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New 'Do, New View

I have bright pink hair that reeks of tastelessness. In Wal-Mart, children in shopping carts grab my hair, mistaking my head for a Tickle Me Elmo doll. I'm also a youth pastor—a sane youth pastor. These days, when I walk into a room I raise more eyebrows than a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon on prom night. Let me explain.

As I watched our teenagers bringing their friends to our youth meeting and getting excited about discovering God, I wanted to present them with a challenge that would motivate and inspire them. I told them that if we averaged 50 students in attendance at least two weeks in a row, I would "permanently" (as defined by at least four weeks) dye my hair any color they chose. Ultimately, pink won the day, and I joined the proud company of assorted female rock stars and those wild-haired little troll dolls.

In youth ministry circles, we youth pastors like to sit around and have meetings, drink Starbucks lattes, and use phrases such as "incarnational ministry," and "entering into their world." We usually respond to these credos by putting a video game machine in the corner of the youth room or integrating teachable clips of popular movies into the weekly lesson. Well call me Super Mario Spielberg, because I've tried everything! But I always felt like my efforts were superficial and forced—kind of like watching Dick Clark host the annual New Years Eve rock concerts (by the way, Dick Clark is just two years younger than the Pope).

Recently I visited a high school to eat lunch with my students (something I do often), and the sheer amount of awe and attention my new hairdo attracted struck me as remarkable. All afternoon I was swarmed by students approaching me with simple questions—wanting to know who I was and what I was doing at their school. But more than that, I could see that their questions were only an attempt to understand this pink-haired adult who looked so different from everything they were used to. These students saw in this youth pastor somebody who was willing to risk alienation in his world in order to better understand them in theirs.

This may not seem like that big of a deal to some, but this was a real eye-opening experience for me. Teenagers can tell when the adults in their lives are content to just dip their toes in the youth culture waters, or when they're willing to cannon ball into the pool and soak the sunbathers. I've overheard my teenagers bragging to their friends about their pink-haired youth pastor, never emphasizing my humorous appearance, but always stressing with pride that I did it for them. I've encountered teenagers on the street who've asked me why I dyed my hair, and I watched their countenance change as I told them I did it because I'm a youth pastor who supports and believes in my students.

Teenagers everywhere are hungry to connect with God. They are thirsty for real relationships. And, oddly enough, my pink hair serves as a visual bridge between the unknown, scary church world and what they see in the mirror everyday.

Of course, this is not an unprecedented event. Other youth pastors have been doing this sort of thing for years. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. It was about 2,000 Christmases ago that God traded in the splendor of heaven for a smelly barn; silk and servants for sackcloth and sheep. Not my idea of a good deal. God entered our world in dramatic fashion. When Paul wrote about becoming all things to all people, he was reminding us of God's son who left the holiness of heaven for this profaned planet. It wasn't easy, and it wasn't clean. In fact, it was downright messy—and the consequences seen up on Calvary were horrific. But our salvation came at a price, and God was ready to pay it at any cost. Christ was an invitation, and the cross was a bridge between Holy God and sinful humanity.

So what am I proposing? For all youth pastors and youth leaders to rush to the nearest tattoo parlor? A call for God's shepherds everywhere to turn themselves into human pincushions? By no means. But I am suggesting that ministry-conscious Christians reconsider what a radical step God took when entering the world—and how we can apply those same incarnational principles in our own context. It just might make the difference between winning the lost and losing the war. So should pink hair be in your future? Perhaps not. But being radical, helping the hurting, and building bridges should be.

Ben Lee is the youth pastor at New Horizons Church of the Nazarene in Belton, Missouri and is a student at Nazarene Theological Seminary. In addition to ministering to teenagers, he enjoys running, reading, and bleaching pink stains out of pillowcases.