July 28th, 2010 
joshherndon Some of my students have been spiritually molested. They’ve been abused and judged in church, spiritually pushed and prodded, trapped by religion and expected to be, do, or resemble something they didn’t understand. They were shown no love, compassion, authentic faith, or proper guidance. So they gave up on God. Church. Religion.
I have 7 values I want Central Student Ministries to be synonymous with:
- Safe. I want CSM to be a safe place for both believing and non-believing students to both seek and serve God.
- Healthy. I want CSM to be lead by, to teach, and to practice a healthy spirituality.
- Developed. I want CSM to bring up students wholly, not just entertain them.
- Compassionate. I want CSM to be doers in the community.
- Attractive. I want CSM to be as magnetic as Jesus intended the church to be.
- Easy. I want CSM to be a place where people with no previous knowledge of Jesus or the church can participate.
- Diligent. I want CSM to work hard to be what we say we are.
So a 15 year old girl stumbles into CSM Friday Nights (our weekly program) and tells me “I’m an atheist”, like she’s trying to evoke a reaction.
Sure, there’s obviously a ton of other values that could have been listed, but these are the most prominent values we need to minister to that 15 year old girl.
Your community is probably different, so what values do you need to minister in your cultural context?
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[...] Spiritually Molested – Josh Herndon [...]
Remember that girl I told you about? I’ll let you in on a little secret. She hangs around you a lot, right? Here’s why. 1: she enjoys your company. She loves the advice you give her, above all when you said you believed in her. 2: she’s afraid to ask for help. She’s trying to get the courage to ask, but she doesn’t know how. Her family looks down on her; they don’t understand her, so they try to change her. She’s unsure about who she is. I think she’s been spiritually molested.