Dating Your Students is Not Youth Ministry: How I Fell for My Youth Leader at 14

I couldn’t get over how triggered I was yesterday after learning how pastor, author, and president of a global network of evangelical churches, Matt Chandler, met his wife. Just to be clear, this was not a new discovery revealed to the world yesterday. Yesterday was just the first time I heard about it after seeing his name float around on Twitter for a few days unpacking a video he posted with yet another cringe take on faith deconstruction.

Matt Chandler was 23 years old when he met his wife, Lauren. He was the camp speaker at a camp where she was a 17-year-old camper. They married after she turned 18. This is not a buried secret. Not only are they open about the early stages about their relationship, their story is celebrated as a model for Christian marriage.

I hit the running trail this morning and as I ran across the drenched leaves trying to finish my run ahead of the next round of Pacific Northwest rain, I sorted through where my rage was coming from. And then it occurred to me. I was almost that girl.

I fell in love with a volunteer youth leader at 14. He was 18. He gave me extended rides home from church events, taking detours through backcountry roads while listening to old cassette tapes in his pickup truck. We talked on the phone throughout the week and my heart would sink if I didn’t see his truck in the parking lot when I got dropped off for youth group. Did my parents know? Nope. What 14 year old girl clues their parents in on their biggest crush? Did my entire youth group, including my youth pastor know? Absolutely. My youth pastor helped me process my feelings, including how sad I was when he moved away for a couple of years when I turned 16. No one ever told me how wrong this situation was. No one talked to me about the difference between teenagers and adults or the dynamics of power when someone is in leadership over you.

I went to a Christian college and the message in purity culture at that time was that women should wait to be pursued by a spiritual leader. The note I had posted on my dorm wall behind my desktop computer said “You Are Pursuable,” written by my mentor who walked me through how hard the waiting could be. I had turned 18 the day I moved into the dorms and over Winter Break that year I reconnected with that same volunteer youth leader. He was 22 by then and we began an intense dating relationship. Within a couple months there were talks of marriage. Our plan was to get engaged that following year and be married before I hit my junior year of college. I wasn’t sure if I would finish college, but I was just so delighted to be finally dating the crush that I had invested so much in when I was younger. Everyone around me thought it was the perfect love story.

I know I was a legal adult by the time we officially dated, but I can’t deny the influence that he had on me in those early years when we built our initial connection. The attention I received from him when I was a 14 and 15 year old girl made me feel special. And in return, he received the adoration of a young teenage girl. During our official relationship, I went away to be a camp counselor in New York while he stayed behind in Illinois. We wrote letters and I stood in line to call him from the camp phone once a week. That summer, removed from everyone else, I had people in my life that helped me see that perhaps there was more to life than getting married at 18. I had people that helped me dream into what the unknown might have in store for me. One of the reasons I was so excited about having Pastor Judy Peterson on the first episode of this season of the Thereafter Podcast is because she was one of the people I sat down with that summer to talk about this almost-marriage relationship.

When the summer ended I rode with friends to Indiana, and he met me there to drive the rest of the way home. By then, I had concluded that I no longer wanted to get married, but I’d be happy to take a step back and date if that’s what he wanted. It wasn’t. For him, it was all or nothing. I chose nothing. By the time we pulled into the driveway of my parents’ house, we were over.

I occasionally think about that relationship and how close we were to getting married, especially because at the time, our break-up shocked my friends and family who knew how serious we had gotten. I sometimes have dreams where he shows up and says “hey, it’s been awhile, let’s get married,” and the dream version of myself is still trying to figure out what felt wrong about the whole thing.

A few years ago I came across someone that was addressing youth leaders that get involved with students in ministry. I can’t remember if it was a speaker, author, or blogger, but I do remember what they said. They said if you are involved in leadership over young people and start to have feelings for the people you are ministering to, don’t take those feelings to the leadership team to pray through them. Instead, you should walk. away. from. ministry. GET PROFESSIONAL HELP. Remove yourself from working with young people. This is NOT OKAY.

It was the first time I had ever seen that situation addressed that way.

The evangelical church is not only blinded to this abuse of power, but they’re celebrating it. Young girls are waiting for that spiritual leader to swoop in and pursue them, feeling “chosen” and “flattered,” most especially when it’s someone as “holy” as the youth pastor or youth leader. Sure, they might wait until everyone is at least 18 to get married, but that doesn’t remove the dynamic of power that was in the situation when it started.

I am forever grateful for the people in my life that encouraged me to be true to myself. I did an internet search for Lauren Chandler when I was learning about this, and the first thing that it says under her picture when you Google her name is “Matt Chandler’s wife.” I can’t help but wonder if I would’ve been one of these women, supporting the work of my pastor husband, had I not made the decision I made. As I’ve talked about this a bit the last couple of days, I’ve gotten notes from others that have seen this in their own youth groups, with friends, or with church staff they worked with. I can’t help but think of all the ways that evangelicals find problems in the relationships that other folks have, yet fail to recognize the toxicity of the abuse of power is being perpetuated and celebrated within their own walls.

This is not okay.