Derailing Spiritual Development
By Phil Prendergast Posted on March 31 2011
With fondness and a bit of regret I remember my early days in youth ministry. In my early twenties, I was simultaneously going through the stages of healthy deconstructing of my faith, questioning everything, and leading a youth group week-by-week. In retrospect, I began to take it to an unhealthy place in my early days of pastoral leadership. I disagreed with much of the vision of the Church I worked at. I disagreed with the attractional model of Church ministry and I purposely ran my ministry in a different way than the vision of the senior pastor.
I taught differently, spoke differently; I challenged him on his understanding of Church.
Needless to say we didn’t have a strong working relationship.
Back then, I worked out my beliefs in public and looking back, my behavior lead to instability in my ministry. Obviously my short-sightedness didn’t help drive the vision forward. While other factors were at work in that context which lead to instability, I was definitely one of them.
Your students aren’t at the same place you are
There is something beautiful about wrestling with your faith. In fact it’s biblical:
“Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.”
- Philippians 2:12
The challenge for many youth workers is understanding what their role is in students lives. We are called to teach students what they need to hear, not what we are learning. If we truly care about the Gospel and care about our students becoming disciples of Jesus, then we need to focus and prioritize building a strong spiritual and theological foundation for our students.
The longer I’m in youth ministry the more I realize my role isn’t to teach my students what God is teaching me, but rather my calling is to help build a strong and stable theological foundation for my youth. Often youth pastors teach what they are learning or processing and their students are plunged into the world of wrestling with deep theological questions that they don’t have the grounding, foundation, or developmental capacities to handle.
How far is too far?
The real question is how far can you go in working out your faith and beliefs in front of your students without overstepping the boundaries of your role in their life as their youth worker? I recognize there is a place to question and a place for authentic conversation in your youth ministry, at the same time you never want to derail the spiritual formation of your students by introducing what you, as adult, are wrestling with and that a early or middle adolescent may not be able to process.
Teach your students to think for themselves and be students of theology.
It is not my duty as a youth pastor to spoon feed. I don’t teach my students to accept everything they hear me says as truth and don’t expect them to buy into every Church tradition or religious practice. Instead, I point them to my source of authority, the Bible, and ask them to discern God’s Word for themselves. I believe healthy deconstruction in youth ministry happens when youth are taught to wrestle with any religious Non-biblical tradition. I teach my students to wrestle with the ways we do ministry and the ways we do Church. I teach my youth its okay to question why we do things the way we do them. But we are careful to do that in safe settings and in ways that they can process.
Don’t question the fundamental Christian doctrines of the Church
I’ve learned that nothing good can come of standing in front and questioning fundamental Christian doctrines. Processing and wrestling with the doctrines of the Church in front of fragile, impressionable and cognitively immature youth will only bring harm to their spiritual future and isn’t for the good of the Kingdom.
Find some friends
Finally, it’s worth closing with this encouragement.
There is nothing wrong with having these conversations with people at the same spiritual level and maturity as you. Wrestling with doctrines and beliefs is central to what it means to be a Christian. God created us with brains and is big enough to handle our questions. While it isn’t appropriate to process these things with your students, it is perfectly acceptable (and fun) to gather with friends and wrestle through this stuff.
Comments
From Kevin Norcross on March 31, 2011
I guess my biggest struggle in this area is that I long to be authentic and real and genuine with my students when I teach them. I find that if I am passionate about what I am teaching them, I am a much more effective communicator and that they respond well to the biblical message that I am presenting to them.
When I am wrestling with my faith on an issue of theology or biblical interpretation or church structure, I also carry that very near to my heart. The issue is at the forefront of my thought and conversation. The challenge is that I need to work that out in my own heart through prayer and study and healthy discussion rather than from behind a microphone to a bunch of high school students.
I need to work hard and be diligent to work through the issues that I am dealing with while working even harder and be even more diligent to teach my students healthy biblical doctrine and be extremely passionate, authentic, real, and genuine about that.
From Mitch Pitt on April 01, 2011
Wow, great article Phil,
You had my attention from the start when you were talking about your early years in youth ministry, that is exactly where I am right now and I needed this. My struggle in this area is the pressure to be ‘cutting-edge’. When you got to Bible College you tend to hear about the biggest things in the nation, people who are doing original, unique things for God with big results. As much as I promised myself I wouldn’t, I catch myself, at times like reading this article, trying to take my devotional life and plant it into the lives of my youth. It’s the mentality that teaching the kids something extremely faith challenging will somehow make you a great youth pastor.
Thanks for taking the time to write this article, it’s forced me to refocus the material that I had planned for my youth group.
From Jon M on April 06, 2011
Thanks for the thoughts Phil. This article did make me rethink some decisions I’m making; I’ll probably sift through this article again and use it to look at my ministry.
I think where we may disagree is in the final product that we are trying to build. While I agree that I may not need to teach what I am learning, as that can be self serving. Because God is moving one way in me doesn’t mean He is moving that same way in each of my students. So I find value there. However, recently my students have brought up topics like Hell and End of Times Events. I’m sure there is many of you who would disagree with me, but these two topics are, in my studied opinion, not very clear. So during both discussions, we walked away with some concrete thoughts (what matters on earth REALLY matters!) but a big sticking point was “being comfortable in the grey.”
The reality is, the world around us is grey. One of the reasons we lose teenagers as they get older and get into college, is that the “church” (I may be unfairly speaking in generalizations) teaches most of it’s lessons in assured, “black and white” terms. We don’t leave much room for grey’s, questions, and “I don’t knows.” Any relativism scares most of us so we stay far away from it. But when these same students begin to encounter a liberal arts education (not liberal in the political sense), they encounter good research, writings, teachings, educators, and peer opinions that are many times in stark difference to what we, the church, are teaching. They are left with a decision of picking “one or the other,” and often side with peers. Not that you are advocating this, but if we build are students whole theological foundation as a brick wall, we stand the danger of watching it crumble.
Also, accepting that “grey” exists can also make our students more sensitive to the world they live. Our world is full of grey! Many times, life hands us situations that the lesser of two evils is the best choice. I hope that teaching my students that grey exist allows them to be more forgiving of others, and in turn more forgiving of themselves.
I know that there are many potential dangers here. Where’s the line then? How do you know when you’ve crossed the line when you’ve found the line? Obviously there are strong absolutes worth teaching that way, but which ones are they? Well, if you’re asking these questions, then you’re already beginning to agree that this world IS in fact grey. But as an answer, I believe I’ve been taught by wise, educated, well rounded teachers. I believe that I do a decent job of researching many different, including opposite, opinions. And I hit my knees daily asking God to direct me. I trust that even in my mistakes or selfish decisions, He will reign on high, and bring good out of whatever mess is created. I know many of you do the same.
Thanks again for the thoughts, Phil. I’ll enjoy thinking through this more today.
From Carl on April 07, 2011
Well writen and very thought provoking, Phil. The line between being authentic and showing some restraint in what we say to students has always been thin and sometimes blurry. Just as you point out that we often want to include youth in OUR stuggles with doctrine or leadership because that is where we are at, we also often deny them to opoortunity to struggle with things that are important to them but not us. That is why building relationships remains so crucial. It’s much easier to determine what should be said when you really know your audience, or better yet, when you are talking to a person instead of a group.
