Just Say No

I used to pride myself in being a very difficult person to say ‘no’ to.

If I wasn’t a youth minister, maybe I’d sell cars. You should see me persuade an on-the-fence student to attend a mission trip or retreat.

And hey, I’m using my powers for good, right?

To some extent, every youth minister is a salesperson. Recruiting free volunteer labor or casting vision around a retreat; all of that involves some salesmanship.

But get too good at it, and it might wreck some of your relationships.

I learned that the hard way.

My Gut Check

For me, it was when a girl texted to say her parents couldn’t afford the winter retreat. I offered her a full scholarship and she went silent until the registration deadline had passed. She didn’t have the heart to admit that she just didn’t want to go, so she literally hid from me for three weeks.

I finally cornered her to figure out what happened. I had already seen through her little game, but I wanted her to admit it.

She did.

“I just didn’t want to go.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Every time I don’t do something, I always feel like you’re disappointed in me.”

That hurt. Then it got worse.

“All everyone tries to do is get me to change my mind. No one asks me about school or life. Small group is all about convincing me to go on the retreat.”

I realized something. She was exactly right.

I was a well-intentioned schemer. I’d enlist your friends and classmates to talk to you about how awesome the trip was. I’d pester. I’d ask if you’d changed your mind. I’d nudge small group leaders to ‘politely encourage’ you to rethink your original position.

Say no, and there’s an excellent chance that your church life would turn into a three-week commercial about the thing you declined.

And while that strategy probably did drive some additional attendance sometimes, it probably damaged quite a few of my relationships along the way as well.

On a truly sad level, I’d inadvertently become more concerned about your attendance at a thing than I was about you as a person. And in a truly ironic twist, I’d become the kind of obnoxious person that you’d be even less excited about spending a weekend with.

Listen, I know it’s not everyone; and maybe it’s not even you.

But at some point, I became an easier person to lie to and hide from than to be honest with.

In those moments, I remind myself of a Pharisee much more than I do Jesus.

And that’s what’s got to change.

I’m working on it and I hope you’ll join me.

Aaron Helman is on a mission to end youth worker burnout by providing the training and resources that you haven’t been taught… until now. Smarter Youth Ministry exists to help you learn how to manage their time and resources better so that you can do more ministry with less frustration. All of that having been said, you most likely know him as the creator of “Lamentation or Taylor Swift Lyric.”