362 – Before Teens Hide Online, Youth Pastors Must Build Trust

Brenton Fessler joins Dr. Sandie Morgan as they explore why teenagers aren't hiding their digital lives because they're rebellious—they're hiding because they don't feel safe talking, and what trusted adults do next can change everything.

Brenton Fessler

Brenton Fessler is the Lead Pastor of Refuge OC Church in Orange County, California, where he provides vision and leadership for a growing faith community with a strong emphasis on family, discipleship, and community responsibility. With a background in youth ministry and ministry education, Brenton brings deep experience working with adolescents, parents, and church leaders navigating the complexities of formation, trust, and safety in a digital age. In addition to his pastoral leadership, Brenton has taught ministry-related courses and mentored emerging youth pastors, equipping them to build relationally healthy, developmentally appropriate, and ethically grounded ministry environments. As a parent of teenagers himself, he offers a practical, lived perspective on the challenges families face around technology, online identity formation, and risk exposure. Brenton's work reflects a prevention-first, relational approach rooted in grace, accountability, and collaboration between parents, churches, and broader community systems.

Key Points

• Youth pastors hold a unique position of trust with teenagers, making them critical partners in digital safety conversations, as students often confide in them before approaching parents about risky online behavior.
• The scaffolding metaphor illustrates healthy digital boundaries—parents and church leaders provide temporary support structures that can be removed as young people demonstrate increasing responsibility, rather than permanent fences.
• When a 14-year-old discloses risky online behavior, youth pastors should offer to walk alongside them in conversations with parents rather than protecting confidentiality at all costs, because these young people need adult guidance to navigate complex situations safely.
• Youth ministry should focus on spiritual formation and relationship building rather than behavior modification, creating environments where students feel safe to make mistakes and receive grace while learning to live righteously.
• Churches need to update child protection policies to include digital and virtual environments with the same rigor as physical spaces, including background checks that examine volunteers' online presence and social media activity.
• Youth pastors serve as cultural missionaries within church staffs, helping senior pastors understand emerging technologies, social media platforms, and the realities of youth culture that shape the next generation's spiritual development.
• The "talk tech every day" initiative from Ensure Justice emphasizes that digital safety conversations must be ongoing and integrated into daily family life, not reactive responses to scary news articles.
• Building cross-generational trust requires two-way mentoring where students teach adults about technology while adults provide wisdom and boundaries, creating healthy churches where both generations learn from each other.

Resources

• Influence Magazine Winter 2025 Issue
• Episode 354: Love Bombs and Long Cons: Understanding Pig Butchering Scams
• Ensure Justice Conference
• Royal Family Kids Camp
• Refuge OC Church

Transcript

[00:00:00] Brenton Fessler: The youth pastor decided that the best way forward was to actually call her up on stage and have her publicly announce her pregnancy so he could shame her as if behavior modification was gonna be th