It’s the perfect plan. Say I was walking down the street and saw someone who I’d rather avoid, or I semi-recognise but can’t remember where from, I’d simply ‘ignore’ them and when they start a conversation I’d have the perfect response: “Oh, sorry. You must be thinking of Jamie. I’m his twin brother… Philippe.” (I’ll admit the twin’s name needs a bit of work - suggesting ‘he’ would be French feels like a bit of a stretch.) On other occasions, when I felt like social occasions needed a bit of spicing up, ‘Philippe’ (still doesn’t work) would show up (he wears a monocle, that’s pretty much the only difference), ready to bring some Parisian flair to proceedings. My only concern would be people moaning about Jamie (me, still keeping up?) to ‘Philippe’. That would be awkward.
This would inevitably lead to some kind of 90s sitcom shenanigans where ‘both’ me and Philippe attend the same party and I spend the whole night putting on and removing the monocle before my tower of lies crumble around me. Here’s the thing: I’m beginning to worry that I’ve taken this approach to my youth ministry. ‘Youth work Jamie’ is often pretty different to ‘real Jamie’, ‘Jamie who watches football every Saturday’ and new ‘married Jamie’. This isn’t even about some secret sin or lifestyle that I’m hiding, it’s more that in an effort to be professional, I’ve buried ‘real Jamie’ deep beneath this incredibly professional veneer (“ha!” cries everyone I’ve ever done youth work with).
I’m not treating this as confession - there’s plenty of good reasons for this approach. It creates a safe, professional distance, which probably is best for the long-term emotional health of the worker. Equally, it protects young people from the full dose of ‘real Jamie’, which, as anyone who knows me will attest, is in everyone’s best interests. But recently, I’ve been challenged on this thinking. Not on an ethical level - it’s perfectly acceptable to protect oneself and have professional boundaries - but this approach completely excludes the transformative power that comes from opening ourselves up to the young people we work with. Not only can we model something distinct from the rest of the world, but we show them that this lifestyle is possible in a grounded way, rather than putting ourselves on some imaginary pedestal, ignoring our faults, weaknesses and struggles. Young people need to know that adult Christianity can be painful, that it’s riddled with mistakes but held together by grace. Because if they never see that, why would they keep going with it once the stuff goes wrong? Some of the most transformative moments with my youth worker were in the mayhem and busyness of his home life.
A couple of articles this month have provoked me further (ok, I wrote one of them, but I was still provoked by a line of thought I had). In his ‘Be yourself’ feature, Jonathan Masters reminds us that God has called ‘us’ to youth ministry - all of us. Every last bit of us. Not just our professional veneer. Equally, this month’s culture column, reflects on celebrity relationships and how, as youth workers, we are in the unique position to model and share healthy relationships with young people, in a society that seems to only talk about these things in times of crisis.
This isn’t a one-way street. By opening ourselves up to young people, by genuinely sharing our lives, we allow ourselves to be changed by the young people we work with. We can begin to authentically journey together in the direction God has called us. This is messy and uncomfortable. There’s no monocle-clad ‘Philippe’ in this version of youth ministry. Just Jamie, and that’s terrifying in all the right ways.
