Part 6: The Black Church's Tragic Failure To Protect Our Future

They always do it.

They always put the kindly 50-something matron in charge of the youth program at the church. The Mom if not The Grandmom. A woman of values and principles, to be sure, but, also, usually a woman woefully out of touch with popular culture and incapable of discussing, in any effective manner, real issues facing teens. Most church kids respect their Sunday School teachers and youth leaders—sort of—but the overwhelming evidence suggests that most teens, in church or not, seek their most important and vital advice from, you guessed it, other teens. The credibility gap widens as a child comes of age, begins developing what Mom used to call “a mind of her own,” and suddenly realizes there is, in fact, no Santa Claus and no Easter Bunny and no Tooth Fairy. They realize their mothers have been lying to them. Oh, gentle lies to be sure, but a lie is a lie. And once a child realizes a parent is even capable of such a thing, capable of lying to them, that bond is undermined, and as the child moves into adolescence, most everything the parent tells them becomes suspect. The child scrutinizes and parses the language because the child now has “a mind of his own,” and has learned to question authority.

Additionally, with the onset of adolescence, the child is trying to carve out an identity of his or her own, no longer content to be in the parent’s shadow or under Mom’s apron. Most teens will actively rebel, becoming hostile and disobedient. This lashing out, this rejection, usually comes as a shock to most parents, mommies in particular, because most parents spend fairly little time learning how to be parents. Most parents are just out there, kind of winging it. Reading nothing, studying nothing, taking no courses on parenting. Just kind of reacting to whatever curve life throws them, being dragged by the heels through the winding turns a child’s life can take. Single mommies are, in particular, the biggest problem, the largest roadblock to ministry to youth. I’ve learned the hard way that, if you intend to minister to kids, you absolutely must minister to the entire family. It has to be an all-encompassing process because many mommies—specifically single mommies—fear change and fear what is happening in their child’s life. They fear the secrets their child is suddenly keeping from them. The happy child who used to talk their head off, who used to tell them everything, is now withdrawn and sullen, barricaded behind locked doors.

I remember when my niece came out here to visit me from New York. We’d spend some time together doing some activity or going someplace, but once we got home, she headed upstairs and the door closed and that was the end of her. She was watching TV and talking on the phone—two things she didn’t need plane tickets to do. I was baffled by this girl, by her intermittent hostility and seeming hatred of me. But, see, I had this movie playing in my head. And, in my movie, she was a precocious eight year-old holding my hand and talking my head off. But now she was eighteen with a mind of her own, with secrets and struggles, trying to carve out her own identity and, unsure of what to do with her emotions, lashing out at me for no apparent reason because that was her only means of defining herself.

This was a temporary situation, one easily resolved by a short drive to the airport. Single mommies, however, are stuck in a war zone. Many single mommies became single mommies in their teen years and fear their child will make the same mistakes. So they go out of their way to try and outsmart the child or block the child, but they are playing a reactive game, one bound to fail. Their overly-emotional and over-protective scrambles only push the kids into making precisely the same mistakes they themselves made, the example they themselves set. Any kid who can count can figure out how old mommy was when she got pregnant.  CONTINUES BELOW

Many single mommies have had bad relationships with men.

They can often transfer that bitterness to the child, painting all boys as selfish and evil, and seeming so embittered by life that the child simply wants no part of Mommy’s issues. In an effort to further separate themselves from Nutty Single Mommy, the child will often do the exact opposite, making himself or herself emotionally or physically available in an unhealthy and unsafe way.

Single Mommies are often lonely. The child then becomes a surrogate companion, the only person they have a close and intimate trust with. Many Single Mommies have dedicated their entire lives solely and completely to raising baby and have absolutely no clue what to do with themselves once the kids grow up and move out. The normal and expected rebellious period following the child’s emotional awakening, therefore, becomes threatening to Single Mommy, as the child has been for so many years, like luggage. Has been Mommy’s Property. Mommy is simply not emotionally prepared to deal with being on her own, with facing life on its on terms. Therefore, Mommy becomes the hysterical nut job; professing to protect the child, she’s really being quite selfish, lashing out out of her own fear of loneliness and abandonment.

So, real youth ministry requires courage.

