[whmatthews]

Question for youth pastors, pastors, church leadership, and really anyone else who wants to give an opinion.

I have a student in my youth ministry who is not saved. She probably thinks she is... she comes to church, she comes to youth, was brought up in church - but there is no evidence from what I can see at all that she's saved. Ever since we've been at the church - her facebook statuses always seem to be caught up in her private Christian academy high school drama... insulting other girls who look at her man, calling people whores, "normal" teenage girl stuff, I think. So Wednesday night I preached about how the Bible says what comes out of our mouth reflects what's in our hearts. And the things we say on facebook, and to other people, and about other people, reflect who God is. So he's either in control of our lives, or he's not. And if he is, what kind of reputation are we giving Him? So I get home tonight to see a long line of F-Bombs and other four letter words in her facebook status. My question is: How do I say something to her about it? Do I pull her aside at church and confront her about it? Do I go to her parents first about it? My concerns are this: It's almost hurting my reputation as the youth pastor. I'm supposed to be her pastor, this is what my youth are posting on facebook? (That's how some people in the church will be looking at it.) And second, do I address her salvation? Evidently nothing I say in youth is getting across to her. Do I bring this up one on one?

[SuperJon]

You're not the behavior police. None of us are. The minute we start policing what all of our kids are doing on Facebook or Twitter or the internet is the minute that our focus is on the wrong thing. You were called to do three things:

1) Love God
2) Love her
3) Spread the Gospel

You love God. I know you. You obviously love this student if you're worried about this stuff. And you're obviously spreading the Gospel through your teachings.

With that said, is part of "loving her" telling her what she's doing is wrong? The answer to that is yes. However, if she's like any other spoiled private school girl (like she sounds like), you straight up confronting her is going to push her even further away. That leaves you with two options:

1) Have a leader who is close to her (her small group leader if you guys do that) have a conversation with her. If there's a leader that already has that tight 1-on-1 relationship with her then she will likely listen to that person more than the principal (which unfortunately is how we're viewed in these situations) telling her how she's wrong.

2) Pursue the crap out of her. Personally invite her to events. Go out of your way to talk to her when everyone is together at your weekly event. Talk to her at church. Through all of that you will likely have a chance to have quality conversations with her and in those conversations you can bring it up. You will have also showed her that you love her regardless of the crap she's doing now and that will take the "judging" out of it. She won't think you're judging her but that you love her enough to be concerned.

The other thing that you have to do, that you have no option but to do, is to pray for her. Over the past month my mind has been blown on how hugely effective consistent prayers for people like that can be.

As for your reputation: it doesn't matter. People can think things about you but at the end of the day, you have people far from God coming to your events and hearing the Gospel. It's not our job to "save" those kids.

[whmatthews]

Thanks Jon. Good to have someone get your focus back into perspective. I see what you're saying.