I remember seeing youth pastors prohibit their student leaders from dating. I’ve also witnessed other pastors prohibiting their post-high school leaders from dating other post-high school leaders! And as a former student, intern, and now youth pastor I do not understand the philosophy of discouraging dating relationships.

The kind of rules that discourages relationships teaches our students to:

1. Have Unchristian Relationships. “If I can’t date someone in the youth group, I’ll have to date someone at school.” By flagging the churched students as off limits, you’re pushing them away from the best crop of Christians they have– each other.
2. Have Uncommitted Relationships. “If I can’t have an actual relationship, I’ll just have an emotional one.” Now we are teaching our students to have flirting, emotionally connected relationships without the commitment.
3. Have Secret Relationships. “If I can’t have an open relationship, we just won’t tell them we have one.” Is this okay? Of course not. But when students feel like they have no choices, we move students to the worst kind of relationships– isolated ones.

So why wouldn’t we want our students in healthy, God-honoring relationships? And how will they know how to have these relationships unless we teach them? What our students know about relationships comes from 1) the media and 2) their parent’s marriages– at least one of those is a terrible reference point, and unfortunately the majority of the time the other is just as bad.

I am writing about this today because one of my students asked another one of my students to be his girlfriend yesterday.

• In his “speech”, he borrowed an expression I used from a message I spoke about dating.
• They’ve actually both been praying over this decision for a while.
• But before saying yes, she texted me and her mom to seek approval.

I had some tears yesterday because God has penetrated their most vital life style choice– their dating relationships.  So I am committing myself not to hinder their relationship development, but to help these students have the best, most fun, pure, God-honoring, parent-approving, healthy, mature, awesomely incredible relationship possible.

My immediate course of action? Both will be in the Next Step Discipleship Training this fall. And Evie and I are going to take them on a double-date to San Francisco to make ourselves available to mentor, train, come alongside, and support them in this relationship.

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