A Good Goodbye

one of the toughest ministry lessons I’ve learned

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In my current call as associate pastor, I’ve had the opportunity to pick up some youth ministry duties on a temporary/ad hoc basis. This has me reflecting on my time as a youth director some 25 years ago. I will say that doing youth ministry as a seasoned pastor with many other job responsibilities looks very different from when I was a bright-eyed seminary-bound twentysomething. A lot has changed about the kids and about me. But some things are the same (I still kinda suck at Ghosts in the Graveyard).

I’m also remembering one of the hardest lessons I learned in ministry, and it came right at the end of my stint as a youth director, as I was preparing to go to seminary. 

I mean this in the most endearing way possible: the teens in that youth group were utterly bonkers. These were not, by and large, a bunch of jocks, cheerleaders, and cool kids. The boys had long hair and listened to alternative rock. The girls were inquisitive and skeptical; one of them became a Wiccan during my tenure. Most of them loved to push the boundaries, which yeah, is the job of a teen, but this came out as aggressive quirkiness—a lot of sullen or winking irreverence rather than short-sheeting the grownups’ beds at Youth Conference. They were quite the counterculture from our friendly but buttoned-up, pipe-organ-loving congregation. 

I was occasionally invited to write the monthly staff column for the church newsletter. (Having written those articles every month as a pastor, I now know this was not so much a carefully-bestowed honor as it was a profound relief on the part of the pastoral staff.) I was invited to write for the newsletter the month before I left that position, a sort of benedictory column.

What I wanted to do in my article was remind the congregation that the care and support of youth was everyone’s job. I talked about the vows they take when an infant is baptized—to love and support that child and their family, to help the little one come to know the Way of Jesus. I intended to connect the dots between those adorable infants and the sometimes surly teens who skulked around the church building.

I did all that—I’m entrusting these precious young people to you—but my tone was such that I ended up haranguing the congregation about their responsibilities to the youth of the church—responsibilities the adults should take seriously, even if they turn up their noses at the kids’ music and impertinent questions and weird fashion choices. 

A few days later the senior pastor, who also happened to be a relative of Robert’s (much of the Presbyterian Church (USA) is a family thing for my Genetic Presbyterian husband), invited me into his office for a check in. We ended up debriefing the article, and while he appreciated what I was trying to do, it came across to some as “negative and scolding.” (That’s a direct quote I’ll never forget.) You have profound gifts, MaryAnn, he said, and will be an outstanding pastor. And one of the things you will come to learn in ministry is the art of a gracious leave-taking. 

AKA the opposite of this.

Here’s the thing though: I got some attagirls for that article, especially from volunteer youth sponsors who longed to see the young people more integrated with the congregation. In many ways, I was right. But the time to say hard things is in the thick of our relational work as leaders, not the tail end. Yes, there are toxic systems that need to be confronted, and people who can’t handle it when you speak the truth in love. But if they can’t stomach it while in active relationship with you, they’re not going to receive it well when you’re on your way out either. You end up looking churlish and immature, even if you have a point. Never trust a prophet who relishes the job, and a drive-by prophet is especially dangerous.

Dangerous, and tempting. I gave in to that temptation 25 years ago, and probably have since then, hopefully in subtler ways. It happens to the best of us, and God knows unjust systems and institutions need confrontation. But has transformation ever happened outside of relationships of care and accountability? 

The whole episode still makes me cringe to think about; it’s almost physically painful to recall it—but I was made new by it, like Eustace Scrubb turning from a dragon back into a boy, which could only have happened in the presence of Aslan. It’s not a gentle thing, which is why you need companions with you while it happens. That conversation with my head of staff was hard, but it’s an experience for which I am grateful. He was compassionate but direct. 

I’ll be writing more about this on Monday when I share some ideas about how we can create trauma-informed communities, which is something that’s been on my mind a lot lately. At least, I think this story relates to that topic, but we’ll see what happens between now and then. 

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Steady on.