You have to wonder what is going on in our churches.
A while back our youth leader was let go from our church. I had confronted him a while back about his myspace site that he had. As I visited his site, I noticed that he had some inappropriate songs on there (the “F” word being prominently used in many of the songs!). At the top of his page he mentioned that he was a youth leader at our church. I sent him a friendly email just saying that he might want to remove the songs before he gets in trouble. He fired back that it was not my place to judge him. No matter what I said, it all came down to his saying I had no right to judge him. He would quote Scripture such as take the plank out of your own eye, and do not judge! I showed him how scripturally he was wrong in his assessment of what I did. I showed him how the Bible says we should discern truth from error. We are to help our brothers and sisters. I showed him the complete scriptures that says to remove the plank from your own eye so you can help with the speck in the other person’s eye. He came back filled with anger and hatred.
I did not need to say anything to anyone else. Obviously, someone else saw his site too and it came to the attention of the pastors of the church. He ended up putting a block on his site so no one except his “friends” could see it, not even the pastors. Just recently, an issue came up where the computer he was using was filled with pornography. He lived with an elderly couple in the church. They did an investigation and found over 45 pages worth of porn websites that he had visited. His response was that someone “set him up!”
He was given a chance to repent. He chose to call everyone in the church a liar. He was asked to step down from his position as youth leader. He sent text messages to all of the youth telling them to not go to our church and to our youth group meetings.
We just found out that he is now an assistant youth leader at a Nazarine Church in town. That church did not do a reference check on him before hiring him into this position. They have just gotten a man who feels it is okay to use the “F” word, it is okay to talk about sex openly with the kids (not in a biblical way) and to view pornography on the Internet.
Is it any wonder that our kids are lost when they graduate from high school?
What will it take for churches to finally look for biblical preachers and biblical leaders of the youth? There is much damage control that needs to be done within our own church since he has left. Praise God that we had 15 kids come back this past week! We are going to give them good old fashioned biblical teachings! They will learn what sin is and what the consequences are. At the same time, they will also learn about the love of God and “why” Jesus had to die on the cross.
Please keep our church in your prayers. There is some division that has occurred because of this. One of the pastor’s has taken the hit for releasing this person from his position. Without divulging all of the details, he can only say that it had to be done. Please keep him in your prayers too!
Put your faith and trust in Jesus.
Repent of your sins and be obedient to His Word!
Go into all the world preaching the gospel to every creature!!
Christ Alone Wyoming 
this is the problem with churches all over. once we as Christians were expected to have integrity, character to live our life as an open book. Now the most sought after are the ones who can do something, youth leader, worship leader, good speaker etc. More discernment is needed
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I’m so sorry your church has had to undergo such cleaning. But I’m glad the pastors saaw fit to do what was needed in a Biblical fashion. Too often people in the church want to claim we should not judge. But as you say, there are scriptural verses that tell us how and what to judge. There are scriptural verses that tell us how to deal with discipline. May the Lord bless your pastors and church for taking the stand they took.
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Apparently they don’t know the difference between judging, (which we are supposed to do) and sitting in judgment (which the Lord does). Usually, people who use that verse about ‘judge not…’ are trying to hold on to their beloved sins and in this case, it was foul language and pornography.
If the higher-ups are not checking these aspiring wolves’ background, then what does that say about how they view their congregants? Do they not care? I think the ‘leaders’ dropped the ball on this one but at least they did the right thing in getting rid of him.
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This is so sad to see. Unfortunately this is not an isolated case. There are people like this in almost every congregation. The only difference is how it’s handled when it’s exposed. Some deal with it properly, many just ignore it or cover it up (to the detriment of the rest of the sheep).
The Desert Pastor is going through a similar issue regarding Freemasons. See his story here.
I also wanted to encourage you Brian, and the other pastors involved, for doing the right thing. It is for you guys that I wrote my open letter to faithful pastors.