Courage of convictions. And smarts. Dr. Phil-level smarts. You’ve got to out-smart these people—not the kids, the Mommies. Too many black churches are still organized around principles set forth in 1965 Sunday School programs. The curriculum is set up to deal with the kids, and assumes the full cooperation of parents who can and often are contentious and difficult people to work with. Any youth program that does not factor in ministering to and dealing with the Mommies is a fatally flawed one. One hysterical Mommy can crash your entire deal.

At a local church, here, I came under fire by one Mommy because I insisted her daughters each read their own scripture lesson. What was happening was, one week Daughter A would read it, one week Daughter B would read it, and they would alternately copy each other’s work. I explained to Mommy the whole point of the scripture lesson was to introduce the Bible to the children and get them to read the bible independently. Mommy let me have it, lashing out at me and making a case that the girls already had enough homework and soccer practice and dance lessons and all of that. To which I suggested that, without Christ in their lives, the homework and soccer practice and dance lessons meant nothing at all. And asking the girls to read two (2) chapters of the Bible per week and answering five questions was no burden on them.

Mommy went postal. Went to the pastor, who backed me up, which only made her more furious. The girls, taking their cue from Mommy, simply stopped doing the homework at all, and I had no way to enforce discipline because Mommy would tell the girls what a jerk I was on the drive home. All of which struck me as an incredibly outsized over-reaction on Mommy’s part. That her anger had nothing to do with the girls reading or not reading the Bible. Had nothing even to do with me, specifically. It was whatever baggage she’s been carrying around, whatever hurt left unhealed in her life. My only avenue to Mommy was other women, as no man, not even the pastor, could have a civil conversation with her.

There’s been a spate of teen pregnancies at local churches here.

Girls I’ve known for quite awhile now, but girls I’ve really had little or no contact with, largely because they are daughters of single parents who have run interference and blocked access even to ministers and deacons—neither group having earned much of Mommy’s trust.

I regard these teen pregnancies as a failure of youth ministry and an indictment of the pastor. Why are these girls having sex to begin with? What are their values? How do they regard God's law, and what influence, if any, does the church have in their lives? The biggest threat to the African American church, to the African American community, is our abject failure to make Christ real to our youth. Our youth, in large measure, have little knowledge of and absolutely no fear of God. The very mindset that allows the behavior that led to these pregnancies is, therefore, a fair indictment of the pastor and the church leadership.

Many pastors are simply disconnected from youth ministry, leaving that work to clueless matrons or, worse, tossing in green rookie preachers to head it up simply because these men (or women) are young. Youth ministry, like music ministry, needs to be performed by someone who is anointed to do it. By someone who has a spiritual gift and a life clean of sin who can function in that gifting. Too often, in our church tradition, vital and important tasks are simply staffed out to whomever *looks* right for the job. The matron looks responsible and trustworthy. The young minister looks  like he’s a good fit for the youth ministry.

By every scriptural example, however, God is instructing us to walk by faith and not by sight [2 Cor. 5:7]. To not make decisions based on our five senses or our limited and carnal perception, but by the will and Spirit of God. By most objective observation, youth ministry in the black church is mired in tradition and fatally flawed, the black church having abdicated its responsibility to protect our future. By not instilling our values, by not making Christ real in a visceral and intellectual way, we have failed to imbue our youth with those values, values that will surely provide at least a speed bump along their rebellious way. Pastors who simply ignore youth ministry—outside of whatever pageantry exists by sporadic youth demonstrations in worship service—are criminally responsible for the continuing erosion of the African American family.

By not ministering to the Mommies, by not making them a partner, by not helping to create an environment of trust, Pastors and Youth Leaders have allowed the church to be regarded as just another institution. Just another building full of people the child must be suspect of.

Black women complain mightily that black men take no interest in raising children. But when a black man does, they immediately suspect him of pedophilia or worse. There was one Mommy who asked me—asked me—to reach out to her daughter, who had become withdrawn but who seemed to open up to me, and I did, keeping Mommy informed every step of the way (those steps consisting of one supervised chat with her and one phone call to the entire family), and Mommy still ended up in the Pastor’s office accusing me of trying to take advantage of her child. Which led to my withdrawing from the child, which confused her and damaged her relationship with Mommy (kids really aren’t nearly as stupid as parents seem to think they are; she knew right away what had happened and called me in tears about it). By trying to protect her child, Mommy sent terribly mixed messages and created an atmosphere of mistrust between herself and the child, while planting doubt in the girl’s mind that any man—minister or no—could or should be trusted.

