WHO: youth pastors, youth workers, and campus leaders WHAT: We'll will explore why and how teens and young adults are struggling with relationships and sexuality, and how as leaders we can journey with them towards greater wholeness and godliness. TOPICS • How and why teens struggle emotionally, relationally and sexually • What's required for healthy relationships and sexuality? • Addictive behaviour and relationships, strategies for pursuing health and freedom • Understanding sexual identity and how to help same-sex attracted teens • Making your youth group a safer place for hurting teens • The River: components of a curriculum for Christ-centred healing and wholeness

2. beneath the surface
exploring our struggles

3. Loving Relationship with God
Loving Relationship with Others.
Significance & Purpose

4. Being vs. Doing

5. Goals of Adolescence:
Identity
Belonging
Separation
Megan Hutchinson, Author of Life Hurts God Heals.

6. “By the time children, even the successful ones,
reach high school and middle adolescence, they
are aware of the fact that for most of their lives
they have been pushed, prodded, and molded to
become a person whose value rests in his or her
ability to serve someone else’s agenda…
Chap Clark. Hurt 2.0: Inside the World of Today's Teenagers, 40-1.

7. “Whether they experience it from a coach, a
schoolteacher, a parent, a music teacher, or a
Sunday school counselor, mid adolescents
intuitively believe that nearly every adult they have
encountered has been subtly out to get something
from them. When this awareness begins to take root
during middle adolescence, it leads to frustration,
anger and a sense of betrayal.”
Chap Clark. Hurt 2.0: Inside the World of Today's Teenagers, 40-1.

8. “[Students] long for people to value them for
who they are instead of what they do. A
relationship of nonjudgmental acceptance
opens the door to trust and deep sharing.”
Marv Penner. Help, my kids are hurting, 23.

9. pastoral strategies:
how to help a hurting student

10. pastoral approaches
1. Cultivate safety & authenticity in your
community
2. Become aware of the psycho-social and
spiritual layers of your student’s struggles
3. Focus your discipleship efforts on nurturing
being over behavior

11. pastoral approaches
4. Offer minimum-risk steps for teens to
begging acknowledging their struggles
5. Attend to any particular needs for emotional
and spiritual healing

12. “spiritual healing”
Coming to know God as Father,
Jesus as brother and healer,
and the Holy Spirit as our comforter
as the Triune God transforms us
by ministering to our areas of need,
wounding, and pain.

13. what’s happening when a
young person opens up?

14. when a young person opens up
1. attend
4. approach
2. affirm
5. accompany
3. ask
6. advocate

15. listening prayer
helping your teen connect to The Father’s heart

16. our part in listening prayer
•
We quiet our minds and bodies so our heart can speak
•
We speak the hurt in our heart to our Heavenly Father
•
We stop talking and we wait on and listen for God

17. The Spirit’s part in listening prayer
•
The Holy Spirit helps us communicate to God what is in our
heart. (Romans 8:26–27)
•
The Holy Spirit communicates to us what is in God’s heart.
(1 Corinthians 2:9–13)
•
The Holy Spirit uses the language of the heart to
communicate with God.

18. “The Holy Spirit always knows where the issue
began, what initiated it, how to resolve it, and what
needs to be accomplished first or last in order to
bring complete freedom. He knows precisely what
string to pull on to unravel the whole issues, uproot
all the lies and restore wholeness.”
Jim Banks & Beccca Wineka, The Methodology of Ministering to
Victims of the Sex Trafficking Industry and Survivors of Trauma, Ch. 6.

19. before you prayer
•
listen intently
•
ask open-ended or clarifying questions
•
help them articulate what they are feeling
•
silently pay attention to anything God might be
stirring in your heart

20. the prayer moment (in 5 parts)
1. Open in prayer by inviting God to be present to their heart.
2. Invite them to share with God what they’ve just shared with you.
3. Invite God to speak, minister to them (leave silence)
4. Ask them if they sense anything from God
5. Share anything you sense from God
* Regularly “check in” with the person - their inner experience is
what should be guiding your prayer time together.

21. after praying
•
check-in with them about how they feel after
having prayed
•
affirm any steps they took in prayer, any words
received from God
•
identify any next steps they would like to take
now, or if they would like you to follow up later

22. Pastoral Strategies:
Journeying with Same-Sex Attracted Youth

23. questions all teens face
•
Who am I?
•
Who do I belong to?
•
Am I good?
•
Am I capable of succeeding?
•
What do I care about? What do I believe?

24. SSA teens
•
What is happening to me?
•
Why do I have these feelings?
•
Will I always have these feelings?
•
What does this mean about me? Who am I if I have
these feelings?
•
Do I tell someone? Is there anyone I can trust to tell?
•
What does this mean about my future?

25. Christian SSA teens
•
Does this mean I am not a true Christian? Does God still love me?
•
Is God even real? Why is he allowing this to happen?
•
What does God think about same-sex attraction? About gay
marriage?
•
Does this mean I am going to hell? Can I be a Christian and gay?
•
I know God is supposed to be enough, but I can’t face being
alone the rest of my life. What do I do?

