A Brief History of the Association of Youth Ministry Educators

The genesis of a new organization is always difficult to pinpoint, but the Association of Youth Ministry Educators clearly marks its origins in the mid 1990's. While academic programs in youth ministries at Christian Colleges and Seminaries can be traced back to at least the middle of the 1970's, it was in the late 1980's and early 1990's that a proliferation of academic programs began to emerge and the need for a gathering of youth ministry educators became apparent.

Throughout the 1980's it was the practice of the North American Professors of Christian Education (NAPCE) to host networking groups at its annual conferences. These affinity groups were organized by specialized areas of interest such as children's ministries, youth ministries, young adult ministries, singles ministries, senior's ministries, etc. By the fall of 1993 the youth ministry networking group had become the largest affinity meeting at the NAPCE conference and some talk of a special forum for youth ministry professors was in the air.

In the spring of 1994, Youthworker Journal published an article by Dennis "Tiger" McLuen, Bethel and Luther Seminaries, that featured profiles of colleges and graduate schools which offered youth ministries majors. Intrigued by the article and the growth of the youth ministry professors networking group at the NAPCE conferences, Ken Garland, teaching at the time at Talbot School of Theology, took it upon himself to call for a gathering of youth ministry educators which quickly became the Association of Youth Ministry Educators (AYME). Since the 1994 NAPCE Conference was to be held in Southern California, Ken wrote all of the people that he knew from NAPCE and the Youthworker Journal article who were teaching youth ministry and personally invited them to participate in a youth ministry education symposium to be held at the Talbot School of Theology in October 1994, two days prior to the NAPCE Conference.

Twenty-eight individuals attended this first gathering in 1994 and concluded that an annual forum of this nature would be a valuable event. Rick Dunn, then teaching at Trinity International University, agreed to host a similar meeting the following year in Chicago and a volunteer steering-committee was appointed by Ken to assist Rick in the development of the second meeting which became known as the Youth Ministry Educators Forum. The phrase "youth ministry educators" (YME) was consciously chosen over "youth ministry professors" in order to include all men and women committed to the development of emerging youth ministers whether they teach in a formal academic venues or a non-formal educational setting.

At the 1995 YME Forum, which was attended by thirty-five educators, the five person steering committee, chaired by Rick Dunn, appointed four more people creating a nine member committee. The only officer of the steering committee was the chair who was charged with the primary responsibility of leadership for the organization and administration of the annual forum. It was agreed that the steering committee should attempt to maintain equitable representation, including the challenge of balancing gender, types of educational institutions, and geographic representation. Members were divided into three classes and the steering committee began appointing a new class of three members at each annual forum as the oldest class rotated off the steering committee.

By the late 1990's YME had begun promoting scholarship, research, and academic excellence among educators and students in three significant ways. In 1998 YME honored Wesley Black, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, as the first recipient of the Distinguished Youth Ministry Educator Award. This award is granted by the organization on occasion to honor educators who have distinguished themselves in scholarship, research, and/or teaching to such an extent that their impact has advanced the academic field of youth ministry in a significant way. In addition, the association began to annually honor select students, majoring in youth ministries at colleges and seminaries, who had demonstrated superior academic and ministry leadership achievements. In an effort to encourage research in the field Dean Borgman, Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary and Mark Senter, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, were awarded the first AYME research grants in 2000 to assist them in their scholarly endeavors. When funding is available research grants are awarded to individuals who are engaged in a program of scholarship that aims to advance the field of youth ministry.

As the YME Forum continued to grow each year the steering committees worked diligently not only to create a yearly gathering of youth ministry educators, but also to develop an academic organization that would strive to challenge and support those teaching youth ministry in colleges and seminaries across North America. In 1999 Len Kageler was hired by the steering committee as an administrator. Len's first task was to file for incorporation of the association. In 2000 the Youth Ministry Educators was formally incorporated in the state of Colorado and in 2001 the Youth Ministry Educators were granted tax exempt status from the federal government as a 501c6 organization. Upon incorporation the 2000 steering committee became the first Board of Directors with a full slate of officers including a Chair, Vice-Chair, Secretary, and Treasurer. From 2000-2002 the responsibilities of the Chair and Vice-Chair went through a time of transition so that by 2002 the Chair was responsible for the leadership of the association and the Vice-Chair was responsible for the leadership of the annual conference.

In the fall of 2000 the YME launched an electronic academic journal under the leadership of Darwin Glassford, Montreat College, along with the assistance of Youth Specialties who agreed to host the journal's website. This online version of the journal experienced limited success as the YME discovered that professors, deans, and provosts required a print journal to satisfy the cultural standards of rigorous scholarship as defined by the academy. In the fall of 2002 the online journal was able to be converted to a print journal through the financial support and partnership of Gordon College. The journal continues to hold the same purpose that was originally envisioned in 2000; "to be a peer-reviewed medium through which professional youth ministry educators may share with, encourage, and challenge each other through our various specific academic and practical disciplines related to youth ministry education." Along with the introduction of the print journal came a name change for the organization. In 2002 the word "association" was add to the name in an attempt to more clearly define the nature of the organization as a formal Association of Youth Ministry Educators (AYME).

In October 2009 AYME took another bold step forward by hosting a collaborative conference with the International Association for the Study of Youth Ministry (IASYM) and the National Federation of Catholic Youth Ministry (NFCYM). Today, the Association of Youth Ministry Educators continues to celebration the growth and development of the association as an interdisciplinary group of educators committed to the advancement of the field of youth ministries and the development of youth ministry educators.

While some organizations are driven by a single person other movements are developed through the synergy of a group of people with a common passion and vision. It is the later which describes the Association of Youth Ministry Educators. Looking over history of AYME it is not possible to list all of the people who have invested heavily in the creation and development of this association in the few pages aloted here. However, listed below are some of those who have provided significant leadership in the development of AYME and youth ministry education.

Mark W. Cannister
Gordon College
Wenham, Massachusetts

AYME BOARD OF DIRECTOR CHAIRPERSONS
1994 Ken Garland, Talbot School of Theology
1995 Rick Dunn, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
1996 Jana Sundene, Trinity International University
1997 Mark Cannister, Gordon College
1998 Mark Lamport, Huntington College
1999 Len Kageler, Nyack College
2000 Pamela Erwin, Bethel University and Allen Jackson, New Orleans Baptist Theol. Seminary
2001 Steve Gerali, Judson College
2002 Karen Jones, Huntington College
2003 Wesley Black, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary
2004-06 Ed Robinson, Nazarene Theological Seminary
2006  Pamela Erwin, Bethel University 
2007-09 Mark Senter, Trinity International University
2010- James Hampton, Asbury Theological Seminary

DISTINGUISHED YOUTH MINISTRY EDUCATORS AWARDS
1998 Wesley Black, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary
2001 Merton Strommen, Search Institute
2003 Jay Kessler, Taylor University
2006 Dean Borgman, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary

RESEARCH GRANTS AWARDED
2000 Dean Borgman, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary
2000 Mark Senter, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
2001 Kelly Schwartz, Nazarene University College
2003 Jay Sedwick, Dallas Theological Seminary