April 15, 2009

Conjectures of a Guilty Youth Minister

If I Were To Be Perfectly Honest

“Why was Junior not at church last night?”

“To be quite honest, Junior had a lot to do.”

To be quite honest? Really? That’s about as ridiculous as you answering, “to be quite honest, he had a pulse, and that's why he couldn't come to church.” Thanks for being honest, but what does that have to do with anything? Last I checked, youth are never without a lot to do. To be quite honest? Is that supposed to make me feel as though you are really being honest?

No. Honesty would be to say I was too lazy to bring my child to worship; I do not care as much about him worshiping God as I do about him tidying his room; I do not care as much about him directing his thoughts towards God as I do about him directing his thoughts towards facebook (which, by the way, I noticed that several of his comments were timestamped at the same time as our worship gathering); I am more concerned with him following his own desires than the desires of God; I want him to please himself more than I want him to please God; I think the body of Christ is expendable and not expandable; I think that a child going through adolescence is in the prime condition of their life to make the most formative decisions of their life; I will allow the ideology of American Idol, The Apprentice, and Jersey Shore to cultivate and inform his imagination; I will encourage him to take my apathy towards the body of Christ and to make it his own.

But I can’t say that to you. Not because I’m scared – believe me, it’s on the tip of my tongue and it is taking everything within me not to unleash a world of verbal hurt on your tinpot religious façade you call your faith. No, I can’t say that to you because I need to help you get to where you need to go, and not grind you further into the ground of where you currently are. Again, I must play the fool. I must pretend that your excuse actually holds water. I must pretend that I’m an idiot and did not notice that you were trying to pass off a non sequitur for sound reason.

But that’s only if I were to be perfectly honest.


* Unfortunately this post is not based on one particular person



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