need advice

You bring up a good point. When I first read this post I must confess it ran totally counter to how I have always viewed youth ministry (and ministry in general). I have (had) always thought that it was my job as a Youth Pastor to do everything I could to keep them away from the edge of the cliff so to speak, but you make a good point here. Sometimes the pain of the fall is what is needed to make a person realize a change is needed. Thank you for that piece of advice.

 

I have a comment and then a question.

First the comment, you are right, nothing carnal will produce any long lasting changes in these kids or anyone for that matter. I am relatively young (36) but I am a bit old fashioned in my approach to ministry. I do not rely on entertainment to effect change. I fully believe that it is strictly by the Holy Spirit that any real change can be made and that it is driven by exposure to the Word of God. Obviously we do have activities and fun times with our youth but that is not what I am counting on for change, and we have seen some souls saved.

Now the question, you say that you would reject the advice to get involved in their lives. Are you recommending this as general practice or not to count on this method reaching them and rely on Bible teaching instead. The reason that I ask is I have heard similar recommendations to Pastors to not get to close with their congregations but to keep a sort of professional distance. How were you meaning it here?

 

I have gotten too close and guess that was part of the reason that I started this thread in the first place. I wanted some objective advice on this. My personality is too dive in and try to fix things (sometimes drives my wife crazy) and I do tend to get to deeply involved. In this case it is becoming obvious (with some very helpful advice from BB) that if I don't pull back I will not only not fix this problem but run the risk of losing others as well. Not to mention drive myself crazy!

 

I did not word this section very well. Yes the youth do attend worship service with the rest of the church. We start Sunday School at 9:45 a.m. it lasts for 1 hour than we are in worship service. Wednesday night is a bit different. Services start at 6:30 p.m. and in this case the youth and the adults are separated, they have Bible study and so do we. Occasionally if our pastor is away, I will lead adult Bible study in which case the youth are in there as well. What I meant to get across was that my wife and I are the only people (adults) that she sees on a daily basis that could be considered as a Biblically positive role model. This is my biggest frustration, not just with her but with the rest of the youth group as well. Again, out of 15 or so kids in our youth group my daughter and our music directors son are the only two who have parents in church. The rest either walk in from the neighborhood or my wife and I pick up and bring. At most these kids are exposed to Godly examples for 3 hours a week (2 hours on Sunday a.m. and 1 hour on Wednesday night). Until I started working with youth I had no real idea what todays kids actually go through on a daily basis. After having spent three years in this ministry I am amazed not at the number of kids who leave church after they leave home, but at the fact that ANY stay. The problems and issues that the youth face today are incredible. I had always heard but what I have seen is far worse than what I ever heard. I have kids in the youth that have no idea what a stable family unit is. That in and of itself is the biggest destroyer of kids. There are two kids (brother and sister 14 and 13) they are the primary caregivers for their 7 year old sister. On Wednesday night the ladies in our church rotate providing meals to the kids that come. Normally they provide cost efficient items like hotdogs or chicken nuggets in order to feed so many. These three kids cannot wait to get to church and eat because this meal is quite literally the ONLY meal they will eat the whole week that is not hot pockets or something else that is microwavable. Their mom is never around and leaves the care of the kids to the two oldest and from what I have been told this is legal because Tony, the oldest is 14. My wife and I used to live near these three kids and I could not tell you how many times one of the two older ones would be at our door asking if we had any childrens tylenol because the little sister had a fever or was sick and their mom didnt want to go to the store. Granted these kids are by far in the worst situation, but none of the rest are much better off. I used to be very critical of this generation of kids. One of my favorite words to describe teens was "punks". Then God opened my eyes to what a lot of them are going through and I have spent many a night lying awake crying and praying that God would forgive me for being so critical of kids who are hurting so bad and that somehow they would be able to see past their terrible situation and see a God who loves them fiercely. Forgive me for this outburst but this is an issue that is very close to my heart.