My last post may have made it seem as though the students getting the youth pastor removed and the weeds leaving were closely tied events - they were not. The immediate aftermath of his termination left me as the responsible adult with a handful of students, a significant portion of whom were the children of the fundamentalists and were staunchly opposed to women leading males over the age of 12. The scion of one these "fundies" felt that he could be openly disdainful because he was informed by his parents that I was an illegitimate leader as a female.
Suddenly, I had some men in the church seeking to become leaders in the youth ministry because they were afraid that I could not "properly lead male students." While I normally welcome volunteer offers, these "helpers" had no prior experience in youth ministry nor did they have any real interest in teaching and discipling students; instead, they only wanted to be in the group so that the main leader would be a man. I politely declined the offers and found other volunteers elsewhere, mainly by beefing up the responsibilities of the committed Senior Class and bringing in Young Adults who were open to trying new things in their ministry lives. I kept these young leaders in roles where they could succeed, under an ever watchful eye. I knew that the situation was only temporary and within nine months, we hired a very good, young youth pastor.
Hiring this new guy did not make the fundies happy at all. He was (and is) the absolute opposite of what they consider acceptable. Worse, in their estimation, I had introduced him to our senior pastor and helped get him hired, despite the fact that he did not look or act like what a fundamentalist would expect from a youth pastor. They made one final concerted effort to get rid of youth pastor and me, but when the senior pastor would not accede to their termination demands, they left the church.
Had these folks merely left quietly, our church would be a lot better off today. Unfortunately, they did not leave quietly, they influenced others to leave and poisoned a small group who decided to stay on, continuing the fight underground. The underground force bided its time for over two years. What happened next came about when these weeds emerged from the bitter soil...
Friday, March 27, 2020
Monday, March 23, 2020
More On The Stubborn Weeds
The weeds, mainly the ones with the plans to take over leadership and remake our fellowship into their image, began to campaign quietly for the removal of certain staff. At the same time, there were a number of parents of young adolescents who had become disappointed that a popular young staffer had not been promoted to a full-time permanent position. A story was spread that this young person had been sabotaged in his position by others who were jealous of the young one's popularity. Their wrath was particularly focused on his immediate supervisor - the steady, albeit uninspiring leader of the youth group:, however, there was much more to the story that remained hidden behind the scenes. The weeds used the anger with the supervisor as the means to have him removed and replaced with their guy. Every week, the weeds' ringleaders worked side by side in ministry with the man they sought to replace and regularly reminded their temporary allies that he was the cause for their favorite leaving our church. And so the weeds turned the natural frustration of others into a reason for removing this leader, whom they saw as an obstacle to their takeover plans and lobbied to have their own candidate installed as a replacement.
I wish I could say then that I knew what was happening around me, but I didn't. I knew that the guy they wanted out lacked support from a certain crowd, but I never knew why; these people didn't prefer the young leader to the more experienced one. I was completely unaware, as were the majority of their allies, that the weeds plotted a mini coup to remove our pastoral staff and replace all of them with those aligned with their fundamentalist theology. Had members of their alliance known what the real intent, it would have fizzled immediately.
There were agendas and motives that seemed to compete against one another. I was aware that the young leader had additional, more powerful foes that helped to engineer his exit, this had nothing to do with how these foes regarded the young man's immediate superior. This small group of church members had their own bad reasons for seeking leadership change and certainly weren't interested in bringing in someone who would be obliged to rival faction. They pushed their own candidate as a replacement instead.
Having parental support can be very important, but support is no substitute for skill and qualification. I learned very quickly that the one under the weeds' patronage was in way over his head - without education, experience, or skill to manage a group without an extreme mount of help. When that promised help dissolved overnight leaving me alone with him to lead the ministry, I knew it would be an even greater challenge. As soon as their chosen replacement had his first stumble, his patrons backed away from their endorsement and remarked, "That's what happens when you pick unqualified people for a job." The ones who had been duped by the weeds into supporting the change soon discovered that their teens didn't like this new leader any better than the one they got rid of; these kids had already checked out of our church, never to return.
