### Qualifications

- Demonstrated ability to build trust with teenagers and with their parents.
- Able to recruit and lead adult volunteers.
- [CHOOSE: theological education, ministry experience, or equivalent.]
- Valid driver's licence and an insurable driving record if the role involves
  transporting youth `[verify with your insurer what it requires — many policies
  set an age or record standard]`.

### Screening — required

- Background check **before** the first day, renewed on the church's cycle.
- Safe Gatherings-type training, current at all times.
- Reference checks including previous ministry settings, contacted directly.
- All adult volunteers screened to the same standard, without exception.

### Working conditions

Evenings and weekends are the ordinary schedule, not the exception. Overnight
retreats and trips. Occasional crisis response.

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**This is a starting point, not legal advice.** Employment law varies by state, and your annual conference may have policies that go beyond the Discipline. Before you rely on anything here for a hiring, firing, or compensation decision, run it past your conference office or chancellor.

Paragraph references are to the 2020/2024 Book of Discipline. This document paraphrases; for the binding text, see the Discipline itself.

From Itineracy Commons — https://itineracy.app/commons/jobs/youth-director/
Licensed CC BY 4.0. Adapt it freely; keep the attribution.
Last updated 2026-07-22.