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Let No One Look Down on Your Youthfulness: When a Youth Pastor Must Lead the Church

Sunday evenings were usually routine: arrive at the church, organize the youth facility, order some pizzas, and welcome the teens as they bounce through the doors for youth group. This Sunday night, though, I found myself on the stage of the church sanctuary, seated alongside the church elders as we faced a crowd of congregants, some shaken, some pensive, some red-faced with anger as we announced the dismissal of the senior pastor on the grounds of adultery. At the end of the meeting, a woman bolted to her feet and read loudly from the "he who is without sin" passage before approaching the stage and placing palm-sized stones at each of our feet. All the while, a simple question reverberated through my head: "How did I get here?"

As it turned out, that night was nothing compared to the weeks to follow. In the interest of protecting the senior pastor, the elders chose to say very little in terms of details, even though the same scenario (the exact same scenario) was being played out on a national political scale. As a result, an understandably confused congregation crowded the youth pastor's office, seeking explanation, understanding, a place to vent, consolation—whatever they could get from the only remaining member of the church's pastoral staff. And as I filled the pulpit each Sunday, I found myself searching to learn not just the preaching game, but to do so amidst a seriously divided crowd. The days were long, and my emotions were drained; but worst of all, my time was by necessity devoted to this crisis, resulting in the near total neglect of the whole reason I'd come to this church in the first place: the kids.

In this process, I became tight with a guy from the first century Roman world who found himself in a similar situation, a young man known as Timothy. As I read and reread Paul's admonitions to this young pastor, I drew insight and strength from the words of the apostle who had seen it all. And through these literary acquaintances, I adopted lessons that re-aligned my approach to youth ministry. This article, then, is a summary—from 1 Timothy 4:12—of the ideas God taught me through this ordeal. The experience, at times, I'd just as soon forget; the lessons, I pray, I never will.

Lesson # 1: Let No One Look Down on Your Youthfulness.

As most youth pastors have experienced, churches can foster cultures in which certain roles or ministries are valued over others. My experience as a youth pastor has been that it's easy to unwittingly accept and play this role, almost like a college graduate who goes home to visit the folks only to find his mother still cutting up his veggies for him. "Yes," it can be subtly communicated, "What you do with the youth is fine, and my, aren't they cute—but let's leave the serious discussion, prayer, and financial commitments to the ‘real' ministries of the church."

And if "real" pastors are preferred over youth pastors, how much more will such a perspective be manifested in a church in which controversy rages? I can't fault that; it's easy, if not natural, for people in crisis to look to age and experience for guidance. Timothy's experience was that way; apparently he faced leaders in the church who, in their zeal to be "teachers of the law," abused the meaning of the Mosaic Law to their own advantage (1 Tim. 1:3-11). But for youth pastors themselves, such exclusion from consideration for meaningful input and leadership can at the least demoralize them and at the most cause them to call into question their relevance in the life of the church as a whole.

Paul seems to be cognizant of how this relational dynamic might impact both Timothy and his ministry, and so his command is emphatic: "Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young!" Dr. Gordon Fee has summarized Timothy's dilemma this way: "In a culture where ‘elders' were highly regarded, and in a church where the elders would have been older than he, this is not an insignificant encouragement. But for the same reasons, it is likewise a word to the community, to let them know that, despite his youth, he has Paul's own authority to command and teach these things" (1 and 2 Timothy, Titus. New International Biblical Commentary, ed. W. Ward Gasque, Hendrickson). Dr. George W. Knight III has further stated that, with this appeal to Timothy, nothing less than "the apostolic instruction and admonition are at stake" (The Pastoral Epistles: A Commentary on the Greek Text. The New International Greek Testament Commentary, ed. I. Howard Marshall and W. Ward Gasque, Eerdmans).

The point is that, as youth pastors, we need to allow our young people, as the half-adult, half-children creatures that they are, to experience the still-vital ministry of play. In fact, we're called to that, and so we indulge in the lock-ins, scavenger hunts, and Play-Doh facial makeovers the kids (and we) love. But in the process, let us not reinforce the lenses through which many in our congregations have become conditioned to view us—as the day care workers of the church, the class clowns of the pastoral staff. The truth is that, even if others don't see it, God has commissioned us as no less than bearers of the apostolic message of Christ. God sees us this way, and we must see ourselves and conduct ourselves in the same manner.

Lesson # 2: Let Your Speech Be an Example

I feel it's vital that we as youth pastors seek and be given opportunities to "show our stuff" to the congregation. For example, the preaching situation into which I was thrust couldn't have been worse. I had requested opportunities to periodically preach for several years; but the senior pastor was loathe to relinquish, even temporarily, this responsibility, so my pulpit exposure was virtually nonexistent before the fateful axe fell. And at that point, I was in the position not of improving my preaching skills before a sympathetic, caring congregation—but of holding together a schismatic group, many of whom would've eagerly welcomed the demise of this whippersnapper young usurper.

