Youth Group Leaders

Our church introduced a new youth (OK, high school and college) minister.

Do I need to tell you he's newlywed?

Pretty much everywhere I've gone, if the church had a minister for youth, that minister was a young recently married man.

Why so young? Imagine a grandfather as youth leader.

Reasons for a young youth leader:

• Stamina. Kids are exhausting, and a lot of young kids are even more exhausting
  
• Knows the au courant lingo; or at least a version only a few years old
  
• Can "relate" to kid's problems because he's been through them recently
  
• The kids can relate to him because he's an upper-level peer
  

Reasons for a grandpa:

• Knows a lot more about the problems of life
  
• Better perspective
  
• Can understand kid's problems because he's raised some
  
• The kids can respect him because he's an elder and not a peer
  

Thought experiment: imagine a one-on-one "Ask the answer man" time for a youth group. Ask the Answer Man anything, get an honest explanation. Who would you, as adults in the church, rather have doing that with the youth? Who do you think the youth would rather ask: a near-peer or somebody who's been through a few fires?

I've heard the claim that youth will only relate to peers or near peers, and so we need to "interface" them to the church using young leaders. It isn't obvious whether we are reacting to this narrowing of relationships or helping feed it, but I strongly suspect the latter.

I'm not getting into debates about women ministers. Similar dynamics would apply there too, and that's what I'm questioning.

UPDATE: My better half pointed out that our current church alternates large and small groups, and the small group leaders can be older.

"And the odd thing in Dad’s voice was the sound truth makes being said. The sound of truth, in a wild roving land of city or plain country lies, will spell any boy." Ray Bradbury (Something Wicked this Way Comes)