God has a strange way of placing you where you don't expect.
When my friend Fi and I were finishing off Uni, we were both thinking about working in Full-time ministry. Fi dreamed of Youth ministry, I of working with Uni students
8 years on?
Fi is now working full-time with a Uni Christian group, and I lead the junior youth group at church!
This is particularly strange for me, because I'd done the youth thing and I thought I was finished with it. As I finished junior youth group as a 16 year old, low and behold (like almost everyone else) I was asked to be a leader myself. And so I was. I was a youth group leader for around 6 years, one as the coordinator. I have lots of happy memories of leaders meetings, crazy Friday night activities, youth camps, Bible studies, and interesting conversation. But I also had lots of memories of frustration, of kids who didn't seem to get why God was important, of kids who were so different from what I was like at there age (a nerd) that I found it hard to relate to them. Youth leading it seemed was made for people with thicker skin than me.
And while Uni ministry was tough, it seemed to fit my personality so much better.
So, nearly a decade on- how do I feel about youth ministry?
It's funny in a way. I still find many of the things that I used to find frustrating frustrating. I still don't get how youth can often be so apathetic to a God who has done so much for them, and who is so much more great and glorious than all the things they put before him.
But a few things have made a difference.
The first is I'm more relaxed.
My fear when I first looked after youth was always: "Will they stay Christian? Will they go off the rails?". And in someways- as I think of many of the youth I once taught- the sad reality is that this fear has been realised.
But I am still more relaxed now. I don't jump down their throats if they express frustration at the Christian life. I don't expect them to have it all figured out right away. I don't expect them to sit in a Bible study or a talk or a conference and get all the things out of it that I am. They are learning, growing, changing. I am more patient with that process, and more trusting that God in his own time will do the work that he wants.
But the second change is that my expectations are also higher, particularly after a talk I heard during the weekend away at Kyck.
I think in the past I thought the most you could expect from teenagers was that they stay Christian and learn stuff during their early to mid high school years.
But that is to underestimate them. Youth can do so much more, they can make so much more out of the teenage years. I don't want my Youth kids to just stay Christian. I want them to be Christian! I want them to teach kids about Jesus, to invite friends to church, to evangelise, to help the poor, and to do anything else that God's Word and Spirit prompts them to do!
And I'm thankful that when I was that age that people pushed me. That they taught me Two ways to Live. That they put me on a committee to organise Youth Services when I was in year 8. That they pushed me to do Kids Club and Beach Mission and Youth group. I don't think i could be doing so many of the things I do now if people had treated me like I often treat the youth I know.
A humbling rebuke.
love B
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