slept2long

What's wrong with youth groups? Here's my story.

My aunt invited my brother and myself to go skiing with her church and there youth group in North Carolina. She knew we were both not religious but didn't think that this was going to be a church trip. No one knew where we were staying or what it was called but I figured it would be at a hotel.(I had entered the name of the place, which I have since forgotten, into a search engine and only came up with mentions of religiuos retreats?) Well when we showed up we all found out we were staying at the World Methodist headquarters! There would be nightly worship, (4 Days!) and anyone who didn't attend couldn't ski the whole trip! Luckily my brother and myself were exempt, however all the other kids were rather peeved about this arraingment because they were not told of it before hand. Well not until we got there. And to top it off the rooms didn't even have T.V.! All these kids were like apologists in training, except they didn't know what they were talking about! So young and yet so clueless. They didn't stand a chance.

scombrid

<long personnal experience re. youth groups follows>

Youth groups can be a positive experience or can use cult-recruiting tactics to attempt to indoctrinate kids. I was intermittently active in two friends’ youth groups. One was Church of Christ and the other was FreeWill Baptist (those Baptists that broke from the SBC because the SBC wasn’t extreme enough for them).

The Church of Christ youth group was just teen fellowship. We went on trips to theme parks and ski resorts. We did service around the church like clean ups, dinner preparation, and various other chores. Preaching was light. On overnight trips there would be one church service held in the youth minister’s room or maybe a banquet room if we had a big group but fear mongering and manipulation was light. There were some hot girls too. This was a positive experience. Too often though this sucks kids into the church culture just to be a part of a group that tends to be openly inclusive.

The freewill Baptists were a different story. They would brow beat and proselytize their own. “Are you saved? Are you sure your saved?” One weekend with them forced me to break all contact with those assholes and I was still a believer but they freaked me out.

The weekend in question was a two-day revival at Temple Beth el. The first day was a concert by various Christian Rock artists. The music wasn’t great but we were a bunch of teens feeding off of each other’s energy and we had fun. We did a lot of quick bonding (as 14 year olds seem so good at) during breaks and were best friends by the end of the day.

Day two started out friendly, singing high praise and all that, but then they started into the testimonials where Jebus had fixed teens that had been through hell and been suicidal. Well, these testimonials were accompanied by harrowing images on a big screen. They started the brow beating. “Are you saved?” “Without Jesus this could be you.” “Don’t let apathy lead you down the wrong road.” A lot of kids there had tough lives and were touched by this and were reduced to tears by the display. Of course kids were feeding off of each other’s emotions so after a while damn near everybody was balling. Then they opened the doors to the prayer counselors. Everybody was to line up in the aisles to come down front under the gaze of 2000other teens to be led to some back room to be saved. Those of us that were unmoved by the sad tales (my life was damn good and I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with these kids) were left sitting alone in the pews to be singled out while the others got hugs and positive attention. In addition to not being particularly moved by the scene I was wondering, “Why can’t these people make a personal commitment to God? Why is all this display necessary? Is this some kind of ‘I’m more saved than you’ contest?”

Then the youth ministers started patrolling the kids left in their seats. One stops at me and asks, “Reid, are you saved?” I, not being into the saved by grace crap, respond “huh?” He then asks, “If you go outside and get hit by a car will you go to heaven?” “I don’t know.” “Why aren’t you sure? All you have to do is give yourself to Christ.” I’m getting uncomfortable. “God will do with me as he sees fit when I die. I leave myself to his justice. My eternal fate isn’t in the hands of you, some prayer counselor, or me.” He shook his head and moved to the next kid and had him reduced to tears (al la chick tract ending) with his “Your going to hell unless you say the magic words” crap.


Man, the coercive nature of that weekend pissed me off severely. They deliberately manipulated kids emotions to get them down and then save them from their earthly despair. The use of peer pressure was pretty underhanded as well. I knew nothing of cult recruiting tactics then and I believed in God. However, their tactics still infuriated me enough that I severed ties with that group and made every effort to get my friend away from them. After my open denial of their grace doctrine I don’t think I’d have been welcome with them anyway.

It turns out that I was invited as an unbeliever to be harvested. That’s how attendance was so high. Each youth group member invited two or three friends under the guise of a fun weekend with some light worship. The whole fucking weekend was a soul-harvesting mission. If only I had been an atheist then and as knowledgeable regarding cult recruiting techniques and religion in general then.

wildernesse

I think that oftentimes youth groups can be very emotionally manipulative and they play a lot on teenagers’ wish to not stand out as different from their group. The important thing is, if you’re attending a youth group is to know what you believe in and why—be open to learning more about different beliefs, but know how they stack up against your own. If you’re a parent, and your kid is in a youth group, know what the message is and discuss it with your kids and what you think about it. My mother had a problem with my brother being in Young Life because it focused more on herd mentality and acting like a frat boy than on spiritual growth. She didn’t tell him not to go, but she did talk about what she disliked with him.

I can remember being the only one still sitting during an altar call when I went to youth group church. Not because I was an unbeliever, but because I didn’t need what the rest of the 100+ kids were praying for (although I can’t remember just what it was for). How did I know that? Because I examined my beliefs and thought about them as part of my daily life—something I think we all should do, and something that most teenagers/people don’t do at all.

But we did some fun things like Habitat for Humanity work, too. And I did get to hang out with my really great friends (some of whom did happen to be cute as well).

--tiba

Queen of Swords

Emphasis added.

That is the funniest Freudian slip I have ever seen.

scombrid

oops

cydonia

Well my sisters were a part of a youth group, and i was always invited along. It's my fault for buying into it at 12 and 13 years old, in a sense, but if it weren't for that experience i can't imagine how much better my life would have turned out. Bunch of kids out holy-ing each other, talking about not having kids because jesus would be back soon, trying to convince me that christian music was actually good, .

Come to think of it, i think i was too young to be dealing with those metaphysical issues. Between their church and them judging me all the time, damn. I'm rambling. Basically if fkd me up. I probably wouldn't be on this website if it weren't for that.

I guess that's my incoherent take on what's wrong with youth groups.

A little more about my experience in
<a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=43&t=000242&p=1" target="_blank">my first post</a>

[ July 11, 2002: Message edited by: cydonia ]</p>