Just as a side note, Brian, you and your church may want to reconsider the whole idea of a “youth pastor,” or “youth minister.” I strongly urge you to listen to this sermon by Voddie Baucham where he touches on the whole subject of “youth leaders.” It is eye opening and may help you change some things to prevent this type of thing from happening again.
– The Pilgrim
P.S. Good to see you back Carol. Haven’t seen you in ages.
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The reality is that most people don’t want to hear the truth! They are willing to do what it takes to keep their sin first and foremost, forget about what the Bible says! They will have to answer to God one day and I wouldn’t want to be in their shoes!
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Thanks for the replies! I agree on the youth pastor, youth leader position. I am more inclined to want the youth to be in ministry just as the ADULTS SHOULD BE!! Our church does not have a very high volunteer ratio and definitely they do not do any evangelism of any sort. Out of 175 weekly attendee’s we have myself and my wife and maybe two other people who actually evangelize. That comes from the leadership of the church as to how important they value Scripture. Regardless of what the pastor’s preach, my wife and I will continue to be faithful to God’s Word and get out and reach the lost!!
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The Pilgrim,
There was also talk that this youth leader had visited a page with child porn. The investigator said he did not stay on the page but it makes you wonder how he came up to it in the first place. I have since learned that he had a swimming party for one of the girls who had a birthday (she threw the party, not him, he was invited). I hear that he pulled the string on her bikini top and she just blushed. He said it was all in innocent fun. Sounds pretty bad to me. Had I been there when it happened, I can pretty much assure you he would not have been a youth leader after that! The church tries to create an environment for the kids so they will come to church. Anything to get them inside the doors, so they entertain them! Always serving food, game time followed by a video that has more of a Rick Warren spin to it than Rick Warren himself! They go home no closer to repenting of their sins than when they came! Their parents are also no closer to attending the church because they do not see a change in their child’s life from going to church!
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I also agree with the comments about the appropriateness of even having a youth pastor. It does not lead to cohesiveness in the body, and fosters the extended lack of maturity and selfishness that is inherent in that age group and undermines a parent’s authority in the life of the child. But that’s another subject.
What I am genuinely curious about, is why the church feels the need to go into damage control, and not openly declare the reason the “pastor” was let go?
I have experienced a similar situation in a congregation I attended, and see no good comes of hiding the gross sin of a member of staff. From a Biblical standpoint, are we not to confront personally, confront with another brother, then if we still don’t see repentance, confront with the entire congregation?
I am not sure what is gained by hiding the sin? A brother who is in persistent and unrepentant sin is to be an anathema to us, and we are not to eat a meal with him. It would seem to me however, that when the leadership decides it’s congregation is not mature enough to know the facts that they are robbed of the opportunity to obey scripture, to deal with the brother as is required by scripture, and it gives place for the fellow to wreak havoc as the “slighted” brother and tell whatever story he pleases…
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Very well said beyondbluestockings!
This church feels that nothing is gained by “soiling” this man’s reputation. But I agree with you. People must come to know that church discipline is real and it holds consequences for those who “claim” to be in the faith and yet openly and with a rebellious heart, continue in their sins. I will talk with the pastor’s about this. The youth leader is still contacting the youth from our church and telling them not to come to church. We only had 7 kids there last night. I spoke to them. One thing is for sure. They were told the whole gospel message with no joking, no funny stories, no cool video’s, just the plain old gospel story. Ten Commandments, our extreme sinfulness and our need of a Savior. They finally learned what it takes to repent of their sins. I am not a big fan of the sinners prayer. I want these kids to learn that they have offended a Holy God and that His wrath is set for those who do not repent and put their faith and trust in Him. Several of the kids text messaged my wife when we got home. They said that they had never heard any of that from their old leader. They were very thankful that the night went the way it did. To God be the glory!!
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I also agree with not having a youth leader/pastor. But even if a church does go that way, it should be an elder, proven in ministry. We always think seminary trained is best and necessary. But I have come to question that. I certainly think there was a reason Paul gave us guidelines for picking leaders, and too often the church fails to follow them.
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