The office and youth ministry

I must say I don't watch much TV. A few reasons:

1. no cable (and the local channels don't all come in clear)
2. 2 small boys (which means there is more important things to do like cook pretend food and fix stuff with tools)
3. not many good shows on (in my opinion)
4. i'd rather read
5. I can find all the recaps online and can still know what is going on without actually watching :)

anyway...
There are 2 main shows I watch each week. The Simpsons and The Office. (back to the reason for the post)

I was watching a preview clip (sales team out in the field)for this week's episode of the office today with Amy and just started cracking up. Its classic Stanley (I think Stanley and Toby need more airtime). He goes with Ryan on a sales call and just "dumps" the presentation on Ryan to handle, while he does his crosswords. It was a great clip - at only a minute clip its worth the entire episode (especially the few seconds of them back in the car after the call is over). Anyway, I was thinking about the clip in reference to Youth Ministry.

In the clip, Stanley puts Ryan on the spot without any prewarning or prior knowledge. Ryan pretty much stands there dumbfounded and has no idea what to do. How many times in ministry do we (paid youth workers) put youth coaches in charge of things without really doing any training or help. I think the biggest concern for me is the Sunday School teachers. It seems we ask people to do it and if they say "yes" then we give them some curriculum (on a good day) and let them go. What a disservice to both the teacher and the students. If the adults who help in youth ministry feel anything like what Ryan looked like in the clip, then we need to rethink our whole process.

I want to make sure in my ministry that I don't just let people serve without being ready.

Have you found that training is best done before people start serving and then reinforced during their time of service?

I think this post is turning into a much longer post than I expected...maybe it needs to be multiple.

(i hope the show on Thursday is as funny as the few clips i've seen)