February 3, 2022
This is the story of how my church’s youth group (and me as a youth leader) failed one of its young men. This is the story of Gary (not his real name, of course).
At the time, Gary was about fifteen or sixteen years old. He regularly attended my church’s Sunday evening youth group program and he was in my Wednesday night Bible study. He was a cool kid and he always had good insights and input during my lessons.
As time went on, there was something about Gary that you’d have to be blind not to notice: the girls in the youth group absolutely loved him.
It was all effortless on his part. Me and the other youth leaders would watch him from across the youth room on Sunday evenings, wondering how he did it. We called him the “youth group pimp.” He wasn’t classically good-looking (and was even a little chubby), yet the girls would always go to him rather than the other way around. He didn’t seek out this attention from the girls; he didn’t need to. He was just a genuine, non-threatening dude with good energy and the girls liked it.
As with almost every other church in the world those days, purity culture was very much prevalent. The youth group boys and girls were regularly separated and had shame, threats, and warnings heaped upon them. But as I’ve written before, purity culture affects men as well as women. And now that I’m older, I understand that it’s not always about what you do, but also about what you don’t do that can lead to some pretty negative things.
At the time, me and the other youth leaders just assumed that Gary had it all under control. He was saved, he attended youth group and Bible study, he went to a Christian high school, he had Christian parents. He checked all the boxes, so we all assumed that there was nothing to worry about. After all, the youth group kids that really needed saving were the ones that were already doing “bad stuff.”
Well, one day the youth director called and told me that he’d just gotten off the phone with Gary’s parents. They had caught him having sex with some girl. At the time, I was appalled and aghast, but in the back of the mind, I couldn’t help but think, “I probably should’ve seen this coming.”
The youth director, of course, was letting me know so that I could be praying for Gary and to be prepared in case he decided to talk to me about it one-on-one or in the Bible study. He also told me he was going to “handle the situation,” whatever that meant. This youth director was a nice guy, so when he went to “handle the situation” I like to think it was a gentle and loving conversation. Yet I know well that conversations that have a gentle and loving tone can still be laced with judgement, condemnation, and leave a lasting impression on a young man in a delicate situation.
I wasn’t present for that conversation, but if I’m honest with myself, I would have been a part of the judging and shaming if I had been. I believed that since Gary had sex outside of marriage when he knew he shouldn’t, then he needed to be gently rebuked. Now, I see a conversation like that as a massive failure to what Gary was actually going through at the time. Hearing all that stuff would’ve been the last thing he needed.
But I don’t consider that to be the true failure in this situation. That came much earlier, when we’d all watched him interacting with those girls and said and did nothing.
I’m definitely not saying that we should’ve pulled him aside and warned him to “not go too far” or to “be careful with your thought life” or any crap like that. The better approach would’ve been to acknowledge that Gary was a normal young man with normal desires and growing up in a normal way.
- Gary, this attraction you have toward these girls is normal and healthy.
- Gary, from what I’ve seen, you’re being very nice and kind to these girls. You’re not manipulating them or using them or doing anything wrong.
- Gary, it looks like you’re growing into the part of your life where you’re interested in relationships, girls, and sex. This is a big moment. Do you have any questions or fears?
- Gary, do you understand how STDs work? Do you know how to put on a condom? Do you fully understand the ramifications to your life and the girl’s if she gets pregnant?
- Gary, it’s entirely possible that one of these girls might pressure you into getting sexual when you might not feel ready. Please understand that you don’t have to do anything that you’re not comfortable doing. It’s okay to be a guy and not be ready to be sexually active.
Any or all of these things would’ve been better than what actually happened. But of course, none of those actions or conversations are “allowed” to happen in the Church because there’s an irrational and unreasonable expectation of absolute sexual abstinence until marriage. We’ve seen time and time again how harmful this paradigm is.
Today, Gary has grown up and gotten married. He seems happy, and I hope the event didn’t cause him too much trouble or pain.
Side note: even though it’s weird to see my old youth group kids getting married, it doesn’t make me feel old because they all got married way too young anyway.