The point isn't preaching for the sake of ego-tripping. It is that, if we as youth pastors are not, at least periodically, visibly involved in the pastoral life of the church, not just the youth group, the youth ministry itself may suffer. By evidencing our call, not just to shepherding youth, but to shepherding itself, the respect we earn may be just the ticket to add legitimacy to the ministry and the teens we champion.

Lesson # 3: Let Your Life, Love, and Faith Be Examples

This idea is basically a subset of the one above. My experience in youth ministry, like that of just about everyone else who's ever done it, is that it's flat-out all-consuming—breakfast with kids before school, lunches on campuses, dinners, basketball games, movies, Bible studies on the weeknights, and football games and lock-ins on the weekends. In one sense, to be good at what we do, we almost have to come home after a long day only to find our spot on the couch invaded by the Freshman Life Group and our ice cream devoured by a plague of acne'd locusts! But after three years of living this way, it hit me: I have no friends! Everyone I hang out with is at least ten years younger than I am, and the slowly dawning realization was that my life suffered for it.

Just as importantly, though, my ministry suffered for it; because without realizing it, the message I was sending to our congregation was: Hey, I'd love to spend time with you, but I'm a kid guy with important kid things to do. As a result, I missed out on experiencing this great group of people; they missed out on experiencing the vision for kids that so deeply motivated my life; and the young people themselves potentially missed out on ministry from laypeople who, from my social time with them, just might have caught my vision and entered their lives in powerful, pastoral ways. The simple point is this: Take time to be with others in your church besides kids. Share the life, love, and faith God has given you. Let who you are rub off on them. In the long run, it's the best way to expand your influence and pass on your vision for youth ministry.

Lesson # 4: Let Your Purity Be an Example

The wake-up call in my life came as a result of impurity within the leadership of my church. As a result, I was forced to reevaluate several aspects of my own life. How was I doing in my personal purity? How had my senior pastor devolved into his current situation, and in what subtle ways was I in danger of traveling the same pathway? But most importantly, how had the culture of our church allowed such abuse to transpire right under our noses? What was the ever-growing forest that we couldn't see because of the individual trees of budget submissions, counseling appointments, and Sunday ministry preparations? In short, how did this happen, and what could I (should I) have seen or done about it?

In the process of handling this crisis in our church, I read extensively in the areas of sexual offense and spiritual abuse in the modern church, and I emerged convinced of two realities.

One is that the potential exists for any church congregation, pastoral staff, elder board, or ministry team to insidiously, unknowingly promote an atmosphere in which abuse is not just possible, but present and subtly accepted. This is because a church, like a family system, can adopt unspoken traditions and rules, even secrets and scapegoats, which unwittingly become greater guides for conduct than Scripture itself. As Dr. Candace R. Benyei has written, "In our desire for the perfect nurturing parent, in our families of faith we have a tendency to iconize our leaders, to set them on a pillar, and to turn them into gods. This heightens the illusion of Eden, stunts congregational growth, and provides a pathway for abuse and disappointment" (Understanding Clergy Misconduct in Religious Systems: Scapegoating, Family Secrets, and the Abuse of Power, Haworth Pastoral Press).

The second point is that everyone—not just the senior pastors, elders, and deacons—has the responsibility to speak to dangers they see, and everyone deserves the right to be heard. For example, David Johnson and Jeff Van Vonderan have identified several red flags which will alert the attentive congregant to dysfunction within a church, such as power-posturing, performance preoccupation, unspoken rules, and attitudes of extreme tolerance and intolerance (The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse: Recognizing and Escaping Spiritual Manipulation and False Spiritual Authority Within the Church, Bethany House); and their admonition is for all church members, not just the staff (and not just the empowered staff), to speak up when perceiving such violations.

The bottom line, then, is that as youth pastors, we have a sacred trust on many fronts: on the personal front, to be pure; on the youth ministry front, to fulfill what is in many respects the purest of all ministry callings—the hard work, misunderstanding, monotonies, and joys of building pastoral relationships with young people. But on the church family front, we're also called to embrace our roles that are so much more than just our "assigned" area of ministry, as a necessary part of the body to be heard and seen, to be influential, to be an example.

That Sunday night, after the stone-bearing woman had stormed down the aisle and out the door of our congregational meeting, the room was filled with a stunned silence. Presently, though, another woman arose, slowly approached the stage, and one by one, picked up the stones from the elders' feet, saying to each, "You don't deserve this."

Years later, I still haven't decided if she's right.

But if I'm ever called to go through something like that again, at least I can't say I wasn't warned.

Charlie Cummings graduated in 1994 with a Masters of Theology from Dallas Seminary. After serving for three years as a high school teacher in San Antonio, he returned to his home church in Colorado where he served six years as youth pastor and associate pastor. He is currently pursuing a doctorate at Dallas Seminary. He and his wife Christy have one daughter and are expecting their second.