The weeds were fine with the others leaving because he removed most of the public school students. Even if the weeds' own children weren't happy with their leader, they were certain that it would be a strict environment regardless. Until it wasn't, that is. One family from the weeds left to find a more constrained youth group for their child and forbade his interactions with his former friends at church. The result was a disaster; their son rebelled and left Christianity altogether. Within six months the remaining weed leaders realized that their man was not as easily controlled as they desired and even though most of the volunteer staff had quit, still one remained (me) who didn't fit their ideal. They began to complain more openly about the church as a whole and specifically about the awfulness of the youth group. When the remaining students themselves refused to attend, the church had no other choice but to again seek a more satisfactory replacement.
The last of the ringleader weeds eventually left our church when their final demands were not resolved to their liking by church leadership; they led others out, but left a small cadre of like-minded friends behind. Sadly, the ones left behind turned out to be more powerful and destructive to the church as a whole. More on that in my next post...
I wish I could say then that I knew what was happening around me, but I didn't. I knew that the guy they wanted out lacked support from a certain crowd, but I never knew why; these people didn't prefer the young leader to the more experienced one. I was completely unaware, as were the majority of their allies, that the weeds plotted a mini coup to remove our pastoral staff and replace all of them with those aligned with their fundamentalist theology. Had members of their alliance known what the real intent, it would have fizzled immediately.
There were agendas and motives that seemed to compete against one another. I was aware that the young leader had additional, more powerful foes that helped to engineer his exit, this had nothing to do with how these foes regarded the young man's immediate superior. This small group of church members had their own bad reasons for seeking leadership change and certainly weren't interested in bringing in someone who would be obliged to rival faction. They pushed their own candidate as a replacement instead.
Having parental support can be very important, but support is no substitute for skill and qualification. I learned very quickly that the one under the weeds' patronage was in way over his head - without education, experience, or skill to manage a group without an extreme mount of help. When that promised help dissolved overnight leaving me alone with him to lead the ministry, I knew it would be an even greater challenge. As soon as their chosen replacement had his first stumble, his patrons backed away from their endorsement and remarked, "That's what happens when you pick unqualified people for a job." The ones who had been duped by the weeds into supporting the change soon discovered that their teens didn't like this new leader any better than the one they got rid of; these kids had already checked out of our church, never to return.
The weeds were fine with the others leaving because he removed most of the public school students. Even if the weeds' own children weren't happy with their leader, they were certain that it would be a strict environment regardless. Until it wasn't, that is. One family from the weeds left to find a more constrained youth group for their child and forbade his interactions with his former friends at church. The result was a disaster; their son rebelled and left Christianity altogether. Within six months the remaining weed leaders realized that their man was not as easily controlled as they desired and even though most of the volunteer staff had quit, still one remained (me) who didn't fit their ideal. They began to complain more openly about the church as a whole and specifically about the awfulness of the youth group. When the remaining students themselves refused to attend, the church had no other choice but to again seek a more satisfactory replacement.
The last of the ringleader weeds eventually left our church when their final demands were not resolved to their liking by church leadership; they led others out, but left a small cadre of like-minded friends behind. Sadly, the ones left behind turned out to be more powerful and destructive to the church as a whole. More on that in my next post...
Reconnecting During a Quarantine: Stubborn Weeds
Nearly eight years ago I postponed posting to this blog. Things at work became crazy busy and the nature of my work made that aspect of my life off limits to blogging. My other life at church seemed to take a back seat to my professional career which I was trying to finish well prior to hanging it up for good. The youth ministry in which I served and had previously been headed by leaders with dubious character and/or qualifications was then being headed by someone of good integrity, experience and education. Not long before my last post, the final holdovers still in leadership from previous awful regime moved on and out of our church. Our youth group was significantly smaller, however a large graduating class of middle schoolers was coming up in 2013. The situation at church seemed hopeful and the future exciting. However, the "weeds" planted by the enemy are very stubbornly removed, even if new ones aren't being added.