26. naming our realities
Homosexuality and the Christian, by Mark Yarhouse.
Same-sex attraction!
Homosexuality!
Gay

27. approaches to SSA
•
Develop theological statements on sexuality
•
Engage in the culture wars

28. “…The goal of [our] command is love,
which comes from a pure heart and a
good conscience and a sincere faith.
Some have departed from these and
have turned to meaningless talk.”
—1 Tim 1:6

29. Agape Love
pure heart
good conscience
sincere faith
Christian pastoral approach
to teaching and preaching

30. approaches to SSA
•
Develop theological statements on sexuality
•
Engage in the culture wars
•
Engage in sexual orientation change efforts
•
•
•
therapeutic approaches
religious approaches
Encourage them to come out, affirm their gay self

31. pastoral approaches
1. Make your ministry a spiritually and relationally
safe space
2. Receive your youth’s disclosure as a
courageous act of trust
3. Nurture them through their questions, doubts
and ambivalence

32. pastoral approaches
4. Disciple them into Kingdom values, vision
and desires
5. Attend to any particular needs for spiritual
and emotional healing
6. Help them expand and integrate their sense
of identity

33. responding to a disclosure
1. attend
4. approach
2. affirm
5. accompany
3. ask
6. advocate

34. “integrated identity”
The solidifying of an internal sense that,
(a) I belong to God and his family,
(b) that I value God and a life lived in pursuit
of him above all else,
(c) and that all the different parts of my life,
positive and negative, are being reconciled
and redeemed in him.

35. repression vs. acceptance

36. “Sometimes people are overly eager in their attempts to
dis-identify with their experiences of same-sex attraction.
They choose to cut themselves off from their attractions,
without fully realizing they have essentially severed a
dimension of their sexual experience.... Those who
attempt this kind of amputation may not be fully prepared
for a life of chastity, and may pursue a change of
orientation only to find such change impossible for them
by natural means. Such discouragement may lead them
to conclude that the promises of the church and of
various ministries are simply lies.”
!
Yarhouse, Mark A., and Lori A. Burkett. Sexual Identity: A Guide to Living
in the Time Between the Times (University Press of America, 2003) 10-11.

37. acceptance vs. approval

38. the gay script
Homosexuality and the Christian, by Mark Yarhouse.
1. Same-sex attractions signal a naturally occurring or “intended by
God” distinction between homosexuality, heterosexuality or
bisexuality.
2. Same-sex attractions are the way you know who you “really are”
as a person (emphasis on discovery).
3. Same-sex attractions are at the core of who you are.
4. Same-sex behaviour is an extension of that core.
5. Self-actualization (behaviour that matches who you “really are”) of
your sexual identity is crucial for your fulfillment.

39. an alternative script
Homosexuality and the Christian, by Mark Yarhouse.
1. Same-sex attractions do not signal a categorical distinction among types of
persons, but is one of many human experiences that are “not the way it’s
supposed to be.”
2. Same-sex attractions may be part of your experience, but they are not the
defining element of your identity.
3. You can choose to integrate your experiences of attraction to the same sex into
a gay identity.
4. On the other hand, you can choose to centre your identity around other aspects
of your experience, including your biological sex, gender identity, and so on.
5. The most compelling aspect of personhood for the Christian is one’s identity in
Christ, a central and defining aspect of what it means to be a follower of Christ.

40. Pastoral Strategies:
Journeying through relational & sexual addiction

41. temptation & addiction
•
what is temptation?
•
we all face temptation
•
temptation and addiction

42. the nature of addiction
•
tolerance
•
withdrawal
•
self-deception
•
self-reliance
•
fixation

43. healthy boundaries

44. healthy boundaries
body
emotions
thoug
hts
decisi
values
ons
goals
beliefs
ime
t

45. healthy relationships
healthy boundaries
healthy sense of self

47. weak or non-existent boundaries

48. relational dependency / idolatry

49. !55

51. romanticizers

52. “Romantic feelings are ultimately for adults. They are
way to prepare us for one of the most adult processes
in life, which is marriage. The needs that romanticizers
have are pre-adult needs, such as for belonging, being
safe, and feeling comforted and loved. These needs are
to be met primarily with God and your safe
nonromantic relationships. Keep these relationships a
major part of your life. It will help you go for romance
from a full adult perspective, not that of a lonely child.”
Boundaries in Dating, Cloud and Townsend, p126).

53. co-dependency

54. ou!”
ve y
I’ll sa
“
elp.”
me h
“Let

55. enmeshment

57. narcissism

59. detachment

61. what unhealthy relationship styles
do you most tend towards?
dependency
enmeshment
romanticism
narcissism
co-dependency
detachment

63. Course Components
1. Weekly worship
2. Holistic teachings, Biblically and
psychologically rooted
3. Creative, hands-on integration exercises
4. Guided listening prayer
5. Weekly small groups (gender specific,
confidential)
6. At-home reading and journaling

64. Session Titles
1. Charting a Course: Introduction to The River
2. Openness & Brokenness: Acknowledging Need
3. Coming Clean: The Power of Confession
4. Gender & Identity: Discovering the Father’s design
5. Wounding: How we respond to hurts by others
6. Idols: How we fill the gaps
7. Masks: Who are you really?
8. Forgiveness: Finding Freedom at the Cross
9. Boundaries: Walking out Healthy Relationships
10.Embracing the Process.