You might be a youth worker...

A book by Jon Middendorf recently published a list of *warning* signs to help you tell if you might be a youth worker. Our youth staff and volunteers thought it would be fun to come up with a list of our own. So... youth workers everywhere, send us your signs! (preferably based upon true persons or events) This could become quite a list.

• You know you're a youth worker when a member of the Session complains about the middle schoolers doing something, and you have to confess that you were the one that taught them how to do it in the first place.
• If you've ever had to warn youth about 'purpling' (blue and pink make purple if they get too close)
• If you know what Bambi Baseball is
• If you're over 20 and carry water guns around in the back of your car on a regular basis.
• If, when you take a group of JR highers out into the woods on a retreat for some "challenging fun," you end up in the hospital getting 12 stitches. (Yes, Tim, this means you)
• If you carry around tattered receipts in your wallet for things that you've bought for kids at youth events when they didn't have enough money of their own knowing full well that you'll never turn them in.
• If you've memorized the location of all the fire extinguishers and first aid kits in the church.
• If you've figured out how to get the red food dye off the bathroom walls after Jell-O wrestling.
• If you clap too loud in praise songs and you don't have a hearing problem.
• If you're only 20 and you're finding gray hairs.
• If you enjoy singing amazing grace to any tune other than the original. (e.g., runaround sue, house of the rising sun, on the road again).
• If you can't walk into a Pizza or Sub shop without taking a group price list with you when you leave.
• If your office is messy... the piles of papers are hidden under balloons, gizmos, and bags of potato chips.
• If "my kids" refers to a group of young people you are not related to.
• If you have a telephone in the bathroom.
• If you can parallel park a 15 passenger van while changing radio stations.
• If at family reunions, you call everyone together to ask a few people to share their observations on the group dynamics of that last volleyball game.
• If your doorbell needs a "caller i.d."
• If you can't go to a birthday party without having an organizational meeting to plan.
• If on family vacation you ask your children where their permission slips are.
• If your spouse is affectionately known as "the default chaperone".
• If counseling takes place over fries and a hot fudge sundae.
• If you work a 14 hour Sunday.
• If your average workday isn't average.
• If the pizza delivery people all know you.
• If you're reading this.
• If the teens hold a fundraiser that involves them shaving your head.
• If you've read all the small print on the church's liability insurance.
• If you've had to break the news to the senior pastor and the board that the teens held a car wash, and accidentally used steel wool.
• If you've ever caught the teens TPing your car.
• If you can go to a youth rally without earplugs.
• If the teens give YOU advice on style, grammar, and relationships.
• If shaving cream, whipped cream and Jell-O as regular supplies for retreats.
• If you have a set of clothes designated for retreats.
• If on Sunday, people demand to know why you came to church looking so presentable.
• If you are the janitors' arch enemy and closest friend.
• If half your work week hours are on Saturday and Sunday.
• If pot-luck dinners and pizza appear in your stomach more than the basic food groups.
• If you can't leave Toys R Us without buying stuff... in sets of 10.
• If your knowledge of local high school sports is better than the parents of the players.
• If when planning when you're free for a date, you consult the church newsletter.
• If Sunday is the anti-Sabbath.
• If upon returning from Disney World, you compare it to a large youth ministry and complain about "not enough scripture study..."
• If MTV is research.
• If you frequently complain that there are no TV ads for 15 passenger vans.
• If you try to lead energizers and mixers in a particularly long line at the supermarket.
• If your idea of a vacation is to stay home.
• If your formal clothes get dusty.
• If you sit in the student section at high school football games, and you just celebrated your 10 year reunion.
• If your sick sense of humor motivates you to drive a van full of kids crazy by tuning in the station that's "all 80's, all the time!", and proceed to sing at the top of your lungs.
• If your idea of a "great week" is spent on a youth mission trip or at a church camp.
• If you've got babysitters lined up from here to Cairo.
• If when at Hardees, you consciously sit next to the kids with blue hair, who are wearing dog collars, in the hope of striking up a conversation, while the rest of the adult customers watch in horror.
• If you've ever been described as "phat" at a grocery store, and it was meant to be a compliment.
• If you're deathly afraid of heights, and that doesn't keep you from bungee jumping as your end of the bargain involving teens raising $6,000 for World Vision.
