I happen to be quite nerdy about my craft. Every day I get emails via google news on a variety of keywords associated with my craft we call youth ministry. For over three or four years now since I’ve been getting these emails I get daily discouragement about many individuals that are part of my profession. It seems each week there is some ‘youth minister’ that is being charged or convicted with preying on the teenagers that they were entrusted to mentor, encourage, inspire, and shape into followers of the way of Christ. Instead they construe in their heads that their position of authority (translation = power) grants them the attention of girls (and yes, sometimes boys) that they are physically loved by the teens.

If you do a google image search for ‘youth ministers’ chances are you find a slew of photos that look either like 1. church directory photos or 2. a mug shot (some directory photos can look like mug shots, yes).

I am not smart enough to really know some root cause to this behavior, lack of respect for self, discipline, low self-esteem, addiction to porn, the list could go on. This is just my rant.

Now, I do know that not all youth ministers are engaging in this behavior. Thank you! Thank you! for being who you are & doing what you do.

btw: the screen capture for the photo used today was from todays news digest, the top 3 items. sigh..