I got an email from a youth pastor friend who was seeking advice. With his permission, I wanted to post part of his question here and ask you to leave a comment with your advice.
I’m a student pastor. We average 60 on Wednesday night. About 40 of them come from some rough areas. Really rough. About 10 of the girls claim to be bisexual and gladly lets us know it. These students have been abandoned by one or both parents. I am not and can not be mad at them for their rebellious behavior, but what do I do discipline wise? I strive to create a safe environment for them and try to share the Gospel any way that I can, even if its in bite size nuggets, but I feel as if I am wasting my breath. Seeing these kids going down this road breaks my heart, especially seeing all of their potential and who they could become if they had a relationship with Jesus.
What would you tell this youth pastor? How would you encourage him? What specific advice do you have for him?
After a dozen years as a student pastor, and five years a church-starter, I'm the Chief Operating Officer of 
Preach the Gospel unapologetically. Love them as you love yourself.
How supportive are your adult leaders? What about the pastor?
It’s going to take more than just an hour during youth group. Your one hour investment immediately gets trumped by the other 6 days and 23 hours of sinful messages. Strive to make personal investments to show that you really to love them. Show up at after school activies. Substitute teach at their school. Keep in mind clear boundaries for your ad their well-being; however, make as much of an investment that builds future dividends. It will take time. Some you may never see come around. But the second you realize one has “got it”, it will make it all worth it!
You love them unconditionally, and just like the parable of the sower, not all seed will prosper.
This is real world youth ministry right here. I afraid to say we will be seeing a lot more of these cases transpiring in the youth ministry trenches.
My suggestion is that you have to focus on the heart and not behaviors. Their heart has to be convinced that God’s heart is for them. It seems like you are making them feel as though they belong before they have believe, which is huge!! They need be loved first.
Honestly in season where there is rampant sin flourishing in our communities we have to express unconditional grace.
When I encountered tough situations with students I relied on a little acronym called: CPR
Care for the student
Pray with and for the student
Respond when God gives you a window. If you sense a prompting by God and you have earned the right to be heard talk about the Gospel. This may take months or even years, but you will know when to keep talking about how to reconcile with God. Make sure to ask for permission when you talk with them about God. You never want these students to feel alienated or that Jesus is being shoved down their throat.
I will be praying for your situation and keep trucking along.
I’m not sure there is anything that can be, or should be, done “discipline wise,” at least not in the typical meaning of discipline. I would ask, what was Jesus’ response to those he encountered who were mired in a sinful lifestyle, often of their own choosing? As I think about Matthew, Mary, the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s Well, Zaccheus, and the list goes on, I can’t think of a single situation where Jesus’ strategy to bring sinners into his Kingdom was to dole out discipline to them and impose a standard of acceptable behavior (even though he certainly had the monopoly on what is acceptable behavior, along with the authority to enforce it). Instead, he invited them into relationship with himself and declared to them that, solely by virtue of that relationship with him, they were now FREE and ABLE to “Go, and sin no more.”
Jesus’ hanging out with sinners, tax collectors and harlots without so much as a sermonette on righteous living put him at odds with many in the religious community, and the same will happen to a youth pastor or any other servant of God who seeks to follow Jesus’ example. But I think of it this way: hospital (and especially emergency rooms) are very uncomfortable places for me, primarily because they are full of a steady stream of sick, injured and otherwise messed up people. It’s plain disconcerting to be surrounded by such pain, brokenness and need, even for a short time. But where else should sick and injured people be, if not a hospital? In the same way, it can be very disconcerting to many people when “sinners” come to church because it’s uncomfortable to be surrounded by messed up people. But where else should spiritually and morally messed up people be, if not the church?
Man this is a hard situation. After working for a few years in the school system there are two things that I think can help.
1. Change the parents (guardians). Scripture is always pointing us to the ones that create change in the life of children, it is their parents. This will be tough for you but in the end one of my greatest frustrations in working with some challenged kids is that I was sending them back into an environment that was not going to back up what I was teaching them. In saying this I understand that this may be a long shot which leads me to the second thing.
2. You become the Influencer. That means to personally invest in each kid and find out how they liked to be loved (5 love languages for kids works great here). Then attempt to show love to ones that need it in the way that like to receive it. This gives you an area of influence in their life. Because you cared enough about them to do this they will internally and subconsciously give you the right to speak into their lives. Many times I would earn the place of advice giver, over the parent (and trust me if you knew some of these parents I worked with this was a good thing),to be able to save some of the kids I was working with.
So like it was said earlier, be yourself. Let the gospel be between you and all of them. Be transparent and forgiving full of Grace and Truth. Pray always because the Spirit is there to do the work that you are trying to start…