The Youth Minister's Wife

She's Letting Her Light Shine

A few weeks ago, students around the country gathered around their flagpoles on a Wednesday morning before school to pray and worship publically. The Saturday before, a local church hosted a See You At The Pole rally with a band we’ve had a our church a couple times, Mycalvary. My husband, David, was the guest speaker. It was a small group, but we saw several kids give their heart to Jesus.

One of the girls in our youth group wasn’t able to attend the rally and had forgotten to go to her flagpole that Wednesday. That night at church, she was so upset at herself. She was pretty sure that no one in her school even coordinated a See You At The Pole.

Two weeks later, as we met for youth group last night, I learned that she has started a Monday and Friday morning bible study before classes start with one of her other Christian friends. In her words, “We meet on Monday to pray for the rest of the week and again on Friday to pray for the weekend.” I teared up just a bit, gave her a big hug, and told her how proud I am of her.

It is so encouraging to see fruit!

Tired is not a word teenagers understand. They don't even have it in their vocabulary.

Yet again, I am reminded of this truth.

Friday night, we let twenty-two wired middle schoolers invade the youth room with their enthusiasm and laughter. After a couple hours of introductions, setting rules, eating snacks, and hanging out, we loaded up our church bus and two vehicles and drove out to this amazing place called Fun Depot. It’s just that - a warehouse-like building with everything from miniature golf to a climbing wall to laser tag. The owners of Fun Depot are Christians, so they provide this once-a-quarter 11:30 pm to 2:30 am time specifically for youth groups in the area for only $10 per kid. It truly is a great thing for us youth ministers. Thank you, Fun Depot owners (and college-age workers that late at night!)

Our lock-in went smoothly, no major issues. We do abide by a strict policy whereby only a teenager we’ve met before can stay the night with us. (Good tip here: Even though you would like to trust every kid that waltzes into your ministry, you never know what you’re getting into. Each kid brings a new dynamic to the table. When you have an unruly kid messing up things for the rest of the group, tension is inevitable, for both you and your other kids. Or maybe that kid has some serious emotional unstability. A lock-in for your first encounter with him or her is not the most appropriate time to minister to that teen. We’ve found that meeting them first either at one of our meetings or church services or even out and about makes you and this new kid more comfortable.) So, back to Friday night. We had two visitors that we had never met come out with two of our own. Our teens  knew our policy somewhere in the back of their head, even if they had forgotten. So, we knew we had to keep the policy to be fair. We compromised a little, though, on behalf of the new kids (but not, in the end, very favorably on the parent’s behalf). We let them come to Fun Depot with us, but they had to go home afterwards. We didn’t get back to the church until 3:30 am. One parent did actually come out to pick his daughter and her visitor up. He seemed to understand. David offered to drive the other kid out to his parent’s house where is Mom had stayed up for him since they couldn’t make it out. The kids were unphased, at first a little dissapointed, but because they had so much fun at Fun Depot, they couldn’t complain.

Kids can be quite reasonable at times.

Except not about sleep.

New Beginnings

Starting over is a glorious feeling. Tonight, we launched our first official youth meeting of the new school year. We’ve been regular with our meetings through out the summer, but if you’ve been in youth ministry before, you understand that summer means vacations, sports activities, and a myriad of other things that can distract kids from church. I don’t mind so much, really, because I find it easier to get to know the individuals who do come during the summer months in the less-traffic, more laid back, intimate environment. We had a great summer (more details to follow in another post) but I get stoked when our school year regulars start showing up all wired and tuned in.

This is a great time for a new beginning on this blog as well. As you can tell, I have not updated during the spring and summer months. Even though, I’ve had much to tell with thoughts I’d have loved to express, time contraints got the better of me. I am resolved, however, to more regularly documenting our ministry endeavors and the inspiration, passions, hopes and dreams thereof. I am telling you now, so you can know to come here weekly. This will keep me accountable, especially if I know of your readership via comments, of course. Please do.

Back to our meeting tonight. David and I sat down yesterday to take a look at our curriculum for the next four weeks. We’ve used the bluefishtv studies before, and our youth responded well to them. In fact, when we asked if they had ideas for topics or study formats, they unanimously resounded with, “We like the video ones!” So we ended up purchasing three new studies and a few extra DVDs with fun supplemental materials for Sunday evenings. We chose to start with the Conflict series with teaching from Doug Fields (you know, Saddle Back’s youth minister - think Purpose Driven Youth Ministry.) See the video posted below.

Tonight’s discussion was Conflict with Family. After the video session, we dove into the first part of Ephesians 6. I was amazed at how several of the youth understood the promise therein of living a longer life when you honor your parents. One 6th grader (!) even pointed out the concept that if your parents lived right, well, and long and you do as well, their memory lasts even longer - talk about bringing out the essence of the word honor! After our discussion on Ephesians 6, we broke up the kids in 4 groups whereby each group gleaned principles from a distinct passage of scripture that will help in solving conflicts with family. Some favorites: “honest conversation” from 1 Peter 2:12-21 and “hate what is wrong, hold on to what’s right” from Romans 12:9-12. As the groups shared their ideas from reading the scriptures, I typed them out in a document on the laptop which was projected on the wall. One girl said, “We should print these out and have them on the wall.” They love to make their work creative. It’s the ingenuity of youth that I myself do not want to lose. Finally, on the backs of their papers, we asked for them to write a one or two sentence prayer asking God what they want when it comes to their families. I have to share some of them - what insight into what their going through: “Please bring peace to our family,” “Help me to honor my family and love them the way they love me.” But I have to share one with you via the picture I took of it. It was so simple yet profound. Tears in my eyes when I read it.

That statement. It is the essence of the human heart. You can’t convince me these youth aren’t deep or intelligent enough to handle Truth. I’m keeping these sheets. Using them as I pray for our youth.

There has been a great season of planting seeds within our youth group over the past 3 and a half years. Now is the time for harvest.

To Death: You Are Dead

Recently, we’ve encountered a different kind of ministering to one of our youth girl’s than we’ve ever had before. Marie* came home one night, thought nothing of her father not being up at the time, and went to bed. The next morning, she noticed the bathroom door had been shut. She was too afraid to go in, but she knew. Marie’s father died of a heart attack the night before.

I found out from Marie’s ex-boyfriend, who had called that Sunday afternoon and left me a message on my mobile phone. When I listened through the message, I was shocked, of course, and immediately gave Marie a call. She answered, unaware that I knew. She sounded almost too calm. She was still in shock.

The next day I spoke with her a bit more. She confessed then, when I asked her if I could come see her, that she was a little overwhelmed with all the visits and condolences. She expressed, “I’m tired of everyone telling me they’re sorry.” Why is it that we do that - that we try to always make it better by apologizing even when we had nothing to do with what happened? I gave her the option of coming over to my house instead, to get away from all the noise and clutter that goes along with planning a funeral for your father when your mother doesn’t even live in the same state. Marie’s mother did come down that night. But I fear she only smothered her even more.

The next night, Marie came over to my house, but her mom came in with her, and only let her stay 15 minutes. I could see the way Marie was holding back, the way she was being held back.

After the funeral the next day, in which my husband was a pallbearer, I realized that this young heart, turned 18 a week later, is strong and resilient, even if she doesn’t feel that way yet. I saw her stand and greet a long receiving line of people, with tears in her eyes sporadically, but she was still standing. And smiling even.  

I haven’t gotten to spend much more time with her - just giving her a bit of breathing room now. But in the end, it’s strange to say, but I feel something about all of this happening to her has set her free. Her wings are about to give way to flight.

*name changed to protect identity