Shares
Insights on
Youth Ministry
By Jeff Finley
June 2020 — pg. 23
urfm You are the church
INFUSEDirector
Zach Fleming is the new director of FM:Infuse, the national youth ministry effort of the
Free Methodist Church – USA, but he’s not new to youth ministry or the challenges
that youth pastors and volunteer youth leaders face.
“There was this feeling, especially when I first started, that I was supposed to have it all
together, and I was supposed to know everything,” said Fleming, 40, who has served as
the pastor of student ministries at the McPherson Free Methodist Church in McPherson,
Kansas, since 2005 and will continue in that role while directing FM:Infuse. “The longer
I do this, the more I believe in the wisdom of being able to ask for help.”
FM:Infuse is a resource that equips, encourages and supports Free Methodist youth
leaders across the denomination regardless of the size of the church, whether they’re
volunteers or paid youth leaders, or whether they’re in an urban or rural context. He
doesn’t want the conversation about youth ministry to be limited to leaders from large
churches with more resources.
“There is value and importance and kingdom work being done in small rural
churches with maybe a mom or dad volunteering. ... It’s no less important and it’s no
more important than somebody who is paid by a local church,” said Fleming, who added
that the COVID-19 pandemic is shifting the perspective of what it means to do youth
ministry in 2020. “As all of us are figuring out how to go smaller and go more intimate,
I really think right now that we should be listening to the youth workers in smaller
contexts.”
Youth ministry has suddenly shifted to Zoom calls, which can make youth group
meetings seem more like students’ recent online school classes. Fleming told LIGHT
+ LIFE that youth leaders are now learning what bears fruit in our changing world and
what may not be a good use of their time.
“We can burn ourselves out easily trying to produce content,” Fleming said. “What
my students need right now more than anything is relationship. My best energy right
now is spent in handwritten notes to students and, as things are beginning to open up,
interacting with students face-to-face when possible.”
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