The road goes on and on.

I received a call out of the blue a few weeks ago. The parent of a student I worked with at my previous church called to find out if I would write a recommendation for the student's Eagle Scout award. I was honored! Sure, I would.

Here's the dilemma, though. The church I served has a youth director now. That person ought to be the one to write the recommendation if the scout knows the person better. His mother assured me that the scout felt closer to me than the new director and would prefer that I write for him. So I consented.

I think youth ministry ought to follow the same rules that outgoing pastors try to follow. When you leave a congregation, avoid contact for a couple of years to allow people to accept the new person. It's been a couple of years since I left, but I am still wary about getting between students and the youth director.

When you get close to students in your ministry, you must realize that there is every likelihood that they will have another youth director/pastor within the next 3-4 years. Rarely do we in ministry get to follow a student all the way through the ministry. And changes in staff really do affect the students. If we leave a church without considering what the students will need after we're gone, we have missed a key to ministry.

I know that occassionally we get close enough to a student to think of them as our disciple. There's nothing wrong with that. However, when we go, the students need to be allowed to attach to the new director. They may always consider you a spiritual parent, but we must allow others to parent them, too.

The Principle: Stay clear of the youth ministry you are leaving for a couple of years. And be prepared (as best as possible) to tell your former students that they need to give the new staffer a real chance.