the Empathy List #120: Youth Groupie
Returning to Church After "Deconstruction," Part 2
Hello friend, Liz here.
Lately, I’ve been learning how to sit in the pews of mainline churches. Leaving white American evangelical christianity (phew, there’s a lot of words in a row that mean everything and nothing) has meant I need to compromise.
Some part of me will always want to sway along to a 7-11 worship song (”seven words sung eleven times,” as my grandmother called them). I will always hope to hear the dramatic baptism story of instantaneous A to Z life change because of Jesus (from addict to I can’t stand the taste). And I will always miss the Megachurch affinity groups that created a space for “single 23-year-old women who love hiking and wheat grass” to knit together on Thursdays. (Can you tell I was the extrovert who always signed up for every group of every applicable category?)
This is part 2 in a series on coming back to church after you’ve left evangelicalism.
So, no surprise, I was the kind of kid who also loved youth group.
That doesn’t mean I did not experience problems.
For example, one summer, I went on a short-term mission trip to El Salvador where the marathon-running adult leader insisted that our entire team hike a volcano without proper equipment and while running low of water. And that happened to be the year that I stopped playing lacrosse and so, for the first time, I couldn’t keep up with the group. It wasn’t just me, but it did mark the first time that I remember feeling fat. (So, thanks for that, Dave.)
Side note: I once published a short true story about this short-term mission trip gone wrong called “On the Mountaintop”… but the journal is no longer publishing and so the story has disappeared. So, I’m sharing it here TOMORROW (Saturday) for paid subscribers only! If you treat me to coffee this month ($3.50), you’ll have access. (If you can’t afford that, email me and I will gift you a paid subscription ;-).)
Theologically, my version of Big Box Store wealthy East Coast evangelicalism leaned into the tactics of parachurch orgs like Young Life and the seeker sensitivity of Willow Creek. These church parents cared that their kids turned out Christian-ish, but they also valued youth group as an extracurricular activity, a break from their moody teenagers.
My youth group was never meant to raise up young reformers, or evangelists, or fundamentalists, or charismatics. We were not even devoted purity culture acolytes. I did not learn the word “evangelical” until I went to a very evangelical college and sat down in my first-ever theology class.
An average youth group at my non-denom church included a youth leader coating their cheeks in shaving cream while teens chucked cheerios from opposite walls (whoever gets the most cheerios to stick to their cheek wins!)…and then a very brief Bible story time. Like, 5, 10 minutes, max, and then a thirty-second prayer.
I believe that my youth leaders had good teachers. I credit Mike Yaconelli’s book Messy Spirituality for an experience of youth group I loved instead of hated. (Read an interview with Mike Yaconelli about the book at Relevant Magazine.)
Overall, I adored the lock-ins, the camping trips, the foosball competitions, the snacks and prayer times and the games of midnight capture the flag. I even liked the flowery girlie bible study groups where we prayed for the tests we had coming up and the guys we were crushing on.
In fact, I liked youth group so much that I volunteered during my college years. That’s when my youth group leaders handed me his books, and I learned that they’d been reading his books all along. His books encouraged them to create programs that discipled, rather than indoctrinated. Relationships mattered the most. (I later interned as a youth pastor at my church!)
And I was an extrovert who needed a way to escape home. My later faith unraveling came from family-of-origin trauma, not church abuse. (No church abuse at that point, anyway.) So, youth group became my haven. Looking back, youth group was a net-positive.
That said, I know my happy-go-lucky experience of youth group is weird and rare.
(I see those of you who had experiences like this clip in the Righteous Gemstones… bahaha)
I now understand that the major reason church worked so well for me was because I was a white, cute cishet girl from a well-off, respected family at the church.
If I had been queer, brown, poor, or had occupied any other marginal identity, well, forget it, my church would’ve traumatized you. But I wasn’t. Church was definitely made for me.
Or sometimes youth group goes wrong for reasons aside from theology. This was my husband’s experience.
He had male mentors who invested in him, saw potential in him, and blessed his gifts. He loved it—for a time. But then everything changed. I wish I could share the full details with you, but what’s on public record is that sexual abuse happened in his youth group. So even though he had felt safe there and had never experienced abuse himself, abuse happened. And the offender—who had been a mentor to my husband—went to jail. The mentor did repent, but everything was different. Of course, it was.
My experiences and my husband’s color my experience of parenting kids nearing middle school.
As I’ve embarked on this journey back to church after leaving evangelicalism, trying new denominations and courting the mainline, I have wondered how my kids will fit. I fear there isn’t space for them in the mainline. By which I mean, not all of the attractive methods of evangelicalism are bad. For example, a typical mainline service will not hold a tween’s attention. And the mainline struggles to create enjoyable spaces just for kids, starting with nursery onward.
Looking back, I understood the good and ugly of how kids and teenagers slotted into evangelicalism. We were the energy, the volunteer force, the “next generation” of culture warriors, the spiritual legacy of our parents. I have rejected much of that, instead valuing spaces that teach my kids empathy through decentering whiteness, cishet norms, and middle class comfort. I believe that will teach my kids the way of Christ, and I want a youth group to reinforce that, rather than entrench them in their relevant categories.
And yet I also hope my kids can enjoy church. I want them to develop deep and genuine friendships with other teenagers who believe in God, where they can find haven. I want my kids to belong at church, too.
I can’t yet decide if these hopes are in conflict, or if it’s reasonable to seek out this unique blend of attractional/belonging for my children at church.
And I think it’ll be trial and error to see.
Currently, I’m learning and seeking and asking questions and praying and driving my kids to events at random youth groups across the city just to see what’ll stick. The issue isn’t settled for us.
But what won’t change is my commitment to helping my children to meet God. I cannot control it or demand it, but I can ask, and I can ask God persistently to meet them.
I heard someone say recently, God has no grandchildren. (A Dallas Willard quote, I believe?)
So, however my nine-year-old and eleven-year-old meet God, it’ll be pure mercy, and it’ll have to happen between each of them as individuals and their creator. And I will standing here on the sidelines in the front seat on the SUV, their full-time cheerleader.
Thanks for reading. Warmly, Liz Charlotte Grant
Tell me: For those who have deconstructed faith, how are you helping your children engage faith now? What was your youth group experience like, and what experience do you hope your children have at church?
I grew up as a mainline denom kid and made one of my best friends in Catechism preparing for confirmation, where we were the only 2 students (for the precise reasons you outlined already.) The critical pieces of my growing faith were a pastor who spent time in faithfully and kindly teaching us Luther's small catechism, a mom who discipled me through allowing both wonder and critical thinking (and teaching me to challenge some of the concepts I brought home from evangelical friends) and my parents' own steadfast faith & participation in the church we were part of. And, the Holy Spirit's abiding presence. Today, I have far less to deconstruct but more acceptance of wise, thoughtful and faithful deconstruction. My friends weren't church kids. And, I still really love Jesus. There is a place for kids in the mainline church, but it needs to be faithful & intentional.
I appreciate your unapologetic appreciation of your youth group experience! I probably had somewhat of a similar youth group, but probably more conservative, but still from a well-off background — had a lot of kids there from highlands ranch, if that gives you an idea! — but as a shy awkward introvert, I never felt like I fit in. Didn’t love it. But survived it.
To be honest I’m slightly terrified, especially of we stay in this tiny Ohio town, that one day one of my kids will ask if they can go to youth group with a friend. *shudders* I’m afraid of how they might be indoctrinated and worry that they’ll want to go the opposite of how mom and dad believe. I can just hope that we set a solid enough foundation! (Also, their dad is a pastor but in one of those mainline churches that have just a handful of kids…)