Comments on Youth Pastor Watch: The Sanctity of Marriage Edition

Lookin' Good!!

What was the name of this fine institution: Church of the Holy Skanks?

Give unto the small children, eh?

Well, I'm glad Tommy Lee found God, but look what he did with Him!

Parents: if your church has a youth minister who looks like a crack whore, consider sending your kids to Sunday School somewhere else.

woa, wait a second! That last line insinuates that ALL churches are bad for teens, and that's not true.

But of course, I'll be in the minority of thought.

Parents: if your church has a youth minister who looks like a crack whore, consider sending your kids to Sunday School somewhere else.

@7, It's Tennessee; not sure how easy it is to find a youth minister who *doesn't* look like a crack whore / meth head.

Tennessee also needs more people who know all those pesky ways of spelling "its"...

My husband and I were youth pastors at our church for years. We didn't have any problems. Why? 1) We weren't on crack. 2) We NEVER held an event, meeting, trip out, etc., without a third adult present. That way our kids were protected, and also we were protected from false accusations.

EVERY church should have a policy requiring multiple adults not related to one another to chaperone a youth activity. If you don't you're asking for trouble.

@10 - Hmmm. So what you're basically saying is that EVERY church better take those kind of precautions - because a CHURCH is NOT necessarily a SAFE place for CHILDREN to begin with.

Forgive me if I misheard you - but it sure did sound like that's what you just said.

you see, this is EXACTLY what my grandpappy was talking about when he told me to "never trust a young minister with purple hair."

Well @11, considering Dan posts roughly four or five of these a week, presumably with little effort on his part in terms of digging them up, I for one would have to consider that conclusion, whether it is explicitly what @10 intended to imply or not, as a fairly accurate representation of the situation, as evinced by the oh-so numerous examples we see here.

So is the wife ugly enough and the girls pretty enough for the girls to be believed?

@13 - uh, thanks there ol' buddy.

So, like, is there a specific pressure point on your body to smack to turn that "obvious sarcasm" sensor back on? Because it seems to be a little faulty at the moment.

The author(s) of that article is about as unqualified to write news items as that couple is to be youth pastors.

as long as they pronounce coupon correctly, i'm not that upset.

Well where ELSE are kids supposed to get sex education?

@11 - The fact of the matter is, in this day and age churches need to protect themselves against the appearance of impropriety, because so many of them seem to be engaging in actual impropriety.

I just agreed to try to work on ressurecting the youth ministry program at my church (I wish I could say my judgment was impaired when I said yes, but it wasn't). I'm trying to convince the church council now that we need to have background checks on all adults who work with children, not because we suspect anyone of any wrongdoing, but because we have to show that we are being proactive in addressing all the horrible things that have happened in churches nationwide. Right now, the council believes that the expense involved ($29 for a state police background check in my state, plus another $15 for the FBI - which would be necessary because everyone in my congregation is originally from another state) can't be justified.

And people wonder why so many have such a dim view of churches nowadays.

@15:

I believe the operative word there is "obvious" sarcasm; for more subtle forms of sarcasm, such as your previous post, it usally takes a second cup of coffee for me to feel that "click in my head" that indicates I'm in full-on "sarcasm-mode"

I'm always reminded of the parents who deny their child medical care because they pray the kid will get well. When the kid dies, the parents can't understand what happened. People prey on church children because their parents are stupid.

@19 - perhaps you should hit up Comte for a cup of java, read my original post again - paying ATTENTION to the WORDS that I CAPITALIZED (though granted, as Comte has indicated, maybe THOSE were a LITTLE too SUBTLE to fully GET for SOME) - and think again about what I MIGHT have been (or WAS) saying about the issue at hand to begin with.

As a final hint/stab at things, let's repeat those inititally capitalized words, shall we?

CHURCH - NOT - SAFE - CHILDREN

Also - Generalissimo Francisco Franco is STILL DEAD.

Good night, and have a pleasant tomorrow.

Oh, I get it now - ALL CAPS = SARCASM!

THANKS FOR CLEARING THAT UP, @22.

Fuckin' hell. If the girls in Tennessee are going to look like that at 35, I can see why they want to get a head start on them when they're nine or ten or whatever.

HEY, YOU'RE WELCOME, COMTE. WHATEVER I CAN DO TO HELP.

@22 - Sorry - I started my response before I saw the one where you explained that you were being sarcastic. It's hard to catch inflection in writing.

@22 - Sorry - I started my response before I saw the one where you explained that you were being sarcastic. It's hard to catch inflection in writing.

Woohoo, my hometown finally made it onto the Savage Blog! Umm, yay? Ah yes Maryville, I was one of the few Lutherans in town. In high school a girl asked me in all seriousness if that was the same thing as a devil worshipper. I used to go to one of the many Southern Baptist churches with a friend and come home asking my mom if dancing and interracial dating were really sins.

I like Youth Pastor Watch even though it is rather silly. A parent has to be careful any time their child is under the care of another person, be it a pastor, teacher, coach, baby sitter, or whatever. My daughter had problems of inappropriate behavior from a Nia teacher of all things.