Conquer the Devil...Like I Did!

Something I've read a lot about, but more importantly have experienced is the need for Authenticity.

If you read my past post on Authenticity (HERE) you'll see how important this issue is to me as a person and as a Youth Pastor.

The old way of doing "preaching" ministry was to not be open, not be real and not be transparent because (it was believed) your people wouldn't listen to you anymore because you were also a sinner... like them.

Most [Youth] Pastors were (and are) trained to look perfect, act perfect and to share stories of TRIUMPH when sharing anything personal (which was in and of itself not encouraged). This way, the people listening to your sermons could have hope that they too can "Conquer The Devil like YOU did".

This train of thought leads people to see a perfect man in you their preacher. It also leads us [the preachers] to think we've got it all together. It takes us down a road of spiritual superiority, spiritual arrogance and in the end spiritual death.

Teens today DON'T WANT TO HEAR how you conquered your sins. They want to hear how you failed, like they do and how GOD helped you out. Teens today are sick of the Spiritual Snobbery that comes with Christianity. Teens today need to learn from hearing about experience...NOT book learned ideals. They want the real, raw, authentic YOU!

A friend of mine, Dan Haugh gets it. He recently wrote a blog post entitled: The Real You? Battling Phone Booth Identities where he deals with this in a deep, thought provoking way.

I've been talking about this for about 2 years as well, right along side of Dan. Other people like Dan Kimball, Mark Driscoll, Mark Oestreicher and David Kinnaman have gone to great lengths to discuss the importance of AUTHENTICITY within this new generations context.

In fact, it was David Kinnaman's extensive research within his book UnChristian that opened my mind to the absolute necessity of authenticity for Youth Ministry today. That book challenged every thing I ever did with a lens of authenticity and caused me to re-arrange how I did Ministry altogether.

This is a key piece to connecting to the coming generations. No longer can we hope they will listen to what we have to say because of our "title". That right needs to be earned and can only be earned through being transparent.

I'm not talking here about "full disclosure". No one would do that, even for the sake of authenticity. I am however admonishing all of us as Youth Pastors to live authentically, minister authentically and share failures of self.


Anyone who works with Youth knows that a teen can smell a fake person from miles away. It smells to them an aromatic STENCH, that they desire to steer clear from.

And, as my friend Dan has accurately stated, it's not just about how you preach, but how you live your life as well. If we are calling our teens to live a resurrected life, being one with Jesus in his resurrection, should we not be leading by example? Albeit a stumbling, bumbling example, for we are all stumbling, bumbling fools when it comes to this life. Should we not be seeking to live the deeper life?

Dan definitely asks some good questions whilst referring to how we then live. He gets introspective and very open about who he is, what he struggles with and how he believes God is leading him.

This is HEALTHY and definitely needed.

A similar type of idea surfaced to me, while thinking and writing this blog post. It comes from uber-blogger Carlos Whittaker. HERE he asks about relevance. Wandering if what we should be seeking after as ministers is relevance. He answers back:

"Do you’re community a favor and don’t ask how you can make your next series or concept relevant. Instead ask how you can make your members and staff relational and real."

Authenticity is relational. It is being real. It is making a conversation rather than teaching a lesson. It is creating a "second space", a place of belonging that teens so desperately need now-a-days! Teens don't want to be taught another lesson on what they shouldn't do, or should do they are tired of being "shoulded" on (thanks Brennan Manning). They are deeply desiring conversation. They want to work out their faith in authentic community.

This will be an ongoing post. Look out for more...