Youth Ministry (Evangelical) - Doug Fields

Doug Fields

Also of note is Doug Fields, who formerly served as the Pastor of Student Ministries at Rick Warren's famed Saddleback Church from 1992–2006, and today, is arguably the premier youth ministry expert in the world. His innovative church growth methods at Saddleback led to unprecedented growth, with over 1,000 students attending his high school ministry alone, believed to be the largest youth ministry in the United States at the time. This growth was accomplished without the use of a dedicated student ministry facility. In 1998, Fields' groundbreaking Gold Medallion-winning book, Purpose Driven Youth Ministry was published, revolutionizing youth ministries around the world, and led to Fields' unofficial title as the "most famous youth pastor in the world." The book is still considered required reading in many evangelical college and seminary youth ministry courses.

From 2006-2009, Fields served as the Pastor of Life Development at Saddleback. In 2009, Fields resigned from Saddleback to pursue other ministry opportunities. His Purpose Driven Youth Ministry Student Leadership Conference attracts over 1,000 student leaders every year. Fields is also the founder of Simply Youth Ministry and hosts an annual conference for youth workers (youthministry.com/symc) in collaboration with Group Publishing. He is the author of more than 50 books. Fields still remains informally connected to Saddleback's student ministries and occasionally preaches in Warren's absence.

In 2008, Fields saw his dream of over 15 years come to fruition with the completion of the Refinery, Saddleback's first dedicated student ministry facility. Costing $20 million, the state-of-the-art facility is considered the premier student ministry facility in the world. The Refinery houses Saddleback's middle school ministry (Wildside), high school ministry (HSM), college ministry (Crave), and young adults ministry, (Fuel). Since moving into the Refinery, all the student ministries have seen tremendous growth, with more than 2,500 young people attending services in the facility each week. HSM has doubled its attendance to 1,500 students attending per week since moving into the new facility, and is currently under the leadership of high school pastor, Josh Griffin.