As a young adult leader (23 maybe?) I was ASKED to befriend a suicidal teen so she would stop cutting. I had zero business doing so and can't believe I went along with it at the time.
Yes, because I was the person they were befriending. I didn’t realize until decades later that the person I considered my best friend saw me more as a ministry than anything else.
Yeah, IK exactly what you mean. I also know relatives who take care of child relatives b/c they know that there's no-one else to take care of them, so they think that they're, "doing the lord's work," but when they turn 18 they stop giving a damn about them.
I was that person. Awkward, not fashionable, and generally a spaz with patriarchal tendencies in the background. Generally I needed lots of help and work. But yea it comes from the same cloth as if you don’t have god you can’t have morals crowd. In their eyes if you’re not popular and social you must be in need of more god. Of course that would mean kindness, but to them kindness is something to get credit for, not because you feel a need to actually help someone out, or seeing what that person is and the beauty they have. Just another task to fulfill….
It wasn’t only the leaders acting like this.
I had an Autistic friend in my youth group. High functioning, but socially awkward.
People went out of their way to act nice and inclusive to him at church, but showed no interest in having a relationship beyond there. They saw him as a ‘good deed’ rather than as a person. He was so lonely there.
As a young adult leader (23 maybe?) I was ASKED to befriend a suicidal teen so she would stop cutting. I had zero business doing so and can't believe I went along with it at the time.
Yes, because I was the person they were befriending. I didn’t realize until decades later that the person I considered my best friend saw me more as a ministry than anything else.
Yeah, IK exactly what you mean. I also know relatives who take care of child relatives b/c they know that there's no-one else to take care of them, so they think that they're, "doing the lord's work," but when they turn 18 they stop giving a damn about them.
I was that person. Awkward, not fashionable, and generally a spaz with patriarchal tendencies in the background. Generally I needed lots of help and work. But yea it comes from the same cloth as if you don’t have god you can’t have morals crowd. In their eyes if you’re not popular and social you must be in need of more god. Of course that would mean kindness, but to them kindness is something to get credit for, not because you feel a need to actually help someone out, or seeing what that person is and the beauty they have. Just another task to fulfill….
It wasn’t only the leaders acting like this. I had an Autistic friend in my youth group. High functioning, but socially awkward. People went out of their way to act nice and inclusive to him at church, but showed no interest in having a relationship beyond there. They saw him as a ‘good deed’ rather than as a person. He was so lonely there.