Even though youth ministry has come a long way and there is a lot of good stuff that is pretty much standard fare, I think there are still a lot of unsettled issues in youth ministry. Among them:

• Are teenagers children or adults?
• To what extent can youth lead?
• How do we cultivate true leadership?
• What is the balance between congregational integration and peer-only segregation (or should there even be a balance)?
• Do we even need paid youth ministry staff?
• Is youth ministry a necessary way to minister in our culture or a structure that is reinforcing unhealthy cultural assumptions?
• Is the fairly widely documented failure of youth ministry worth the continued investment?
• What are the best alternatives to hiring inexperienced 22 year olds fresh out of college?
• Should youth ministers be grown in house or hired from the outside?
• What is the best way to train and identify quality youth ministers?
• What on earth do we do about seniors moving away to college?
• How do we provide alternatives for non college bound students?
• Is there such a thing as missional youth ministry?
• How do we best implement the stuff that we do agree on and still keep our jobs (or can we)?
• More?