My Bourbon Problem

Several years ago I took my youth group to New Orleans for National Youth Gathering. We also made time to take in the sights, sounds, and tastes of the Crescent City: beignets at Café Du Monde, watching river boats on the Mississippi, live jazz, Audubon Park & Zoo, St. Louis Cathedral, the French Market, and the French Quarter. I wanted the youth to take it all in. Well, almost. There was one place that wasn't on my itinerary, until the youth group begged me to consider it: Bourbon Street.

Standing there waiting for the trolley, my initial reaction was to say a quick "no" and be done with it. Parents invest a lot of trust in me on these trips and I take that seriously. So if I err, I'd rather err on the side of caution. A retired gentleman nearby overheard our discussion and chimed in, "You can't come the whole way to New Orleans and not see Bourbon Street." His wife quickly added, "Keep all the kids together, though!" The young people looked at me hopefully. The retired couple seemed nice enough, so I wondered if I had needlessly made it into a bigger deal than I needed to.  As I pondered this, two friendly vacationing nurses from Houston approached and introduced themselves. "Y'all a Christian youth group? 'Cause if you are, there ain't nothin' on Bourbon Street worth seein’." This was not an easy decision.

I said, “You know, I’ve never actually been there so I don’t have a first-hand opinion. Let’s walk it and make up our own minds.” The youth were delighted. “But I have one condition. Afterwards, we’ll go get a coke and talk about it.” The youth group found this a reasonable request and agreed.

So we walked it. There were some giggles when we walked past a strip club, but those dissipated after we passed several more in a short period of time. The endless selection of bars, people walking the streets with open containers. One youth made eye contact with a drunk a bit too long and got a slurred curse directed his way. Then there were the gaudy tourist traps, and the chain-type attractions that stuck out like a sore thumb.

We had a great discussion afterward. Some youth wondered how there could be so much commercialization in one part of the parish when people were still living in FEMA trailers in another. Some girls were creeped out by the sex shows and expressed that there should be better ways to make a living—and be entertained. The drunks on the street were a new experience for my rural youth, and I was proud that for the most part, their plight elicited more sympathy than fear. One of the quiet guys spoke up and said, “Everyone back home told me I had to go to Bourbon Street. But if there was a street like that back home, we’d all avoid it.”

In the end, I was glad we went to Bourbon Street because it was such a good learning experience. The fantasy of the never-ending party sounds great. The reality of the situation was quite another. The best part was that the youth came to their own conclusions, rather than having an adult tell them what their opinion should be. (As if that ever works anyhow!)

In The Godbearing Life,  the best book on youthwork ever written, authors Dean & Foster highlight two important tasks adults can do for youth: hand-holding and finger-pointing. Hand-holding refers to the ministry of presence. In other words, being there for them. They write, “Hand-holding assures youth that they are not alone on their life/spiritual journey and offers them the confidence to take the next steps of faith.” Finger-pointing is meant in a positive sense, as in the role of a guide “who can point out the interesting diversions and steer [youth] away from some common wrong turns.” Either way, youth are going to walk down a Bourbon Street in their lives someday. Why not accompany them? Approach the journey with curiosity, and point your finger every so often and ask, “What do you see?”

Hand-holding and finger-pointing is very much on my mind as I’m taking a new batch of youth to New Orleans in a few days. Where did our host book our lodging? Bourbon Street.

Ian Eastman, M.A. promotes the spiritual, social, and emotional development of young people and their families. He is the Conference Youth Coordinator for the Southwestern New York Conference of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Coordinator of the Shared Lutheran Youth Ministry in Jamestown NY, and a Youth Minister in the Pastoral Care Department at Gustavus Adolphus Family Services. He is a graduate of SUNY Empire State College (B.S. Cultural Studies), Northwest Nazarene University (M.A. Spiritual Formation), and is currently a student at the Institute for Youth Ministry at Princeton Theological Seminary.