I would suspect that a lot of the abuse cases involve young, single, male youth pastors violating a commandment or two with 15 - 17 year old girls that they are chrged with “shepherding”. I have been to two churches where that was rumored to have occured or at least be strongly suspected.
A smart church will have their youth pastors be 25-40, married and with a kid or two of their own. This won’t weed out the flat out pedo-pervs, but it would cut down on the 22 year old youth pastor fresh out of bible college being tempted into “intense fellowship” with the 16 year old girls he is assigned to work with.
We recently were required to attend an “ethics training” that the insurers told us would reduce our insurance costs. (I’m a United Methodist.)
The statement is simply that there are trained lawyers who specialize in bringing suits against churches. That was obvious.
What the insurer basically wanted was to be able to go into court with every pastor and church worker on record as having been officially trained not to violate sexual ethics codes. It seems obvious that they would know better, but having their signature saying they were trained not to do such things greatly reduces the church’s liability.
I would not assume it is just the young. I know for a fact that in our denomination that it is not. It crosses all age ranges, even up to retirees.
Our church has adopted new rules which prohibit any clergy or volunteer to be alone with a youth or someone of the opposite sex. It was hard to adapt to at first but works well now.
There was a study of Protestant abuses posted here a few months back, which IIRC documented that 75% of the reported cases were committed by laypersons/volunteers, and only 25% committed by the pastorate/clergy. IMO your "young single male" youth pastor resembles the former category rather than the latter, because he is uncommitted and unaccountable in his personal life, and is probably the lowest-paid (assuming he's paid at all) and lowest-ranking member of the church leadership team. In my own church, we've gone through at least three "youth pastors" in six years. Not exactly the same picture of stability and commitment that we get from our Senior Pastor.
A smart church will have their youth pastors be 25-40, married and with a kid or two of their own. This won’t weed out the flat out pedo-pervs, but it would cut down on the 22 year old youth pastor fresh out of bible college being tempted into “intense fellowship” with the 16 year old girls he is assigned to work with.
That's a good recommendation, and I would go even farther if possible. I don't see why the 1 Timothy 3 standards for leadership shouldn't be applied at all levels, all the way down to the youth pastor.
That is not enough, a smart church will not have youth pastors act with mixed gender crowds without their spouse and will never be alone with someone of the opposite gender in that age group (his wife can take care of that).