Stealing a girl’s childhood is just criminal. She’s dreaming of some wonderful love, some wonderful guy. Protect her, sure, but let her dream. Help her find safe and responsible ways of pursuing that dream. There’s got to be a way to protect her future without ruining it at the same time.

About a year ago,

Neil and I were discussing youth ministry, and I said the church was failing miserably at youth ministry because they’re putting the wrong groups with the wrong people. Churches routinely split up teens by gender and have a woman teach the girls and a man teach the boys, when the exact opposite should be true. Boys need to hear the truth, the raw, unvarnished truth, from women who once were the very girls these boys are pursuing. Girls who got pregnant and whose lives took tremendous turns. Whose children never got to know their own fathers, and who’ve had to struggle for years just to keep food on the table.

Boys need to understand the consequences of their actions, something they can sort of learn from a man, but it’s much more compelling for a woman to open her vault, her heart of secrets, and risk vulnerability by sharing her experience with boys who spend all day and all night thinking of little else but how to talk some teenage girl out of her panties. This is a vital encounter that rarely happens in our culture.

Girls, conversely, need information. Not birth control, not abortion, not the day after pill. They need to know that the very moment a boy climaxes inside her, he can rarely even remember her name. The first things on his mind usually are (1) is there anything to eat and (2) what’s on TV. Most boys are simply not prepared for the emotional consequences of a girl ending her virginity. They are simply and woefully uninformed about women in general, about what this means to her and how girls are wired emotionally. Most of the time he doesn’t care. He’s conditioned to think of life like a video game: to think of things only in terms of winning and losing. If she gives in, if he gets some, he wins. That’s it. That’s all he really cares about.

Nine out of ten girls would tell you their first time wasn't great. The boy was thoughtless and just ripped her apart. It was quick and painful and then he was on his way, and she's left wondering what on earth she just did. Nine out of ten girls will tell you they don't even speak to the guy who got it the first time, and they wish they hadn't given it up to him.

Most teens say, “Please. I got this.” But that's just immaturity because it does not respect the overwhelming power of God's creation. Our instinct for survival is, likely, the greatest driving force in our lives. The reproductive instinct is nearly as strong. As strong as teens think they are, as disciplined, as spiritual as you think your child is, all reason and all intellect can and will go out the window if they put themselves in a position where instinct takes over. In the heat of the moment, all rational thought about what is at risk goes out the window. Most teen pregnancies occur out of this heat of the moment, where teens become overwhelmed by this powerful instinct and are too caught up to either think rationally or to protect themselves. She thinks he'll only go so far. She's depending on him to only go but so far. He thinks he can control himself. That he'll stop in time or that he'll pull out in time.

This is disastrously immature thinking. This is birth control for lunkheads. This is logic that only seems sensible to you when you're caught up and your drawers are on fire, and you're making excuses for your lack of discipline, lack of respect for God and for yourself. The moment, the very second, you start making deals with your self-respect you've already lost it. This business is a losing gamble, and this is the primary reason boys and girls become mommies and daddies, losing themselves and their own dreams for the future in the process.

A boy pressuring you for sex— that's not love. A boy stressing you about your school work or your church activities— that's not love. Love is not selfish. Love does not demand its own way [1 Corinthians 13:4-7]. And if it's not love, then, truly, you are both risking your futures over foolishness. Over hormones. You are possibly bringing a life into this world and sentencing that child to a life of struggle— economic and emotional— because two people not mature enough to deliver pizzas decided to play games with the fabric of creation. It is the ultimate selfish act, to try God's patience by belittling His plan for us and tapping into the mystery of creation. or, worse, by blaspheming God by ignoring these concerns and concepts, or denying their validity.

These are words I would never be allowed to speak in church. To an audience I could never have, an audience of teen girls. Yes, girls can hear this from women, if women are brave enough to share this with them, but the girls really need to hear this from a guy who looks like Usher. From a young, handsome, desirable tough guy, the kind of guy they’d all end up in the back seat with given half a chance. He needs to tell them the blunt truth, a truth so blunt most churches simply would never allow it to happen, as we’re handcuffed by this idiotic G-Rated Sesame Street quality of curriculum.

