Changing the Status Quo
Jesse, my wonderful, amazing, incredibly cute husband is posting today. Yay!
A few months ago I wrote a guest post about my hopes and past failures when it comes to loving my neighbor as myself. Since then, I’ve been thinking about my experience with youth ministry as a teen and what I’ve observed as an adult.
The post included this paragraph:
“I don’t blame anyone but myself for my choices, but it didn’t help me any that the well-heeled and goofy stoners at my high school offered me more social acceptance than many of the kids at my church youth group. And again, I don’t blame those kids – they were just being teenagers. But the setup that was there was one that let teenagers do what teenagers naturally do, instead of what the kingdom of God does. And I have to cop to being a part of many similar setups in many similar church meetings along the way. Shame on all of us for participating in such shams!”
High school was when I learned (through no one’s fault but my own) to be fake – to look at porn or smoke weed all Saturday night and show up to youth group quoting Bible verses the next day. And I doubt I was the only one. Living this way is not a recipe for loving your neighbor, and I ought to clarify that I didn’t do much neighbor-loving there myself. That’s the “sham” – playing church by showing up for a program without putting my heart into it. And just because some people (particularly me) may have been playing church, that doesn’t mean the leadership wasn’t Spirit-led or that the Spirit wasn’t at work. It’s just that I was getting in the way, and in hindsight it would’ve taken a nuclear blast to get through the shell of my self and get me to love another human being. (In many ways, that is exactly what happened – many times!)
I don’t know what I expected the leadership to do to change the “setup,” since some of us were tough customers to begin with. The whole reason I started thinking about this post again was because I’ve been watching the youth at my current church. They seem so vibrant and sold out for Jesus, it touches my heart. And it makes me think of what a difficult job it must be to inspire kids to that level. Just loving my neighbor as myself is a challenge for me. Inspiring others, especially teens, to do it is something else again. I taught high school for three years, and I doubt that I made the slightest dent in the cliques and social strata kids segregate themselves into. The reason things weren’t different for me growing up isn’t because anyone did anything wrong, it’s because changing the “setup” is really, really, really hard. But when I see our church’s kids, it reminds me that with God, all things are possible.
Pray for your youth pastors. They need it!
Post-Script from Nicole: Youth pastor? No thanks. I could never, ever, never do it. Each of you truly are saints of God.
If you are a youth pastor or work with kids in any type of youth ministry (paid or volunteer) please leave a comment and let me know how I can pray for you and your challenging job. I’d be honored to pray for you this week.
Thanks for sharing Jesse!
Let me say (and this is mostly tongue in cheek, but not totally) I’m not really big on kids. *Gasp* Our kids are cool…most of the time… but I know that my “SHAPE” so to speak is very limited in the kid/teen ministry department. All those who know me are laughing right now. Anyhoo, Jesse is so right. Pastor Jon Mac at The Woods is an amazing guy who is doing unbelievable things with the youth at out church. I am beyond honored to know him.
SERIOUS props to our youth pastors. I honestly don’t know how they do it sometimes.
I am a youth pastor in what is really the inner city of Pittsburgh. You can pray for me. Thanks.
Ben, consider it done! Praying now. Love what you do :)
P.S. I like your blog theme… a lot. I may be copying you on my new site. kthxbai.
Being a mom of (almost) two teenagers who’ve had a bumpy church experience I can attest to the difficulty of instilling a spiritual path. They now the scriptures, they have belief, and on th whole are decent people but they don’t have a good spiritual intake to keep things going. I hope and pray they don’t turn away from the teachings. I definately think all the folks who successfully work with kids are amazing!
Katy, So true, so true… Will be praying for your kids this week too. Goodness, remember when we were that age? :) Exactly why I could never do it!
youth pastors have the hardest job in a church because they have to herd those teen cats. they also have to manage the expectations of parents and the senior adult population. they deserve encouragement and support. that, along with prayer, helps them do the kind of job that honors God the most.
Lauree, Totally agree! And, speaking of herding cats… have you ever seen this commercial for EDS http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pk7yqlTMvp8 ? Hysterical!
Jesse and Nicole, Thank you for your honesty and insight. We have seen this same lack of living out the kingdom in youth groups for both our kids. It is heartbreaking, and in some cases causes spiritual damage that is difficult to overcome.
Thanks Nancy. Jesse and I are so flattered that you are reading and commenting :) I agree with your comment. It is so sad. It’s a tough time to be a kid.