The most nefarious weeds, I discovered, were the ones in which people pretended to be ones who cared about the spiritual welfare of others in our church when in reality, they sought control or power for their own selfish ambitions. The holdovers in youth ministry were one example of this, two of them had become involved with the group back in the days we had mistakenly hired someone who preyed on students for his own selfish desires. These two had their own selfish reasons to minister to students, none of which involved helping them learn to follow Christ. They instead looked to youth ministry to reconstruct their own self-described painful teen years into happier ones; they behaved not as responsible mentoring adults, but acted as giddy teenage peers wanting to hear the latest dating gossip. When the scandal over the leader's bad acts was revealed some months after he was terminated, their own participation in the coverup up of his deeds in order to stay in his good graces and remain in the group became known. Despite their role in the whole mess, they were allowed to remain in ministry and continued their divisive presence.
During that time frame, new people entered our church, some who had grand plans to turn our church into something that would be comfortable for them; it would be a church that had no room for "those people" - folks who looked differently with piercings, tattoos, or casual clothes, or who didn't fit into their fundamentalist ideal of what Christians should be. They were clever with these plans; they shared their goals only with others whom they believed were on the same page. Some wanted to be in positions of power in order to get their pet project or mission funded by the congregation. Others wanted a platform to showcase their skills. None of these people talked about wanting those who don't know Jesus to find Him.
These attitudes were also held by teenagers who garnered these thoughts from their legalistic parents. "Holiness" was gauged by how closely how others conformed to their standard, not how their heart reflected God's love and mercy. It helped to force out an honorable, but unexciting youth pastor when these same folks demanded "someone else" (a someone who was more like them - homeschooled, for example, and who would enforce certain rules determined by the "fundies.")
At this point, the "weeds" had now reproduced on their own since no one had yet recognized their growing danger to the healthy and young plants of our church family. More on these weeds next time.
The most nefarious weeds, I discovered, were the ones in which people pretended to be ones who cared about the spiritual welfare of others in our church when in reality, they sought control or power for their own selfish ambitions. The holdovers in youth ministry were one example of this, two of them had become involved with the group back in the days we had mistakenly hired someone who preyed on students for his own selfish desires. These two had their own selfish reasons to minister to students, none of which involved helping them learn to follow Christ. They instead looked to youth ministry to reconstruct their own self-described painful teen years into happier ones; they behaved not as responsible mentoring adults, but acted as giddy teenage peers wanting to hear the latest dating gossip. When the scandal over the leader's bad acts was revealed some months after he was terminated, their own participation in the coverup up of his deeds in order to stay in his good graces and remain in the group became known. Despite their role in the whole mess, they were allowed to remain in ministry and continued their divisive presence.
During that time frame, new people entered our church, some who had grand plans to turn our church into something that would be comfortable for them; it would be a church that had no room for "those people" - folks who looked differently with piercings, tattoos, or casual clothes, or who didn't fit into their fundamentalist ideal of what Christians should be. They were clever with these plans; they shared their goals only with others whom they believed were on the same page. Some wanted to be in positions of power in order to get their pet project or mission funded by the congregation. Others wanted a platform to showcase their skills. None of these people talked about wanting those who don't know Jesus to find Him.
These attitudes were also held by teenagers who garnered these thoughts from their legalistic parents. "Holiness" was gauged by how closely how others conformed to their standard, not how their heart reflected God's love and mercy. It helped to force out an honorable, but unexciting youth pastor when these same folks demanded "someone else" (a someone who was more like them - homeschooled, for example, and who would enforce certain rules determined by the "fundies.")
At this point, the "weeds" had now reproduced on their own since no one had yet recognized their growing danger to the healthy and young plants of our church family. More on these weeds next time.
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