REVEREND G-----

I wrote yesterday about pastors who see their congregations as adversaries to be defeated rather than sheep to be tended.

In my experience as a youth pastor for 15 years, no pastor more perfectly epitomized this particular failing than Reverend G-----. He not only disliked the congregation, he held special contempt for the teens of the church.

I was just out of college and working to combine the youth groups of two mid-sized United Methodist churches in the small town of LeMars, Iowa. This meant that once a week I endured an hour-long meeting with the two pastors. Reverend G was the pastor of the wealthier church. 

Here are two things I heard him say - multiple times each - during those meetings:

1) "I don't care what the people of this church think about me. I work for Des Moines." (That's where the UM Conference was headquartered.)

And, my favorite:

2) "I don't even understand why we have a youth pastor. You work with ... what ... maybe ten or fifteen percent of the congregation? And they are ten percent who don't pay tithes." 

As you might guess, that church did not exactly flourish under Reverend G's leadership! And the youth group did not survive. (The teens were terrified of him.) 

Eventually I quit as youth pastor of his church and continued to work part-time with the other. The secretary, the choir director, and the custodian were not far behind me in offering their resignations. 

Sad.