This kind of youth ministry is rare, if it goes on at all. It certainly does not go on here in Ourtown, and Neil (who spent years as the Youth Pastor of our former church) could certainly never get away with running a curriculum like that.

So we created one of our own. Boys & Girls: What You Need To Know, What Your Parents Won’t Tell You is precisely the kind of guerilla Bible study we’d conduct if any church were brave enough to let us do it. It is the kind of blunt, honest, life-saving information every kid needs but few kids get.

Sex is, frequently, the very last and most infrequent thing discussed in church. The teaching of sex, sexuality and issues of human intimacy are often left to secular venues (the school, the social services office, the clinic), which is an abdication of the church's responsibility to properly equip God's people. A secular education of these matters yields a secular view of these matters.

As a result, secular teaching seems more reasonable than the largely non-existent spiritual teaching, and our struggle becomes complicated by the world's acceptance of common sexual practice. We ourselves come to view God's opinion on such matters as antiquated or irrelevant. The fact is, the exact opposite is true. Secular teaching on sexuality and intimacy is wholly irrelevant to God's view. And God's view, what the scriptures actually say as opposed to what the church suggests they say or wants them to say, is more relevant than our vague assumptions and spiritual hearsay.

Pastors: there's simply too much at stake.

You need to stop worrying about losing tithes-paying members and start honoring your responsibility to God and to the sheep He has entrusted to your hands. Too many pastors wring those hands over issues like this because they are, frankly, afraid of eroding their tither base. Afraid of Mommies getting mad and storming out, which hits the church in the pocketbook.

Being fiscally responsible for your ministry is, indeed, a big responsibility. But the minute you start trading souls for dollars, you’re nothing more than a sellout. A hypocrite in a robe. God’s Word, God’s Will for our lives, must be the rock your church is founded upon. Cowering from hysterical Mommies—from people desperate for deliverance from pain that continues to haunt them—makes you a coward of irreducible proportions and a disgrace to the ministry. Pastors: in the name of the God who sent you, please pastor these folks. Don't try and be a diplomat. Don't be their pal. They've got enough pals. They need a pastor. The stronger you are as a leader, the more effective you’ll be in your ministry.

The truth is, parents, preachers, grown-ups: you cannot help teens with their problem until you get over yours. Over-protective mommies are the number one cause of teen pregnancy because these mommies are so over-protective of their little cream puff children that they block important information every kid needs to have in order to make good choices for themselves. Mommies who are quickly offended and who go on the warpath, mommies who try and isolate their daughters, do not realize that by creating an unsustainable and artificial single-gender environment for her, she is not equipping her to relate to or deal with boys or men. Mommy's over-protective zeal has set the stage for the predator to move in because her little cream puff child has never learned how to relate to men or how to deal with them.It is these very same mommies, overprotective, histrionic, ready to fight, that the Pastor and the deacons and the mission department are terrified of. It's why this approach we advocate here would likely never pass muster at most churches. We're terrified of The Mommies. Mommies who are sheltering their kids right into the very trap she is desperate for them to avoid.

The very best protection the church or the family can equip a boy or a girl with is information. The more information a kid has, the more informed a choice that child can make. Information only about scripture leads to the Church Museum thinking, as the church is so invested in 1965, advice that only deals with the scriptures tends to go into the museum with the rest of what you do on Sunday. Information about contraception just scares mommies to death. Mommies really are not emotionally equipped to trust their own work, trust that they have passed their values onto their children and that, in and of itself, information about contraception does not construe a virtual license to have sex. It's not that mommies don't trust their kids, its that they don't trust themselves. They are mirroring their own mistakes, their own bad choices. They want better choices for their children, but they don't trust their own work. We are all a product of Mommy's work. She has endowed us with her values. Mommy needs to trust her own work, and give her kids the information they need to make the best choices for their lives.

The half-baked Davy And Goliath 1965-style youth ministry is simply a sell-out of our African American youth, which is ultimately a sell-out of our future, as each successive generation of Black America finds increasingly fewer of us in Sunday morning pews. This is a despicable failure of leadership. And God is watching.

Christopher J. Priest
7 November 2005
editor@praisenet.org

Part 7: Sex: A Preacher's Confession