I was talking with a guy yesterday who I have known for a few years. I can honestly say that I don’t know him extremely well but I do know he is the type of guy I would like to get to know deeper. Possibly someday. We were talking about when the church hurts you and what that process is like…so I decided to start a series on my experience with being burned by the church. First of all there are some things I want to point out before I get to far;
- I have (actually our family) has been (in the past) deeply hurt by the church
- I am not against the Church at all. In fact I am a youth pastor at a church
- Not all hurt that comes from the church is intentional
- I’m not perfect and I have hurt others and probably will in the future un-intentionally as well
I never knew that you could be hurt so deeply by people who were supposed to love you and look out for you. At least that’s what I thought the church was supposed to do as I was growing up. Once I got in high school I learned a different side of the church…a side I wish I never knew about. A side that I have seen too many times within churches I have been involved in. Honestly I feel very lucky right now to be here where I am at. Our church doesn’t have the type of drama that I have seen and for that I am thankful…very thankful.
I have some trepidation even writing out on my story on my blog but I know there are so many people out there that have been hurt by the church so maybe this can help. I wish my story was easy but it is complicated. So here it is…my Story: Part 1
I remember when I was a freshman in high school. Our church was setting out to find a new youth pastor. Our first youth pastor was still employed by our church but he was taking the role as the Minister of Family Life. Things were really starting to happen. our junior high group was growing in leaps and bounds. It was 1990 and they were drawing around 80-100 middle school kids every week. There was a bus ministry. Once I was able to drive I even helped picking up kids on my way to youth group. You couldn’t help but get involved. The atmosphere was contagious. New families were coming to church and so our youth pastor moved in the Minister of Family life position. Things were going pretty good.
Our new youth pastor got hired and everyone liked him. He seemed like a pretty cool guy and he loved kids. Everything was going pretty smooth. About 3 months into the new school year I had noticed that we weren’t doing bus routes to pick kids up on Wednesday’s. I thought it was odd so I asked my dad since he was the one who normally ran the routes. He told me that our new youth pastor had decided to not run the routes anymore and that if kids wanted to come their parents would bring them.
Let me pause for a moment. I know our youth pastor was a good guy and he was trying to do what he felt God was leading him to do. I honestly did get along to the best of my ability with him even when things were going wrong. I’m not trying to make him out to be a bad guy…I’m just relaying the story from my view.
So we stopped doing bus routes and within 3 months our middle school group was down to 20 kids…mostly church kids. I was really confused as to why he didn’t want to reach out to other kids besides the church kids. I really didn’t understand at all. Soon after that my parents stopped helping with the middle school program along with 3 or 4 other couples. I knew that there had been some disagreements between the leaders and our youth pastor and they decided to step aside…so I thought.
I had no idea what was happening but you could tell it was good. I tried to stay out of it the best way I could but when your parents are coming under fire along with some other adults you really respect you really start to question a lot of things even as a sophomore in high school.
I started asking my parents if I could go to another youth group..one where my friends went and they always said, “No. We belong to this church and even though things aren’t great this is where God has brought us. This is where you need to be right now.” It was tough for me to hear that but looking back I’m glad my parents took that stance. It instilled within me a core value that I can never shake and for that I am thankful. They did however let me go once in a while with some friends to their youth group but rarely did that happen. Our youth pastor began asking why I never invited my friends to our youth group. Honestly I was embarrassed to bring them. I brought them one night and when we left they said, “Man that was horrible. You really go to this youth group every week?”
It was tough being in our youth group at that point in high school. I thought things were as low as they could get. I didn’t fully understand the situation though. It got worse. Much worse.
I will post part 2 in the coming days.
