What a horrible thing to say to a teenager at a church youth group. It's such utter bullshit too.

Great anecdote by the way (and highly amusing).

A related anecdote: When I was about fifteen, I was already a burgeoning cineaste with a burgeoning interest in horror. I foolishly lent my VHS copy of David Cronenberg’s The Fly to one of the church youth group helpers, who had previously enjoyed lends from me including the likes of Die Hard and Total Recall (admittedly not horror, but still packed with bloody ultraviolence and f-words, so I figured, wrongly, that The Fly wouldn't prove an issue for him).

The result? The youth group leader took me aside, but didn't tell me off directly. Instead, he berated my parents for letting me watch films (and own) films like The Fly. Apparently this youth group helper had needed "prayer" after watching it because he was so traumatised.

This incident taught me several things: 1) Not everyone is cut out for horror (fair enough). 2) Evangelical Christianity seemed to hate everything I loved, and 3) The loyalty I felt to my parents - despite my many issues with the evangelical culture in which they raised me - was absolute.

The upshot? I refused to attend the church youth group for three years, until after that leader in question had been replaced. In the meantime, I went on a full-blown "backslide" into hedonism, as I was convinced God wasn't interested in me or what I was interested in, so why should I be interested in him. As a teenager, I didn't think to separate the Almighty from his poor ambassadors; something this incident would teach me when I tentatively returned to faith at 19, and fully and completely at 21. However, since 21, I've gradually moved away from the evangelical everything-fun-is-wrong mindset.

Anyway, sorry for the personal history and rather long ancedote, but I thought you might find it interesting. Church youth groups could certainly be Russian roulette.