How does a youth pastor address sexuality with students?
Whether you’re a youth minister or a parent, talking about sex and sexuality to teens is uncomfortable, to say the least. But it needs to be done. Listen as one youth minister at a large church gives his tips on how he and his youth team handles it.
Read more of our interview with Jon at our blog
Over my years of working with students in youth ministry, there are a few ideas that I have learned that have helped to shape, and have been really formative in, the way that I interact with sex and sexuality in youth ministry.
The first is that the idea of communicating about this topic is not optional. Many of us see it as a difficult, uncomfortable, and awkward conversation that we’d rather not have. However, if we say nothing about it, that silence communicates something loud and clear. To a student who’s struggling with same-sex attraction, or viewing pornography, or fooling around with their boyfriend or girlfriend, the silence communicates something very clear, which is that this topic is off limits. It’s taboo. We don’t discuss it here. We must break the silence and talk about sexuality, and the grace that Jesus provides, and the power that he has over sexual sin.
So how do we do this? How do we create an environment in which students feel free and safe to come and to share their sexual struggles with their leaders? Well, the first thing that we do is we share from our own point of need. We share our past struggles and our current struggles, and how Christ and his grace come and meet us there. And as we begin to practice confession and repentance in front of our students, it implicitly creates this environment in which they want to come, and they feel safe and willing to venture out into the light and to invite us into that struggle with them.
It can’t, however, remain just this implicit, “hope they understand it and hope they get the message” invitation. No, we also need to make sure that we are very explicitly inviting the students to come and have a conversation, to say things to them like, “Hey, if you’re struggling in one of these areas, or an area of sexual sin, we want to be a part of that. We want you to come and talk to us and allow us to walk with you, because we have the exact same need.”
And as students come and share their struggles with us, it’s important that we see struggling as a gift of God, not as the enemy. In the book of Genesis, we meet Jacob, who wrestles with God and who’s blessed by God. And in that blessing, God changes Jacob’s name to Israel, which means “he who struggles with God.” Our hope and our desire is to create an atmosphere within our youth ministries that encourages the struggle against sin, even in areas that are uncomfortable.
