You may have sensed by now that good high ministry could require a sizable portion of your time. It takes time,after all, to build relationships with individual students while organizing all the meetings, classes, outings, and so on. Time is a very important factor in the potential effectiveness of a junior high worker in the church, and the time demands can be discouraging. Rarely does anyone have more than enough time. With today's busy schedules, problem is usually finding any time at all.
Speaking from personal experience, this shortage of time can be the downfall of any well-intentioned junior high workers. You may like junior highers and have a strong desire to minister to them, but just be too busy to put that desire into practice. For the reason, I always list as a prerequisite for the junior high worker a willingness to allocate enough time to do an adequate job. The actual amount of time will vary a great deal from person to person, but it is certain that it will take more than an hour or two on Sunday.
Time plays such an important role because it is tied up with the fact that junior highers view things pretty much in black and white categories. That is, you are either a friend to them or you are not. When you say one thing and fail (or are unable) to back it up with your actions, you run the risk of being categorized as hypocrite. That, of course, is not always accurate, but proving otherwise can sometimes be difficult. Junior highers characteristically fail to understand adult obligations, and they often take this to mean that some other task is more important than they are.
The bottom line here is that junior high ministry must be more than good intentions. It does require time. When I look for someone to help with a junior high group, I try to find someone who is not already committed to dozens of other jobs in the church, since I don't want these other jobs to rob them of the time they are going to need to be with junior high kids.
On the other hand, I have learned that a little bit of time is always better than no time at all. If you are a volunteer, as most junior high workers are, you may have only one or two hours a week to do junior high ministry. You may have time to call or visit only two kids all month. But that's great ! Chances are that's more time than anyone else was able to give to those two kids all month, and God will bless that. Jesus fed a multitude with two fish; he can also work wonders with two hours.