Student Interviews of Churches that are Using
Peer Ministry
Interview AUG, 2001
Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd, Duluth MN
Interview with Pastor Tim Berdahl
By: Greg Campbell
Pastor Tim Berdahl is an associate pastor at Lutheran Church
of the Good Shepherd, located in Duluth, MN. Greg Campbell is
a student at Augsburg College in Minneapolis, MN. He did this
interview as part of a Peer Ministry class assignment. Greg is
a majoring in Youth & Family Ministry. The interview was conducted
on August 13, 2001.
What type of Community is your church in?
More urban than rural.
What is the approximate size of your congregation?
About 350 people attend regularly.
How many pastors are at your church? How many are on your
youth staff?
We have two pastors and one part-time Youth and Family Director.
About how many youth do you have per grade level?
20-30
Why is Peer Ministry needed in your church and/or community?
Our high school youth had been dropping out of church after confirmation.
Peer Ministry has kept them involved in very active ways. It has
also energized the rest of the congregation. They have seen the
teens excited about doing servant projects and the excitement
spreads throughout the congregation.
What excites you most about Peer Ministry?
It sets high school people free to do what they feel God is calling
them to do.
Describe some of the logistics of Peer Ministry at your church?
All trainees go through a 14-session training followed by 2 sessions
at the end for servant project planning. After training, the church
adult staff mobilizes around the peer ministers' ideas.
How do you invite involvement in Peer Ministry?
First, we send out letters to high school students' parents. We
invite parents to discuss possible involvement in Peer Ministry
with their teens. Then we send letters to the teens along with
an application. Also, we survey youth to find out whom they would
most likely turn to for help and include that information in the
letter we send to the helpful teen. Anyone who is interested may
apply. Nobody is turned away, but it is made clear how much of
a commitment this program requires, so some self-select out if
they are unwilling or unable to commit to that level. It is also
agreed upon before training begins that if anyone misses more
than one training session, they will step down - with the invitation
to participate in next year's training.
What does your Peer Ministry program look like now?
We are currently starting our third year of the program. We got
about half of the invited students to apply last year, so we're
very excited about that.
How did you get it that way?
Our biggest help has probably come from the intentional recruiting
strategy. We also make sure to keep council and congregation informed
asking for input on youth from church leadership. It helps that
we've grown full-strength from the first year.
What do you hope happens in the future?
That we continue to be blessed through our Peer Ministry Training.
Our biggest challenge now is keeping up with what the teens want
to do. In addition to the day-to-day caring interactions that
Peer Ministers have with others, they have also become energized
to do a variety of servant projects - including hospice care,
mission trip (Honduras), bowl-a-thon for
Cystic Fibrosis research, hunger lock-in, creating a Christian
music group, and teaching Sunday School and Confirmation classes.
We are working on mobilizing enough adults to help the teens do
what they want to do.
What stories best illustrate Peer Ministry?
It was at the end of our first year of training; we were having
individual interviews with each participant, asking them how they
wanted to use their training. We had said, "You tell us what you
want to do and we'll help you do it." One of the first individuals
said they wanted to go on a mission trip - to Africa. I swallowed
hard. Then she said, or Central America. I began to breath easier,
but not that much easier - our church had never done anything
like that before. The idea caught fire with the other Peer Ministers
and soon they were working on fundraisers. Our experience is that
God provides - from out the body of Christ, from out of the communion
of saints, from out of the people our congregation, God provided
both the volunteer staffing and the financial support needed for
the youth to do what they hoped to do. The teenagers experienced
their church rallying around them. They experienced the prayers
and the volunteer labor and the financial support of their church.
They experienced God's providing.
What helpful information would you pass on to a church wanting
to get started?
Take your adults most concerned about your youth and send them
to Peer Ministry Facilitator training. Be very intentional in
recruiting youth, especially during the first year; make personal
contacts to each of the teens. And through out the training, get
the teens talking about what God might be calling them to do -
each as an individual, and also as a group.