• If at church, every week, you're told that you have the toughest job in Christendom, and all you can think in response is, "I can't believe they pay people to do what I do. I'm the luckiest person in the world".
• If when you go shopping for a new house, you find one with a well-lit yard, and no trees, or bushes...
• If you are in your mid-twenties, single, and your dream car is a new mini-van (especially one with TWO sliding doors).
• If your ideal Friday night is hanging out at the mall, and not on a date with your spouse or girl/boyfriend.
• If the only time you see your same-age friends is when they're chaperoning one of your activities.
• If you think you've really connected with someone when they give you a wedgy.
• If you allow a teen to ride in the U-haul without being accompanied by a chaperone.
• If it seems like you constantly offend the elderly of the congregation.
• If you're the only one awake in a vehicle coming back from an amusement park at 4am.
• If, when driving the church van on a late night return trip, you turn off the headlights, slam the brakes, and scream at the top of your lungs just to repay a puny portion of the trauma the gang has caused you during the trip.
• If you motion to the guy serving communion that his fly is open when it really isn't.
• If you saw a kid take the wrong trail on a hiking trip, but you didn't do anything about it because you wanted him to learn a "valuable lesson on leadership." (Besides, it was pretty funny.)
• If you've ever been asked, "Seriously, what do you do during the week?"
• If a parent asks, "When will you be getting home?" two months before the trip.
• If you act like attending all the church functions is a tremendous blessing.
• If you've been told by an older member of the congregation that you "speak too fast."
• If you've ever thought that the senior pastor's job is pretty "cushy."
• If you learned how to play three chords on a guitar so you can stop listening to kids singing off-key accapella.
• If you've ever had a parent tell you that you didn't know anything (since you didn't have kids), but have them call you the first thing their son/daughter needed "some help."
• If you have any decor/menus/placemats from restaurants in your office.
• If while all other people your age are waiting for new releases from Point of Grace and Michael W Smith to come out, you're "into" the W's, Supertones, and DCTalk.
• If your own kids who are under four yell at teenage kids walking down the street from the car and then ask if they are kids from the youth group.
• If you actually practice belching before junior high events.
• If you actually plan your personal grocery shopping around youth events as you rely upon leftover chips, soda or other snacks to bring home to please your wife.
• If you have ever, I repeat, ever, asked for a receipt at McDonalds. (you will feel really stupid if you do)
• If you have ever bragged to other "real " truck drivers that you actually have a class B drivers license, only for them to laugh at you.
• If you have ever singed your butt hairs doing the "blue flame " thing at a camp.
• If you are in your mid-thirties, married with children and your dream car is a 15 passenger van that won't fit in your garage.
• If to stay awake driving home from a concert at 3am you run over construction cones in the middle of the highway, with the 15 passenger van (waking up all the youth in the process - haha)!
• If a great gift idea includes balls, dart boards, or hoops.
• If your idea of going to bed early is 11:30 PM.
• If after announcing a Lock-In, the entire congregation offers up a special prayer for you.
• If you have ever had wrestling matches in your own living room and thought, "I could never have done this when I lived at home."
• If youth think of you as a friend so much that they will fart in front of you (both males and females).
• If your closest friend has not hit puberty yet.
• If phone conversations are like this, "Is (Youth Pastor) there?" "Speaking" "Hey, how are you?" You proceed to talk with them for a 1/2 an hour till you realize who the kid you are talking with is.
• If you are constantly looking for a good deal on posters.
• If wet willies are still fun to you.
• If you have ever had someone tell you, "You will outgrow that job".
• If you are asked by the parents if you "have a life" and you reply with happiness "This is it..." (and feel sorry for those who don't "have a life" like you).
• If you have 20 lbs of M&M's and Snickers candy bars in your freezer, left over from your last candy fundraiser, and you bring them to youth meetings for prizes!
• When you see a kid sitting off by themselves and your heart feels a tug and you go sit and talk with them all night if need be, then you are a youth worker.

If you spend time with teens because God has called you to make a positive difference in their lives . . . you are a youth worker!

Authors: Our Youth Ministry Staff, Volunteers and Miscellaneous Contributors

Special thanks to Richard Hendrix, Sandy Long, Andy Byrne, Brian Stuttler and Hope on the youth ministry listserve.

The original list referred to (but not included here) is from a book by Jon Middendorf (Beacon Hill Press of Kansas City, © 1997)