We have heard that another teen has left the youth group since our “resignation“.  This one was really hard to hear about.  When he started coming, he thought that he was a Christian because he parents were and because he went to church, but by the time we left he was finally understanding that Jesus wants a personal relationship with him.  He was reading his Bible daily and my husband and I would spend extra time encouraging him during the week.  His parents would bring him to youth group and then we would bring him home…this gave us even more time with him.  His older brother died a few years ago in Iraq and he kinda of viewed my husband as a surrogate brother, I think.

And now he isn’t going to youth group anymore.  He says that it is because he “just isn’t into now”.  But I am pretty sure that the truth is that no one is taking the time to reach him.  No one is there telling him that he is important.

He isn’t the first to leave the youth group since we “resigned” and I am sure that it isn’t going to be the last.  But it breaks my heart to see teens that we love so much feel like they just aren’t important to the youth group and church anymore.  And it makes me mad that the “pastor” would just let it happen.  Each teen that has left has said that no ever contacted them to ask where they had been or if they were coming back.  They each said that it was as if they were never even there and didn’t matter to anyone.  When my husband was the youth pastor, we contacted them if they missed even one night…just to tell them that we missed them and couldn’t wait to see them again!  To us it was the natural thing to do, but I guess to some of the teens it made all the difference to them.

On Sunday, my husband and I went to Wal-mart to do a little shopping (which turned into a LOT of shopping). We were totally caught up in looking at the Christmas decorations when we heard, “Hi Guys!” We looked up and there was one of the teens from our former youth group. His face was completely lit up. It was obvious that he was very excited to see us. We talked with him and his family for about five minutes and then we said our goodbyes and they went on their way. I however, turned to my husband with tears streaming down my face. I was glad to have seen the excitement of seeing us on the teen’s face, but all the pain of the past two months came rushing over me. Breaking my heart all over again.

We didn’t plan on leaving this wonderful youth group, but we were given no choice. Well, actually there was a choice, but the choice was between following God and following man. As far as my husband and I are concerned, that is NO choice at all.

You see, two months ago, my husband was called into a meeting with the pastor. My husband was then given instructions about how to conduct things within the youth group. My husband knew instantly that these instructions were not Biblical. The pastor said that we (my husband and I) needed to “conform and submit” to what he wanted us to do. There were a lot of other painful things said to my husband, but right now I just can’t bear to go into them. My husband felt blindsided by this “meeting” and left without saying much to the pastor.

My husband is what I call and “after-thinker”. He takes time to process things before reacting to them. By the time he told me what had happened, he was beginning to process things and realize just how difficult of a position that we were in. As we talked, we realized more and more that the things that the pastor had said were completely off base. I kept wishfully saying that maybe my husband misunderstood, but he hadn’t. We decided that we needed to talk to the pastor immediately to discuss this. We called him and told him that we had some questions about the things that he had asked us to do. We brought up Bible verses to explain to him why we were not agreeing with the things that he was saying.

His response was, “Do you trust me?”

My instant response was, “I only trust God 100%.”

His reply was, “If you can’t trust me 100%, then you can not work with me.”

I looked at my husband and his face registered the utter shock that I was feeling.

I said, “You aren’t asking us if we respect you.”

He said, “They are the same thing.”

We saw then that he was asking us for a blind trust. A trust that would overlook the unbiblical things that he was doing. A trust that would blindly do anything he asked. A trust that would cause us to follow him instead of God.

My husband said, “We will never trust man over God.”

And with that, the pastor said that he would accept our immediate resignation.

We loved our youth group. When we started, we had four teens. Within two years, we had forty. Forty teens who loved to worship God. Forty teens who would rather have a youth service than a party. Forty teens who knew they could all on us at any time and we would be there. Forty teens who we loved. Forty teens who we didn’t even get to say good-bye to.

So running into the teens at Wal-mart is indeed a treasure. But it is also like rubbing salt on a fresh wound. We see their joy at seeing us again, but we also see their confusion when they wonder why we left so suddenly. Our answer is always the same, “This was not something that we wanted or planned to do, but we felt that it was the only choice that we could make while still glorifying God.”

When they press for more answers our reply is, “The pastor wanted us to do things that we did not feel were Biblical or profitable for the youth group.”

And we leave it at that. We do not attempt to defend ourselves. We will leave that up to God.

But the pain still exists. And I still miss my teens.